It's Gold, Gold, Gold for Brisbane
If you're happy and you know it, you're not in Sydney.
Disneyland has long marketed itself as the happiest place on Earth. Well, it’s not even mentioned on the Institute of Quality of Life’s 2024 Happy City Index. But Brisneyland is — and it’s in a respectable 27th place.
Brisbane is one of five Australian cities among the global top 250, and the only one of those with a “gold” rating, reserved for the top 37.
Melbourne placed 41st, followed by Perth at 61st, and Hobart at 87th — meaning they all had a “silver” rating — while Sydney was in 116th place, earning a bronze classification.
To which I say, “Nah-nah nah-nah-nah. Brisbane is better”
Seriously though, I don’t give much credence to these “best of” lists, because they are never objective. Unless all the judges have been to all the cities (or bars or beaches or whatever is being rated and ranked) in the world, then they can’t possibly begin to make an accurate comparison between them.
It does, however, raise the question of what it means to be happy. I’ve read the blurb on the official Happy City Index website and I’m not entirely sure that I understood it.
According to the New Daily, Brisbane’s highest-ranking categories were “mobility, economy and governance”. So, well done everyone involved in that.
Anyway, the top 10 cities are: Aarhus (which is in Denmark), Zurich, Berlin, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Bristol, Copenhagen, Geneva and Munich. I’ve got a hunch that cold places in northern Europe have some sort of advantage.