The Happy City Index awards cities across the world with a bronze, silver or gold for the quality of life enjoyed by its citizens. Find out which cities top the leaderboards.
Golden city, Zurich.
The joys of city living
Many feel the call to the city. It might be for job opportunities, art and culture, the best nightlife or the ease of getting around.
For young professionals…
For young professionals and families looking to start a life abroad, cities are often where they will find large international communities with a high number of English-speakers and plenty of work. Whether it’s the tech and start-up hub of Lisbon or the counter-culture scenes in Berlin.
Read your Emigration Guide to find out everything you need to know about moving abroad.
For holiday homeowners…
Many of us have visited a city and left slightly bereft as there are still things on our to-do list. With a city holiday home, you will finally have the opportunity to tick off the items from that list. And often, it takes more than one visit to fully get the feel of a place.
Plus, cities tend to be the best connected to the rest of the world. As fabulous as they are, the Greek islands become difficult to reach in the off season, requiring two flights or a flight and a ferry. But with a home in Athens, you can visit at the drop of a hat.
For retirees…
People tend to associate retiring with winding down, but retire to a new city, and it’s the opposite. Many of us live in a city and get too bogged down with the day-to-day to actually appreciate all that it has to offer. And you can also enjoy it all outside of peak tourist seasons. You can get right up close to the Mona Lisa, watch every West End play, take the metro the very last stop with the bizarre-sounding name.
Plus, in a practical sense, cities are the best facilitated. If you’re retiring abroad with a pre-existing health condition, you are not going to have access to the top quality care in a remote destination.
Investment benefits
Golden city, Amsterdam.
Capital growth
For investors, city properties come with the most certain capital growth. Even if the rest of a country’s property market is seeing decreasing prices, high demand and short supply see excellent capital growth for city homes. A Savills 2023 report found 1.1% capital value growth across 30 indexed cities. With Dubai, Bangkok and Singapore recording the highest growth. High-end residential properties proved particularly popular in European cities, such as Milan, Madrid and Barcelona.
Short-term rentals
If you’re looking to buy a successful short-term rental property, a city-based one is a brilliant bet. Unlike seaside towns or the Alps that quieten down in their respective off seasons, cities attract holidaymakers whatever the weather. No particular temperature is needed to tour a cathedral or spend the night chatting away in a sangria bar. In London, short-term rentals can bring up to 30% higher yields than long-term tenancies. However, when it comes to short-term rentals, some cities have become victims of their own success. After growing feeling that short-term rentals were putting too much stress on the long-term rental and property markets, Barcelona announced that short-term rentals would be banned by 2028.
What is the Happy City Index
The Happy City Index city ranks cities on five themes: citizens, governance, environment, economy and mobility. It splits these further down into educational system, social inclusion, digital competences (citizens). Then, waste management, green spaces and air pollution (environment). Scientists use a variety of objective information, open data and interviews with residents to determine the results.
Rather than have one city on top of a podium, the Happy City Index categorises by gold, silver and bronze. This is because, “it is not possible to identify one city that can be considered unanimously the best in terms of ensuring the happiness of its citizens in a longer perspective.”
Golden cities for 2024
Bristol, one of the UK’s three golden cities.
For 2024, 37 cities were declared “golden” (happiest). Sweden tops the charts with the most golden cities, four: Gothenburg, Stockholm, Eskilstuna and Jonkoping. While Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and the UK all boast of three. Bristol was the highest positioned, at number seven. Followed by Edinburgh, and by some way, London. Two of Finland’s cities are golden. While Iceland, the United States, Australia, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Ireland, Austria, Finland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Canada all have one.
The results differ quite a bit from the Global Liveability Index 2024. Unlike the Happy City Index, the Global Liveability makes no qualms about crowning an overall winner – Vienna, which has won the title for three consecutive years and had a perfect score in four out of five categories. Vienna is a golden city too. The Global Liveability Index also declared that western Europe the most liveable region in the world and the prominence of western European cities in the Happy City Index does suggest a relationship between the two. But both reports paint very different pictures for the UK. London is a golden city but ranks 45th for liveability. Suggesting Londoners are smiling, even if their lives aren’t the most liveable.
Sources: https://happy-city-index.com, https://www.savills.com, https://www.guestready.com
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