Cities for living. Identifying the local conditions driving life satisfaction in European cities

This paper analyses differences in life satisfaction across European cities. It contributes to the geography of well-being literature by identifying the individual and the contextual factors that explain the observed differences. The empirical analysis relies on the 2019 EU Quality of Life in European Cities' survey, covering nearly 60,000 individuals across 83 European cities. Such data is combined with city-level indicators on a set of socio-economic, demographic and environmental characteristics of the cities, obtained from various sources. Results show that, after having controlled for individual characteristics, cities with better air quality, higher shares of foreign-born population, better recreational amenities and fewer heatwaves tend to show higher levels of life satisfaction. Cities with higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita do not show higher life satisfaction, but happier cities have, across all specifications, far more expensive housing, consistent with the spatial equilibrium framework. Finally, a smaller city size may also be associated with higher life satisfaction, although results are less stable.