Story at a glance
- While California cities made up six of the top 10 slots, two cities in Texas ranked fifth and sixth overall.
- Researchers based the rankings on 13 different metrics, including life expectancy and percent of adults living below the poverty level.
- Sunnyvale, Calif., was ranked as the happiest city overall while Birmingham, Ala., took the bottom spot.
Six of the top 10 happiest cities in the United States are located in California, a state known for its laid-back attitude and thriving technology sector.
That’s according to a new ranking from SmartAsset that assessed 13 different metrics related to personal finance, well-being and quality of life. The group weighed available data for 164 of the largest 200 cities in the country.
Sunnyvale, Calif., came out on top of the list, followed by Arlington, Va.; Bellevue, Wash.; Fremont, Calif.; and Frisco, Texas.
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California cities tended to score highest in the quality of life category, with lower percentages of people living in poverty, higher marriage rates and lower crime rates overall, data showed.
Additional metrics measured included the percentage of adults with health insurance, average commute times and violent crime rates.
Plano, Texas; Roseville, Calif.; San Jose, Calif.; Santa Clarita, Calif.; and Irvine, Calif., rounded out the top 10 happiest cities.
With the exception of Arlington, Va., married couples make up the majority of the other nine happiest cities’ populations. In Arlington, the marriage rate is 44 percent. Frisco, Texas, had the highest marriage rate of all U.S. cities at 62.6 percent.
Sunnyvale, located in Silicon Valley, was bumped to the top spot in part because it’s home to the largest number of individuals making $100,000 or more each year. It’s also home to the third-lowest percentage of adults living below the poverty level.
Research has shown higher incomes are linked with improved day-to-day well-being and overall life satisfaction.
On the other side of the country, Arlington, Va., came in second, ranking in the top seven for personal finances, well-being and quality of life. Nearly half of the city’s residents earn $100,000 per year or more, while living costs account for less than 35 percent of the city’s median household income.
In comparison, Birmingham, Ala., ranked as the least happy city in the analysis, coming out in the bottom five among personal bankruptcy filings per capita, life expectancy and percentage of residents living in poverty.
It was joined by Newark, N.J., and Memphis, Tenn., which ranked as the second and third least-happy cities in the analysis.
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