What makes a city sad? A lack of fluffy frolicking puppies?Burnt-out buildings and vacant lots?Limited access to cupcakes? Measuring which cities in the country are the least content seems an objective pursuit, at best. Yet last month when the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index published their findings about which cities were the happiest, they ended up with the other end of the spectrum as well. The miserable, no-good, down-and-out cities, where, clearly, not a soul can manage a smile. I kid, of course. Undoubtedly there are sad people in the nations happiest city (Boulder, Co) as well as happy people in the saddest. But nonetheless, its interesting to see what the index came up with.Based on the results of telephone surveys witha random sample of352,840adults, compilers of the index asked numerous questions about six sub-indexes: life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities.To determine how to include which cities, they used the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. In many cases, more than one city is included in the same MSA.Areas in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia were included.The ranking used 188 MSAs altogether, heres how they scorednumber 1 being the most discontent of all.
