Statistics Canada recently released a report analyzing the levels of life satisfaction in many cities across the country.
Small communities such as Burns Lake were not included in the survey, but even within metropolitan areas it was easy to observe a pattern. People in smaller communities – with less than 250,000 people - reported higher life satisfaction levels than people in major centres such as Vancouver and Toronto.
The “happiest communities” in the country were Saguenay, Que., Trois-Rivières, Que., and St. John’s, N.L., while Toronto and Vancouver were at the bottom of the list. I thought this report was interesting because Vancouver and Toronto usually rank high among the best places to live in the world. It goes to show that when experts are analyzing which cities have the best quality of life, they might be forgetting some important aspects. Although economic factors are certainly important, people’s well-being and satisfaction levels are just as imperative.
The report did not explain why people in smaller communities reported being happier, but since I was intrigued, I did some research. Turns out there are a number of studies linking a close contact with nature to human health and well-being.
This is certainly not a new concept for people living in areas such as Northern B.C. If you’ve always been blessed to go to work surrounded by beautiful mountains, lakes and wildlife, you most likely already understand the intrinsic relation between nature and humans’ well-being. Some studies actually refer to cities as “unnatural surroundings,” saying crowded streets, noise and the overwhelming amount of things that divide someone’s attention can take its toll on a person’s brain.
“After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control,” said Jonah Lehrer in the article ‘How the city hurts your brain.’
Lehrer discusses how being in an urban environment can impair our basic mental processes.
“After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting - that’s why Picasso left Paris - new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.”
Big cities have long known that green spaces are part of the solution to increase people’s well-being. Central Park is certainly not in Manhattan by accident. But some cities have not been so successful in implementing green spaces. When you walk around Toronto, for example, parks are not that easy to find. They certainly exist sparsely around the city, but you might have to take the subway to access them (which then can turn into a stressful activity). I can certainly relate to the feeling of exhaustion after walking around in a big city. What I have observed in people who live in big cities is that they sort of push those feelings of unsettledness to the back of their mind, not even knowing why they feel drained or exhausted at times. Now every time I’m in a big city to visit friends, it drives me crazy to wait for public transportation. Just the other day, as I was waiting for the bus, I started counting how much time on average people spend every year on a bus or subway. Considering someone works five days a week, and it takes them 45 minutes from home to work, that’s the equivalent of about two entire weeks every year on public transportation. I find that to be mind-boggling! I certainly got used to being home in four minutes while living in Burns Lake (taking more than four minutes to get home now just feels unnatural). When millions of people are making the move to big cities across the world, maybe it’s time to reconsider what really makes us feel good.