A father and his daughter stroll around a wetland park in Dalian, Liaoning Province, on July 22, 2019 (XINHUA)

Liu Ruiyi is an accountant at an auditing firm in Dalian, a coastal city in Liaoning Province in northeast China. She once worked in Shanghai for one and a half years, and then decided to return to her hometown of Dalian because she could save on rent and be with her family.

"Although our income is not as high as that of people in more developed cities, I feel happy living here because of the beautiful ocean scenery, pleasant climate and easy pace of life," Liu told Beijing Review.

In April, Dalian was selected as one of China's top 10 most beautiful cities as well as one of its top 10 happiest cities, based on a survey on people's livelihoods and their levels of satisfaction with the cities they reside in.

What matters

Both the most beautiful and happiest cities were selected based on a survey on city life. Conducted for 15 consecutive years, the survey was jointly launched by several organizations, including China Media Group, the National Bureau of Statistics, China Post and the National School of Development at Peking University. Questionnaires were administered door to door or via airlines to over 100,000 households in more than 150 cities.

The beautiful oceanic scenery and mild climate with four distinct seasons are some of the main reasons for people's high sense of happiness in Dalian. What's more, among cities in the three provinces in northeast China, Dalian features the highest economic aggregate and per-capita income. It is also an important tourist destination as well as a port, trade, and industrial hub. Its major industries include locomotives, shipbuilding, bushings, and large-scale production of chemicals.

A surprising laureate among the top 10 most beautiful cities is Guiyang, as it is not as famous as other metropolises on the list such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, nor does it display a beautiful seascape like Dalian. In fact, Guiyang has been working on ecological conservation since 2015, when the local government launched a project on building and renovating 1,000 parks to feature forest, wetland and mountain views. Today, the city has reached its goal, with 1,025 parks for citizens and tourists to enjoy. Its overall forest coverage has increased to 55 percent.

"There are more and more parks in Guiyang, and each one of them has its own unique and bewitching beauty," said Liu Xiaoyun, a shutterbug who has a gallery of pictures featuring Guiyang's various parks on his smartphone.

Located in Guizhou Province in southwest China, Guiyang boasts a comfortable climate with an agreeable annual average temperature of 15 degrees Celsius. Moreover, according to the local ecology and environment department, the number of days with good air quality was as high as 98.9 percent of the total in 2020.

Guiyang is beautiful not only on the surface, but also at its core. Aside from its ecological progress, the local government has been working on making the city an intelligent and convenient one. Guiyang uses big data to improve the efficiency of local governance and social services. Application for many municipal government services such as social security and medical insurance can be submitted and processed online.

Wu Jun is an entrepreneur who wanted to start a human resources service company in Guiyang, thus he needed to apply for a human resources service license. After logging on to the municipal service platform, Wu followed the relevant guidelines and submitted his application materials in less than 20 minutes. Half an hour after that, he received a text message saying his application had been approved. One day later, Wu got his license.

Furthermore, smart technology facilitates transportation. When people take the subway, they can enter or exit the station through facial recognition. The big data will help calculate the total travel cost according to the distance between the stations they entered and exited, and the fare will be automatically deducted via a mobile application.

Happiness differs

So which Chinese cities boast the happiest residents? The survey revealed, although metropolitans such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are glamorous and rife with development opportunities and other possibilities that many people dream of, residents there, however, are significantly less happy than those in third-tier cities, for residents living in small cities generally reported having fewer troubles and living a more comfortable life.

The survey surprisingly showed no obvious correlation between income level and happiness. The annual personal income of 120,000 to 200,000 yuan ($18,490 to $30,820) was found to be an inflection point. Below this point, people in lower income groups were less likely to feel happy; however, above this point, people in higher income groups were not more likely to feel happy. Actually, for groups with an annual income above 500,000 yuan ($77,050), the higher the income, the lower the percentage of people feeling happy.

Nevertheless, worries about children's education have directly affected people's sense of happiness. The anxiety caused by children's education today is the highest in recent five years. Those with children see their happiness levels decrease as the number of children increases.

The survey also revealed some other factors related to people's happiness, such as family housing situations. Homeowners reported higher degrees of happiness than renters, as the latter felt less happy because of worries about rent hikes and moves. The survey also showed that people living in the north are generally happier than those in the south due to their more straightforward and carefree take on life. Data from 2011 to 2020 show that women's happiness levels were consistently higher than men's.

In light of these, experts suggest cities attach importance to both material and spiritual wellness. "Urban development must not only increase financial and material income, but also provide citizens with more spiritual satisfaction," said Ni Zijun, a researcher with Tsinghua University. She commended Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, also one of the happiest cities. Chengdu has been working on providing high-quality public services and building a friendly and inclusive society for residents of all ages, she said, adding that it has child- and senior-friendly communities with facilities catering to everyone's needs.

Chengdu also supports the entrepreneurial dreams of younger generations and creates a high-quality business environment by offering favorable policies. "These policies attract talented young people to Chengdu, who, in turn, facilitate the development of the city and make it more dynamic and lively," Ni said. 

(Print Edition Title: Decoding Beauty and Happiness)

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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