Title: Happiest Place You've Ever Lived [music]
Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As a segue from that, for our last 15 minutes, we'll take your calls now on the happiest place you've ever lived, or what do you think makes a city, or for that matter, a suburb or rural area, a happy place to live. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text. Why do we ask this today? Well, each year, something called the Institute for the Quality of Life comes out with its Happy Cities Index. For background, each year, Nordic countries tend to dominate the top of the list. No surprise if you've ever caught the headline. This year, two American cities were featured on the list, and within the top 30. Can you guess what they are?
Okay, time's up. New York City came in at number 17, and Minneapolis came in at number 30. Listeners, we will take your calls on the happiest place and how you define it that you've ever lived, and what makes or would make you happy to live in a place. Not everybody has that much choice. 212-433-WNYC. This isn't just happy vibes that they're measuring. They have certain data points. Indicators are grouped into categories like education and innovation, governance and transparency, health and well being, mobility and transport, environment and sustainability, and economy and business.
Based on some of those categories, we want to hear your most favorite place, your happiest place, if you've lived in multiple cities, and why. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. I think it's tough to actually come up with this. As somebody who has lived in a few cities, grew up in New York, but I lived in Albany for a while, Columbus, Ohio, for a while, Norfolk, Virginia, for a while, and then back, for me, it's so dependent on the circumstances of my life more than some of these larger factors. Maybe for a lot of people, the intersection of your personal life and these things really does define when you were happy, based on where you live. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692.
The New York City angle here and why it ranked high is for being both an economic and an intellectual or technological powerhouse. Maybe you're happy here because it's the best place for your career. How did New York enable you to make it, as the saying goes? 212-433-9692. While California has the most linguistic diversity of any state, New Jersey ranks second, and it's the most densely populated state. That means more diversity on a far smaller surface area. Maybe you move to Jersey to be closer to your cultural background. Maybe you found a job or a volunteer position working in your community. Maybe you just have a lot of family there. 212-433-WNYC.
The Happy Cities Index gave Minneapolis particularly high marks in the environment category, measuring green spaces, pollution, and overall sustainability. Have you ever lived in greener pastures? What difference did that make to the quality of life for you? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Build your own happiness index. What makes a place happy for you? 212-433-9692. If you have lived in multiple places, what was the happiest place you ever lived based on circumstances beyond your personal life, or maybe how all of these things interacted, or any of these things interacted with your personal life? Education, innovation, transparency and governance, mobility and transport, environment, sustainability, economy, and business.
212-433-9692. We'll take your calls after this.
[MUSIC]
Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right. Let's run through some of your happy places. Dennis, in Newfoundland. That is Newfoundland, New Jersey. Really, Dennis, there's a Newfoundland in New Jersey? I actually did not know that.
Dennis: Well, you pronounce it Newfoundland, Brian. Should know that. [laughs] I spoke to you before.
Brian Lehrer: I lost it. You newly found it for me. Go ahead.
Dennis: I love it here. I grew up in Bergen county and the shopping mecca of New Jersey and Paramus. I went to school in San Francisco and came back and did 20 years time between Manhattan, the East Village, Queens, and mostly Nassau County. Lived all over Nassau County. Then I went back to California, and I've been back from the Bay Area, I guess about 12 or 13 years.
Brian Lehrer: Just to move it forward, and I apologize just because we have limited time. Why does Newfoundland top the list for you?
Dennis: Because everything is here. I never thought I'd want to die here, as it were. This is my final resting place. I have a lake here. I work here. I just retired. I did graduate college just a couple of years ago, I was speaking to you about that, so I can work in the industry that I want to work in for as long as I want. If I want to go to the city, and we had a little traffic situation with the sinkholes on 80, but now that that's over, not too much--
Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Then you're happy again. Dennis, I'm going to leave it there. I appreciate it a lot. Listener writes, "I lived in Iowa, Richmond, Virginia, Sacramento, Chicago, and Brooklyn. I feel like the times have had a huge impact. Life was simple and pretty happy when I was growing up in Iowa, but I wouldn't want to live there now," and goes on from there. Julie in Hastings, you're on WNYC. Hi, Julie.
Julie: Hi, Brian. Thanks. Mine, I think is a little bit unusual. I used to ask myself, "Do I like to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond?" I realized I like to be a middle-sized fish in a middle-sized pond. That's one of the many reasons I really liked living in Lansing, Michigan, which sounds so boring, but it is one of those places that has everything. It has politics because it's got the state government. My roommate was a speechwriter for the Speaker of the House. It has Michigan State University adjacent, which is a beautiful campus. It has an industrial base. It's a real place. It's got the cultural stuff too. The gap between rich and poor isn't as big. The percentage of people that can have a decent life. If you want to signify, your chances of signifying are good.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, Julie, for shouting out Hastings. Sherry in Nevada, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sherry.
Sherry: Hey, Brian, thanks for taking the call. First, let me say, no matter where in the world I might be, being able to tune into your show is very grounding and fulfilling. That adds wherever I am.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you.
Sherry: Let me say, I lived in New York City for 30 years, and Central Park was my backyard. It were not for that, I don't think I would have made it there that long. For me, it's being surrounded by nature. Nature for me is nurture. I moved up to Saratoga Springs and came to life where every morning I was walking my dog, and I could hear the sound, see the sights, and smell horses. Very nice, beautiful, magnificent horses. That was very restorative on a daily basis. Now living in Henderson, Nevada, which is a desert, very high heat, very difficult to cultivate nature around you, my quest is to find desert plants that I can nurture and keep alive and add to the beautiful landscape that I've created for myself here.
Brian Lehrer: Sherry, thank you very much for that story. Here's a text. "I live in LA now after 22 years in New York City. The thing that made me happiest there and unhappy happiest here," meaning unhappiest in LA, "is the spontaneity. In New York, you leave your apartment and you engage with the world, run into your homies, et cetera. Just not the case here. New York City is my happy place," writes that listener. Jerry in Somerset, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jerry.
Jerry: Hi. Great to talk to you. My favorite place that I've lived is a place called Tunpan. It's on the Isthmus of Kra in Southern Thailand, where I was a Peace Corps volunteer back in 1965. I had grown up in Brooklyn and out on Long Island, had never been on an airplane, and joined the Peace Corps. Living there in a totally different culture, I got to really find out who I was and what I was meant to do. I was a teacher then. Became a teacher when I came home. After two years, became a principal. I still have a lot of connections with the folks over in Thailand. Living in a different culture, being the only Caucasian person in the town, really was a wonderful experience.
Brian Lehrer: Jerry, thank you very much. Well, we have time for one more. We started with a caller in Newfindland-- Oh, no, Newfoundland, New Jersey. We're going to end with Joy in Manhattan, who is going to cite Newfoundland, Canada? Did I say that right?
Joy: No. There's three ways of pronouncing it. People from the US call it Newfoundland the way you did, Brian, when you started. People from parts of Canada that are not Newfoundland call it New-foundland, as the person in New Jersey did. People who live in Newfoundland call it Newfoundland. Rhymes with understand. I heard that and I was like, "Oh, I just had to call." I lived there for 12 years. It is drop-dead gorgeous. It's cliffs and ocean and birds, and whales. It's completely clean. You get out of an airplane and you walk out onto the tarmac, and you smell the sea. That was wonderful. It's also very friendly place and a very easy place to be very active in the arts community.
One of the things that impressed me when I first went there was nobody says, "Oh, you like music? What do you listen to?" They say, "What do you play?" "You like painting? What do you paint?"
Brian Lehrer: What do you paint? Joy, that has to be the last word. That's a wonderful last word. Thank you, listeners, for all your happy places, from Newfoundland to Newfoundland. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Stay tuned for All Of It.
[music]
Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.
