What Makes A Happy Town?
I live in one of the happiest towns in the UK. Harrogate, with its population of just under seventy-six thousand, is a quaint Victorian spa town nestled snuggly in the North Yorkshire countryside, famous for its tea rooms, gardens and wide open spaces. This bastion of Englishness is regularly voted the happiness town in the country in an annual survey carried out by Rightmove, the online property site.
Harrogate people are justifiably proud of their happiness ranking; in July we celebrated with ‘Happygate’, a free music and arts event in the beautiful surroundings of the towns Valley Gardens.
But what makes a town happy? Rightmove measure this using a number of criteria, including objective categories such a space, upkeep and amenities to more subjective ones including pride and contentment. Indeed, our happiness is reliant on both our subjective well-being (how we ‘feel’) and more objective influences such as access to good quality healthcare, good schools and recreational facilities.
Places don’t necessarily make us happy, in fact, our sense of belonging is the most important factor when it comes to wellbeing. It’s the somewhat old-fashioned idea of ‘neighbourliness’; strong social ties and support networks. People are more likely to report higher levels of happiness if they have strong social networks such as close friends and families who can support them emotionally. Even those who are successful and financially stable report low levels of happiness if these social support mechanisms aren’t in place. It would appear that striving for intimacy makes people happy, striving for power and recognition doesn’t.
But good, strong relationships aren’t necessarily indicative of happy places, just happy people. Good relationships with neighbours and support from strong social networks are good indications of happiness, but there is much more to a happy town than good neighbours. Harrogate is an affluent town with house prices above the national average, suggesting that wealth can increase levels of happiness. The town also boasts higher than average levels employment leading to the conclusion that people here have more money in their pocket. The truth might be more nuanced than this. Psychologists have long since understood that money is a poor indication of happiness; in other words, there is no evidence that wealthier people are any happier than the less well off. Average salaries are actually lower in Harrogate than those in neighbouring Leeds, York and Bradford, perhaps because in Harrogate service industries that traditionally pay lower wages dominate.
Harrogate’s higher earners (and there are many of them) tend not to work in the town. With good road and rail links to neighbouring cities and nearby Leeds-Bradford airport, a large number of residents are commuters. Lower earners in the town are more likely to be employed by the many hotels and restaurants that cater for tourists and delegates attending events at the towns conference centre or in the many retail outlets and supermarkets.
Higher salaries, therefore, might not play a role in Harrogate’s happiness, even if affluence does. In fact this isn’t unusual. Studies have found that people are prepared to accept lower wages and pay more to buy a house in towns and cities with better amenities while they are more likely to demand higher wages in areas were housing is cheaper and have fewer and lower quality amenities, higher crime rates and more environmental pollution. Lower crime rates also impact personal expenditure, with motor vehicle and household insurance premiums significantly lower in Harrogate than in other parts of Yorkshire. It might be expensive to purchase a house in the town but high house prices can be partly off-set by the lower cost of living, although council tax is at the higher end of the scale.
Good amenities do play a major role in making towns happy. Certainly Harrogate does very well in this respect. Our schools are rated as either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ and the hospital is equally highly rated. Council employees work hard to ensure that the streets are clean and the many public spaces explode with floral colour in the springtime. The two-hundred acres of parkland, known as ‘The Stray’ attracts picnickers, Saturday morning footballers and parkrunners while the seventeen acre English Heritage grade II listed Valley Gardens attracts both young and old and is a great space for young families. Access to green open spaces has consistently been linked with higher rates of well-being, as well as a number of other factors ranging from reduced levels of childhood obesity and higher academic achievement.
For those who prefer a bit of retail therapy, the town is certainly well equipped. Although Harrogate doesn’t pack the shopping punch offered by Leeds, there are plenty of high street names and well known supermarkets. Local independent businesses excel in the town, with coffee, shops, cafes and boutique shops all flourishing. The variety is also stunning, especially when the size of the town is taken into account. In amidst the giants like Jamie’s Italian you’ll find the small but perfectly formed Baltzersen’s café and Norse restaurant, bringing Scandinavian cuisine to Yorkshire; in-between Costa, Starbucks and Café Nero you’ll also discover local producers like Bean and Bud.
Politically, Harrogate residents are certainly right of centre. Despite being represented by Liberal Democrat MP Phil Willis for seventeen years, they have returned a Conservative, Andrew Jones, in the past two elections. In the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union, fifty-one percent voted to remain (one of only three areas in Yorkshire to do so, the other two being neighbouring Leeds and York). This most likely represents the middle-class affluence of the town and the relative protection from the economic ups and downs of the past few years. The recent influx of workers from Eastern Europe appears to have caused little tension in the town and many consider their presence to be an asset to the local economy. Non-EU immigration remains low, perhaps because migrants are more likely to settle in areas with established migrant populations and the infrastructure to support them. Nevertheless, the population remains overwhelmingly English, white and middle class.
It could be that Harrogate is missing out here. Research has found that areas with higher levels of cultural diversity make for more cohesive communities and higher levels of happiness. Lower levels of happiness and community conflict, on the other hand, tend to arise from deprivation and poverty that exists predominately in areas of high population density regardless of cultural diversity. Although Harrogate does experience some deprivation, this remains relatively low and homelessness is well below the national average. Nevertheless, social housing remains at a premium with few new homes being built compared to other areas of the UK. Fewer houses mean higher prices and many find themselves priced out of the market, forcing them to look elsewhere.
Harrogate people are also some of the healthiest in the UK, with life expectancy close to the national average at 81 years. This is higher than neighbouring Leeds, Bradford and York and even one year higher than Denmark, the happiest country in the world according to the 2016 World Happiness Report. This, no doubt, also reflects the towns affluence with surveys consistently discovering a strong correlation between wealth and longevity. The fact that the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea has both the highest life expectancy in the UK (83 years) and some of the wealthiest inhabitants, would certainly suggest a relationship between affluence and a long life.
So is Harrogate happy because it’s wealthy or is it more the case that wealthy people are attracted to Harrogate because of it’s many positive attributes? Money might help us to live longer but there is little to suggest that it makes us happier. There is certainly more to living in Denmark than longevity; open spaces, good healthcare and education all contribute to a longer life. It’s much more likely that all those factors that contribute to wellbeing also increase life expectancy. Many of these things (such as private healthcare, gym memberships and so on) can indeed be bought but other factors that contribute to happiness such as green spaces and high quality amenities remain part of the public infrastructure.
Many factors make for a happy town. It’s no coincidence that one of the happiest towns in the UK is also one of the most affluent and I think we’d be kidding ourselves to suggest that it was. Nevertheless, the reciprocal nature of these factors creates an almost self-sustaining mechanism whereby they feed off each other, increasing well-being and positively contributing to both the local economy and a general feeling of contentment.
