What is happiness? The ontological question that opens many philosophical essays and of course this article has an answer doomed to not be answered to everyone’s liking. But if you reframe it in a different direction (what is happiness in a metropolitan context?), the answer is more nuanced.
The Happy City Index has just released a study that ranks cities based on how happy they are (although happiness seems to be a euphemism for anything else in this study). The study begins with an accusatio non petita: “We believe that it is not possible to identify a single city that should be considered the best in terms of ensuring the happiness of its inhabitants.”
Madrid’s position in the ranking
The conclusion (among many others) that occupies us if we stick to the conclusions of the study is that Madrid is not a happy city. In fact, it is the saddest in Spain: it ranks 192nd in a ranking of 250 cities.
The ranking is divided into three parts: gold, silver and bronze. It is led by Aarhus (Denmark). And you have to go to position 58 (silver) to find a Spanish city: Vigo. Right after is Bilbao and Barcelona is in 139th position.
The study adds, “Since every city is a landscape in flux, its activity must be periodically verified, especially in terms of the quality of public services provided and place-based knowledge, in response to new challenges as they arise. “We do this every day and publish once a year.”
what elements do you use to qualify?
The Happy City Index, developed by the Institute for Quality of Life in England, ranks cities in terms of quality of life based on objective, transparent and verifiable data. This institute researches areas such as community decision making, social policy, public services and the response to new challenges and crises in developing communities.
The index highlights cities that demonstrate notable achievements in quality of life and excludes those with small populations or insufficient and non-objective data.
The Happy City Index scores are based on five main criteria: Citizenship, which evaluates the education system and social inclusion; Economics, which considers GDP and unemployment; Governance, which measures political transparency and accessibility; Environment, which examines anti-pollution policies and waste management; and Mobility, which analyzes transportation efficiency and safety.
