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Silicon Valley is America's happiest big metro-region and Washington, D.C. is second, according to a new survey of America's 52 largest metro regions by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

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The Gallup-Healthways data breaks down well-being into six main categories. Greater D.C. leads in life evaluation. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul lead in two categories - emotional health and basic access. Silicon Valley takes first place in two categories as well-- physical health and healthy behavior.

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That said, Boulder tops the list of small--and medium-size city-regions--and posts the highest happiness index score of any metro. Holland, Michigan; Honolulu, Hawaii; Provo, Utah; and Santa Rosa and Santa Barbara, California also post higher scores than any of the larger regions.

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The most unhappy metros are mainly housing-dependent Sunbelt cities of sand and Rustbelt locations that have been hard-hit by the Great Reset. Las Vegas has the dubious distinction of being America's unhappiest large metro.

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Richard Florida is Senior Editor at The Atlantic and Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. See his most recent writing at The Atlantic Cities. More

Florida is author of The Rise of the Creative Class, Who's Your City?, and The Great Reset. He is founder of the Creative Class Group.

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