The Mappiness project found that people are generally much happier while out in nature. ‣Further, economists Ed Glaeser and Josh Gottlieb ranked the happiness of every American metro area and found that New York was least happy followed by Boston, LA, and San Francisco. The happiest areas tend to be less developed: Flagstaff, Naples, and most of Hawaii.

Previous research from Daniel Kahneman suggested that where you live doesn’t actually influence your experienced happiness all that much. Weather (climate) does not seem to influence quality of life.

In weighing these lines of research together, perhaps living in a place with amazing weather doesn’t matter quite so much. But living in a place with access to nature does.

Reference — Glaeser, E. L., Gottlieb, J. D., & Ziv, O. (2014). Unhappy Cities (Working Paper No. 20291). National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20291/w20291.pdf

Keywords & Nodes

• nature
• therapy
• healing
• environment
• policy
• In life you have to “wayfare” not navigate…
• 8. The World Out There
• Gaia Theory states the Earth itself is a single organism.
• 6. Biology
• Day-time light and night-time dark support mental health.
• Exercise is as, if not more, effective than antidepressants.