All the warm weather, vast beaches, travel opportunities and booming business doesn’t seem to provide extraordinary happiness in Florida.
A new study by WalletHub, a personal finance company, shows Florida doesn’t have many cities that are among the happiest in America. No Florida towns rank among the top 30 happiest places in the U.S., according to the new ranking.
WalletHub compared 182 of the largest cities in the country. The study factored in elements such as emotional and physical well-being, income and employment, and community and environment, along with 29 other metrics to develop a happiness score for each city, with 100 being the ideal possible top score.
While Florida had no cities in the top 30, the state has no cities near the bottom of the ranking, either. Florida, in terms of happiness, is rather mediocre it seems, at least according to the WalletHub analysis.
Broward County seems to have some of the happier cities in Florida, with Pembroke Pines being the highest-ranked city from the state. Pembroke Pines was ranked 39th, with a happiness score of 59.3. That was followed by Fort Lauderdale for the next happiest Florida city, ranked at 46th with a happiness score of 58.74.
Cape Coral placed 50th with a happiness score of 58.27.
California cities dominated the top 20 list, with seven towns in the top tier. Three cities from that state — Fremont, San Jose and Irvine — captured the top three spots, respectively. There were no California cities near the bottom of the rankings of 182 cities.
Nebraska was the only other state with more than one city in the top 20, with two cities in that tier.
Florida didn’t have any cities ranked below 119th in the country for happiness. That’s where Jacksonville ended up, with a happiness score of 49.17.
Other southern states, though, along with towns from Midwestern states, owned the bottom rung of the most unhappy cities.
Cleveland came in last with the dubious distinction of being ranked 182nd. That was preceded by Detroit, Memphis, Tennessee, Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Gulfport, Mississippi, rounding out the bottom five.
–Drew Dixon, Florida Politics
JimboXYZ says
Throw a dart anywhere in America, nobody is really blissfully happy where they are. Happiness is relative to the compromises. No such thing as a dream house, in short order that new purchase glow wears off with maintenance costs, taxes, interest charges. Paying any bill hasn’t ever been something anyone looked forward to. The happiest anyone is, when the sell something to unload that burden of maintenance and end up with the next “thing” that speculatively eliminated the burdens of repairs & maintenance. The smiles anyone gets out of life have little to do with location. Things like the cute puppy wobbling around. The joy of a spouse smiling. And it’s fleeting. The misery lingers longer, because it’s still there. They used to say traveling to escape the misery” was true. One could get into a car, drive to see relatives/family for a holiday, takes a vacation even. At the end of it, the trip there & back is a distraction, but we always end of back to the misery, don’t we ? Where debt, the crappy job, and anything else “unhappy” is. There’s always going to be a challenge that ruins the elation of the temporary relief. It’s a mind set to some extent, the illusions of happiness for relief 7 distraction form those that brought you misery, go back to bringing the misery. And they will do exactly that, because that’s their grind to exist. Always looking for the edge to spin making a buck on the next customer/victim, whether that’s a raise or outright inflationary gouge.
Take the growth, the water increases, save the beaches, gridlock & traffic, roads that are less than ideal. I know if you asked those that sold off & got out, all of that & more is the unhappiness for “shared responsibility” that made them unhappy enough to get out before they became a Biden/Alfin victim. Too many don’t have that luxury, and in that regard we’re stuck with the misery that is to come. Hasn’t been one solution that has had a happy option, compromises on levels of torture & pain, the misery that persists for the Bidenomics of inflation that end any brief joys in this lifetime. Trust me on this, there are no shortages of those keeping the stresses of their full court press. Financial hardship is their tool, fabricating a new cost, scheming a new way to get into another reserve of savings as a revenue or income stream. As water erosion is the enemy for beach erosion. There are more than enough looking to make that their gold mine for a lifetime of wealth & security. We have a deal in place, every decade the beach is rebuilt for the next 50 years. It will inflate for cost. 50 years is quite a career, ask Joe Biden, 50+ in Government, costing us $ 400K/year & benefits for a POTUS pension for the mess of misery we are currently living. Is it any wonder he pardoned the entire Biden clan as a untouchable crime organization ?
celia pugliese says
Aside for the unjustified blaming of the Biden administration (as eggs price and all kept rising and market tanking in Jan, Feb and March, the problems that Florida has that tarnesh its happiness, to me, are:
1. The green flag and taxpayers funds funneled to benefit developers other than mantaining its decaying infrastructure.
2. The low pay to graduates and professionals except those employed by our tax funded local government payrolls. Never mind
those majority of workers without college education that move to “none income tax Florida in one more of the Right to Work
States” erroneously thinking they will land a non existing job and end up opening small service business often very prone to
costly fail and add to their financial missery. Or if lucky professionals even with Masters degrees landing jobs in a cut throat
environment that leads to unhappiness and turnovers often. What is wrong with the way good workers are mistreated in FL?
3. Florida became the land of the rich and tax evaders, including those that need to escape the hand of justice (Mar-A- Lago)…
When I moved here in 1991 from my beautiful 5 acres 3,100 sq ft country estate in Sussex County NJ, I did it only because I had to down size (was aging) and I had “my own remote based business” and for sure I would not be looking for a job because back then, I knew better were none in Fl for us. I wasn’t either looking for any affordable housing because “there is never in any coastal city in the USA anything affordable to live in”. When I was 22 years old I lived with relatives till found an affordable lease and of course was hundreds of miles from any beach, which we could hardly afford on vacation. In 1991 moved to Florida as was also our often vacation land were we would come to water ski, wind surf and enjoy the seafood mainly in the Florida Keys.
We moved to Palm Coast paradise then, to buy a home were I could keep my boat, water ski, play tennis, walk, jog and bike and on weekends windsurf with friends the Anastasia State Park and as thou, I enjoy to watch those golfers having fun, I do not play that game but my home was adjacent to the golf course and its awesome view. This is why we fight nail and tooth to preserve it! Now we maybe can see why there is no longer total happiness in Palm Coast or other FL cities ranked now.
CA ranked best and that is why my daughter moved to San Francisco years ago and says will not live anywhere else. I visit my son in AZ and marvel at their incredible infrastructure just arriving to Sky Harbor airport everything looks new and the huge amount of traffic flows and the residential streets protect the residents from growth traffic and speeders with speed humps everywhere and there are no surveys intended to take them away. In Fl we pay a high price to live close to the beaches but still less expensive than other coastal estates. Too bad that our local governments prone to served special interest first until now, at least in Palm Coast , keep eroding its residents happines and pockest and when someone like our current mayor is fighting for us and needed change, they try to boot him! This is what is wrong in FL’s lack of happiness.
Atwp says
Why I’m not surprised!