Only 1 Illinois City Makes The Top 20 “Happiest Cities List”
You may have taken a moment or two over the last couple of years to chant "take me to my happy place" because you've been too busy getting stressed out over high inflation, stunningly steep gas prices, being over-taxed, rising crime, etc.
But if you really need to find an actual geographical happy place, there are only two places in Illinois that made the list of the 182 happiest cities in America list recently published by personal-finance website WalletHub, so you might want to consider a short road-trip to one or both of those cities.
It Would Only Take A Short Road-Trip To Visit The Two Happiest Cities In Illinois, Because They're Both Pretty Close Together, And Not Far From The Rockford Area
Before we name those places, here's the criteria the expert number-crunchers at WalletHub used to come up with their rankings of happiness:
WalletHub drew upon the various findings of positive-psychology research in order to determine which among more than 180 of the largest U.S. cities is home to the happiest people in America. We examined each city based on 30 key indicators of happiness, ranging from the depression rate to the income-growth rate to average leisure time spent per day.
So, if it didn't matter where you lived, as long as it's a happy place, you'd probably want to move to one of the top 3 happiest cities in the entire country. Two are in California, and one is very close to home:
- Fremont, California
- San Jose, California
- Madison, Wisconsin
Here in Illinois, two cities made the list. The highest ranking, coming in at #19 overall is this place:
Aurora Is Illinois' Happiest City, According To WalletHub's Calculations
Out of a possible 100 points, Aurora gets a total score of 62.49 (number one Fremont, California scores 76.10, Madison scores 69.72)
Aurora gets high marks for emotional and physical well-being, income and employment, and community & environment.
The only other Illinois city to make the list, coming in at #74, is a fairly well-known town called Chicago, where they get an overall score of 56.72.
That number will probably drop significantly when the Bears move to Arlington Heights.