What Does Where We Live Say About Us?

Travel + Leisure's 2009 America's Favorite Cities Survey covered 30 cities coast to coast

. According to the survey Charleston, New Orleans and Minneapolis/St. Paul were the friendliest cities. New York City was the unfriendliest. When it came to cleanliness, Minneapolis/St. Paul ranked highest, followed by Portland and Denver. New York was the dirtiest. For safety Portland was #1, Minneapolis/St. Paul #2 and Charleston #3. Los Angeles was #30. Minneapolis/St. Paul also rated highest for having the most intelligent residents. I'm not going to say which city supposedly had the least intelligent residents - I'm more intelligent than that.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based a 2009 study on survey data collected over the past 4 years. One of the questions asked of 1.3 million people across the U.S. was how satisfied they were with their lives. The happiness rankings were compared with studies that rated states for things like air quality, climate, commuting time, crime and taxes. Louisiana was found to be the happiest state, followed by Hawaii, Florida and Tennessee. New York was the unhappiest. What the study also found was that people in the happier states had better quality of life. The results of the study weren't just "happystance".

A study published in the journal Personal Relationships found the importance of women's beauty depends on where they live. The researchers asked 257 city women and 330 country women to rate their life satisfaction on scales of 1 to 10. They also asked for waist and hip measurements because the lower the ratio, the more attractive women are considered to be. It seems city women's happiness was dependent on physical appearance, but country women's happiness wasn't. In fact, there was a slight trend for them to be happier when chubbier. Maybe happiness depends on where women are looking.

Finally, according to federal data, driving on country highways is more dangerous than driving on city streets and freeways. Fifty-six percent of the 37,261 U.S. traffic fatalities in 2008 occurred in rural areas - even though rural areas have only 23% of the population. Explanations for this include country drivers driving faster, using seatbelts less and driving intoxicated more. Also country highways are older and narrower, less likely to be near emergency medical care and more likely to be near unpredictable deer, elk, moose and other wild animals. The wild animals most dangerous to city drivers are party animals.

by: Knight Pierce Hirst

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