Atlanta is "Unhappy"? BusinessWeek is Stupid.*
Decatur Metro | March 4, 2009Yeah, doesn’t feel so great when you’re on the receiving end of random, statistical assertions, does it?
If you are a true “new media” geek, I’m sure this story is so 9:30a this morning, but I just need to do a little wrath-venting… so please humor me.
Business Week recently ranked the nation’s unhappiest cities based on a bunch of strange qualifiers, which included such things as depression, suicide rates, crime, divorce rate and cloudy days. Yeah, cloudy days.
Atlanta ranked 10th based on this random assortment of weird stats, mostly because of the crime rate (#2). But whatever. Congrats Atlanta, add “Unhappy” to your scrapbook of useless, but endlessly blogged and tweeted about city rankers!
The real shocker in my opinion is the #1 unhappy city. Seriously? How’s that possible?
OK, sorry about that. I guess I’m just lashing out because I’m still going through the acceptance phase of acknowledging my general “unhappiness”. Thanks for the intervention BusinessWeek!
* “Stupid” rankings are based on # of pointless, competitive rankers produced by a publication in a given year/month/whatever.
Latest from Decaturish
Hearing about that story makes me unhappy.
And it’s even sunny today…
List-icles like BusinessWeek’s are the biggest waste of time and a shameless way for these publications to generate pageviews. I’ve had it with Forbes’ list-icles, too.
“random statistical assertions”??
What is random or weird about depression, suicide rates, crime, divorce rate and cloudy days. Doesn’t the mere fact that those things go together (i.e., are correlated in the statistical sense) suggest they are not random or weird (I assume you are using this in the technical sense of the term)?
While i take your point that they we don’t know that these actual measure the construct of happiness, its also hard to argue that they don’t. For example, seems to me that as crime is going up in Atlanta, it sure is making a lot of people unhappy (as evidenced by the comments on this blog).
For an interesting global perspective:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_happiness.png
Oh where to begin…
Oh right…the cloudy days thing. Cute, but give me a break.
Mostly its the label of “unhappiness” that I have a problem with Oakie. If they wanted to do a “most depressed” city index using depression insurance claims and whatnot, be my guest. But to assert that things like crime, divorce and cloudy days directly correlate to “unhappiness” is just plain sloppy.
For instance, divorce. Aren’t many people who get divorced happier once they’ve made the break? What about a city where social pressure keeps more unhappy couples together, lowering the divorce rate? How’s that relate in this “unhappy” index? Also, does a higher crime rate make the general population more “unhappy” if they’re not a direct victim of it?
On top o’ that, the stats aren’t from the same periods. For instance, the crime index is an average from the past 7 years, while the divorce rate is taken from a 2004 study. Would have been nice if they could have used the same period across all of these statistics.
All I know is any survey that lists Portland (#1?!?!?!) and New Orleans as worse places to live than Jacksonville, Cleveland, AND DETROIT FOR GOD’S SAKE is specious at best. Those are two of my favorite places on Earth.
DM: As I said, I am sorta with you on the calling it “happiness” thing – its hard to say that the measures they used do indeed measure happiness.
“Also, does a higher crime rate make the general population more “unhappy” if they’re not a direct victim of it?”
Are you kidding?
Worried. Pissed. Upset. Yes.
Unhappy? Dissatisfied with life? I would hope not.
Ah gotcha- that’s where we differ. My happiness is lower when I am worried, pissed, and upset.
60 minutes did an episode on this topic, but compared countries around the world rather than just US cities. The happiest country on earth was Denmark. The weather in Denmark is far worse than Portland, Oregon.(I’ve lived in both places) The interesting thing about this survey was that they found the highest rates of happiness were in cultures with two things in common. Number one, the countries with the HIGHEST tax rates were the happiest. Number two, the countries that were fairly homogeneous were the happiest. The Danes pay over sixty percent income tax.
Any list that has Portland as the #1 unhappiest city in the nation doesn’t deserve an ounce of my attention. oh wait…
Yeah, but look out if homogenous marriage becomes legal. Then our whole social structure will crumble like…well…like a thin mint left on the counter.
oh…HOMOGENOUS! Not homsexual.
Well, that’s very different.
Never mind…
I think Portland is a great city, but having moved from Seattle to Atlanta, I wouldn’t scoff at the idea that the number of sunny days can affect the mood of the general population. People usually visit the Northwest in the summer, but if you live there in February and endure sometimes weeks without seeing the sun, it is depressing.
Hey DM – You’ve prob seen but check this out:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j4258noATic2W2QC_KeRaT4A866AD96RQ6I00
Thanks Oakie! Here’s my favorite line…
“Examples of the questions include: Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?”
Does it count if its vindictive laughter? Muuuuhahahah!
The Danes don’t have to worry about going bankrupt if they’re diagnosed with a major illness while not covered by insurance.
The strength of these studies is that they measured happiness as “self-defined,” which is the only meaningful way to get accurate results.
Maybe BusinessWeek should have given the highest scores to places with terrible schools and high illiteracy. After all, ignorance is bliss, right?
This presents quite a problem for us, I think. Obama is jacking up taxes on the “rich,” so presumably, they are going to get a lot happier. But at the same time, we continue to lower taxes on the middle class, and the poor pay nothing at all in income taxes. So they must not only be quite unhappy, but they stand to get a lot unhappier as their tax “refunable credits” start to roll in. Who knew this plan was so regressive?
Precisely. Thanks Scott. That’s exactly what’s been bugging me about this all along. I just hadn’t quite put it into the right words yet.