Boulder ranks as the smartest — and happiest!

New data reveals we're loaded with PhDs and tops on Gallup's happiness scale.

| Aug 31, 2010

A new in The Atlantic by the noted demographic analyst Richard Florida not only showed that Boulder has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of brainy people, it also slipped in, at the very end, a graphic showing that we’re the happiest. Quote:

And brainier metros tend to have happier populations. The correlation between the Brainiest Metros Index and Gallup’s measure of metropolitan happiness and well-being is .566.

And check out where Boulder sits on the accompanying graphic that charts braininess against residents’ professed sense of well-being (red arrow added by me):

Some additional charts in the article show where Boulder ranks on a variety of other measures such as braininess versus income (we don’t do as well on that one). They’re well worth looking at if you’d like to be reassured that there’s major brainpower all around.

Read “Where the Super-Brains Are” in The Atlantic