KUALA LUMPUR has been listed as the happiest city globally in a recent study by the Institute for Quality of Life.
The yearly index placed Kuala Lumpur the bronze category ranked at 188th place.
The 2024 Happy City Index evaluated all 250 cities located worldwide according to five themes which were citizens, governance, environment, economy and mobility and divided into three categories of gold, silver and bronze.
37 cities were earned the gold category of happiest cities in the index while 63 cities were placed under the silver category and bronze with 150 cities.
In the list of what the study calls “Golden Cities,” Kuala Lumpur obtained a score of 1315.4.
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According to the institute, Kuala Lumpur scored 287.6 in the citizen’s element while the capital city’s government scored 272.8, 259.9 in economy, 236.5 in environment while mobility earned a score of 258.5.
Serdang, although not officially recgonised as a city was included in the study and placed in the bronze category as well, ranked at 166 and scored 1357.4.
Serdang scored 249.6 in the citizen’s theme while in terms of the government, the city scored 249.8, 335.4 for economy, 240.3 for mobility.
The 250 cities in the list were also analysed though 24 different areas of activity divided into areas and categorised according to the five themes in the index which include:
1. Educational system categorised (Citizens)
2. Social inclusion of residents categorised (Citizens)
3. Gross Domestic Product and productivity (Economy)
4. Involvement of residents in decision-making processes (Governance)
5. Transparency in operation and openness of data (Governance)
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6. Accessibility of public e-services (Governance)
7. Management of natural resources, including renewable energy sources (Environment)
8. Innovation and creativity of residents (Citizens)
9. Conscious strategies (Governance)
10. Use of information and communication technologies in transport (Mobility)
11. Innovation and creativity of enterprises (Economy)
12. Anti-pollution (Environment)
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13. Waste, wastewater management and recycling (Environment)
14. Accessibility and efficiency of public transport (Mobility)
15. Availability of green areas (Environment)
16. Access to culture, including libraries (Citizens)
17. Entrepreneurship (Economy)
18. Safety of the transport system (Mobility)
19. Labour market flexibility and unemployment (Economy)
20. ICT area as a sphere of activity and its availability in enterprises (Economy)
21. Protection of biodiversity (Environment)
22. Openness of transport data (Mobility)
23. Availability of multimodal transport (Mobility)
24. Internationalisation of enterprises (Economy)
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“Their order is not random and each of them in a different way affects the overall result of the city as a place with happy residents,” the study said.
The study does not pick the cities according to which is the “best” but assesses them based on their commitment to education, inclusive policies, economy, mobility, environmental protection, access to green areas or innovation.
“Every year, we make every effort to objectively and reliably assess what is most important for city dwellers and on this basis assess the sense of happiness. This equally helps us to narrow down the definition of the term happiness.
“We think that we wouldn’t be able to honestly award single places on a podium – That is why we didn’t create a ranking assessing which city is the happiest,” the study explained.
