At least, not if those cities are Toronto and Vancouver.
Even though scholars have not proved these factors are the direct causes of Vancouver and Toronto residents exhibiting the least life satisfaction of 98 communities in Canada, the researchers found they are strongly correlated to residents’ lack of a sense of well-being and belonging.
In a new study titled How Happy are Your Neighbours?, John Helliwell, Hugh Shiplett and Christopher Barrington-Leigh discovered Canadians are happier in smaller towns. “We found life to indeed be less happy in the cities,” they write. “This was despite higher incomes, lower unemployment rates and higher education in the urban areas.”
A quick glance here tells me that Winnipeg is the town for me, or maybe Hamilton.
This is extra interesting to me considering that 80 percent of Canadians live in cities and 1/3 of the population lives in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal. (cite here for that second one).
The confirmation-biased part of my brain is now thus like “HAHA Montreal is the best, Toronto is the worst, now I have proof!!!!” (Vancouver is complicated. Wonder what it would look like if they split up East Van and Van and did them separately.)
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