East Grand Rapids Is Michigan’s Happiest City; While Ionia Is Among The Most Miserable

It's hard to not be happy in East Grand Rapids, according to Homesnacks.net, where the web site has determined that the home of the Pioneers is the 'Happiest City In Michigan'.

Not so out in Ionia, where they were determined to be among the most miserable cities in Michigan.

Funny what a few miles east on M-21 will do to you.

Only a third of Americans consider themselves to be 'happy', what ever that means, so Homesnack took it upon itself to find the happiest cities in the state. here's the criteria they used:

We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using FBI crime data, the government census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sperling’s Best Places, and Twitter, this is the criteria we used:

 

• Percentage of residents with a college degree
• Average commute times
• Employment rates
• Cost of living
• Crime
• Sunny days
• % of married couples
• % of home owners

For geo-located Tweets, we used #happy.

It's odd that a Twitter hash tag figured into a happiness list, because I find my happiness fade rapidly every minute I'm on Twitter.

Also landing into the Top Ten is Forest Hills, which is a school district, not a city. Or as Homesnack defines it a CDP. (CDP for you non-demographic analysts is defined as a 'Census Designated Place', which is to say, it's an area that kind of looks like a city on paper, but isn't offically incorparated). Let's just call it a 'gathering of smiling faces' from now on. Or a big school district that everyone wants to live in, but can't afford to.

On the other end of the spectrum, the cities with the lowest Happiness quotients were determined to be 'the Most Miserable'. Lumped in with perennial miserable places like Flint was Ionia, which is scant thirty miles from EGR along M-21.

That's a rough thirty miles if you can go from the happiest to the most miserable in that time.