Happiest cities in Canada ?

[pøliticoß]

April 20, 2015 - http://blogs.theprovince.com/


Vancouverites are the least happy in the country, survey finds


Vancouverites have knocked themselves off their West Coast pedestal.

According to a Statistics Canada report released on Monday, Vancouver is home
to the least happy Canadians.

Quebec’s Sanguenay was listed as the happiest.

The report, titled “How’s Life in the City?“, is the first StatsCan report to
rank life satisfaction across 33 Canadian cities. The ranking is based on data
from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey and the Canadian Community
Health Survey, which polled about 340,000 people from 2009 to 2013.
Respondents were asked how they felt about their life as a whole on a scale
from zero to 10, with 0 being ‘very dissatisfied.’

On average, Vancouverites rated their satisfaction with life as a 7.8 out of
10, the lowest rating for any census metropolitan area in the country,
according to Statistics Canada.

Fewer than 35 per cent of Vancouverites rated their satisfaction with life as a
9 or above, compared to about 45 per cent of people living in the northern
Ontario city of Sudbury.

While Vancouver came in last at 33rd place, other British Columbian cities
didn’t fare so well either. Not a single one made it into the top 10.

Kelowna was B.C.’s best-ranked city, coming in at number 12 of 33, with cities
like Abottsford falling into number 24 and Victoria at 27.

Some of Canada’s happiest cities are on the East Coast, with Quebec’s Saguenay
and Trois Rivieres being ranked as the country’s happiest cities, followed by
St John’s, Greater Sudbury and Quebec City.

The only saving grace here for Vancouver is that Toronto is ranked as Canada’s
second worst city, barely faring better than its West Coast rival.

The results from the General Social Survey and the Canadian Community Health
Survey suggest that people living in smaller communities are generally happier
with their lives. Most of the cities that rate highest in the rankings have
populations under 250,000, while places such as Toronto and Vancouver are low
on the scale.

According to Statistics Canada, women reported slightly higher life
satisfaction than men, and people in their 40s and early 50s were less happy
than younger or older people.

Married people were more satisfied than single and divorced people, people born
in Canada were more satisfied than immigrants, and healthy people were more
satisfied than unhealthy people.

THE RANKING:

Highest life satisfaction:

1. Saguenay

2. Trois-Rivieres

3. St. John’s

4. Greater Sudbury

5. Quebec

Lowest life satisfaction:

29. Edmonton

30. Guelph

31. Windsor

32. Toronto

33. Vancouver

Take a look at how Canada’s 33 cities stack up:

http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/04/20/vancouverites-are-the-least-happy-in-the-country-survey-finds/

[pøliticoß]

Vancouver Sun - April 22, 2015


Daphne Bramham: Vancouver is Canada's unhappiest city, says StatsCan

And if you don't like it? Move to Quebec


It is counterintuitive, and also not surprising, that Vancouver is Canada's
unhappiest city when it comes to its residents' evaluation of life satisfaction.

It is last among 33 cities in Statistics Canada's inaugural report on happiness
released Monday.

Vancouver is consistently rated as one of the world's most livable cities. It's
been praised for its urban design, natural beauty and the year-round outdoor
lifestyle.

But when it comes to happiness, that beauty stuff doesn't make much difference.
Even affordability and wealth aren't the best determinants of happiness.

What matters more, researchers say, are social connectedness and things like
collaboration, generosity and having a sense of purpose.

Those are easier to achieve in smaller communities, which explains why
top-ranked Saguenay, Trois- Rivieres, St. John's and Sudbury do much better
than Canada's biggest cities.

"Whenever we become more satisfied with our social relationships, our happiness
increases," says Meik Wiking, CEO of The Happiness Research Institute in Denmark.

"We often choose to invest our time in achieving a higher income because we
expect it will bring greater happiness, but sometimes that time might be better
invested in our social relationships." Denmark has twice topped the United
Nations' World Happiness Report.
Wiking said Monday that is because of strong social networks but also because
the Danish welfare system is "really good at reducing extreme unhappiness."

At least once a week, 78 per cent of Danes socialize with friends and family;
the average in the rest of Europe is 60 per cent.

In Vancouver, it's only 41 per cent, according to a 2011 survey done by the
Vancouver Foundation. In that survey, one in four residents in Metro Vancouver
said they are alone more often than they would like. Many respondents talked
about how hard it is to find friends here.

Nearly half said they felt no connection to their neighbourhoods, while most
had not participated in any community events in the past year.

UBC economist John Helliwell is co-author of the StatsCan and the World
Happiness reports. In a paper he co-wrote last year, the happiness of British
Columbians was compared with greater levels of life satisfaction of Atlantic
Canadians. The conclusion was the biggest difference was "the extent to which
people feel they belong to their communities."

The study went on to say that there are also "very large effects from the size
and the intensities of the individual's networks of both family and friends ...
in the frequency of seeing friends and the extent to which neighbours are trusted."

But Quebec now surpasses the Atlantic Provinces in terms of people's life
satisfaction.

In fact, the underlying theme of the How's Life in the City? Report is that if
you want to be happy, move to Quebec.

"(The high levels of life satisfaction) is not explained by income alone,"
Helliwell said in an interview Monday. "It's because they feel at home - both
Anglophones and francophones." And that warm glow of belonging, he said, is the
equivalent to a doubling or tripling of the average income.

Back in beautiful B.C., it seems there's not a lot of happiness.

Not a single city in the province cracked the top 10. Kelowna rates the
highest, but it is in the middle of the pack - No. 12 of 33. Abbotsford comes
in at No. 24 after Winnipeg - yes, Winterpeg! - but ahead of Kitchener. As for
Victoria, the capital and perennial tourist attraction, it's at 27 sandwiched
between Peterborough and Barrie.

Of course, in Canada's unhappiest city, the average ranking of life
satisfaction of 7.8 out of 10 isn't that much worse than the folks in Saguenay,
Trois-Rivieres and St. John's who put themselves at 8.2.

But StatsCan researchers found significant variations when they looked at the
lowest and highest scores from individuals across the country. They differed by
as much as 10 to 17 percentage points, which raises questions about what
accounts for the spread.

It's also worth pointing out that even being the unhappiest city in Canada
still means that Vancouverites are considerably happier than the vast majority
of people in the world since Canada consistently ranks high on the World
Happiness Index.

And it's true, too, that we can change this. But how?

"People should do what they can to make the world a happier place, not what
they can do to make themselves happy," says Helliwell.

"They will get the warm glow of happiness from helping other people. ...
Happiness is not a tool (to make ourselves feel better). It's an outcome."