Today, I joined Bluesky and while looking at #aarhus tags, was reminded that I live in, by someone's formulation at least, the "happiest city in the world", Aarhus.

Having perused the study, its methodology and its rankings, I felt compelled to describe how I imagine a visitor might see my city.

Aarhus

Aarhus is Denmark's second-largest city, sitting nestled into the eastern coast midway up the mainland, buffered by a 3-hour train ride from the pretension & politics of Denmark's famous capital.

At a brisk pace you can traverse Aarhus's city center in a small handful of hours, but your tour will be doubtlessly delayed at some of the best bakeries & cafe/roasteries in the world (says this traveling coffee-snob & lover of all things layered-and-baked 🥐), followed by a boozy jaunt in one of the many traditionally-smokey bodega bars. After downing a couple 'Aarhus-sets' (🍺🥃), you'll then take your pick of the city's many museums, fine-dining restaurants (or takeaways 🥙🍕), and cozy wine-bar lined streets.

Early morning you will see streams of bustling commuters on all the roadways, including parents in all manner of cargo bikes dropping their children off at school before continuing on to work. Mid-morning you will note a preponderance of fathers like myself pushing baby carriages and enjoying our many weeks of paid parental leave, joined by pensioners doing their shopping and socialising before the afternoon rush. When the afternoon does arrive you'll see the busy commuters once again, though on sunny days (even the cold ones), any cafe and wine bar you pass will be stuffed with locals of all ages.

Throughout the day, as a foreigner you will look incredulously at the shops with merchandise brazenly displayed out on the street without anyone keeping watch, and on the residential streets your head will turn once again at the number of "trust stands" where people hang used clothes for sale with contact info that would-be shoppers can send money to over the ubiquitous MobilePay app.

As a new visitor you will gawk at the many, many, truly stupefying amount of bikes, but unless you are hopelessly careless you will never be endangered by one. You'll see cyclists of all ages traveling safely in raised bike lanes lining virtually every road in the city. Cars still abound, but are reasonably segregated and slowed down as much as the commuting locals will accept. Buses and taxis will be mostly electric, as is the light rail that crosses north to south on the harbor-side of the city. You will notice the growing sections of the city, with construction sites pushing up new offices and apartment blocks (unfortunately in dreadful modern modular 'architecture').

A fly-on-the-wall in an office here will see colleagues sitting together in the morning and eating bread & cheese, then working collaboratively and productively through the day, with a short break at 11:30 for lunch in the communal canteen (and then again at 14 for cake or, on Fridays, a beer). You'll see employees freely speaking their mind to their bosses, both sides feeling a little awkward at the implication of a word like "boss", and reiterating their "flat" hierarchy & "democratic" approach to working with each other. The office might have some empty desks, for the folks home tending to a sick child or on stress leave. Between 15 and 16 the office will empty, likely closing completely by 17:00.

Back on the streets (which by the way will be dirtier than you're used to in a European city), strangers will probably not be smiling back at you in this so-called "City of Smiles", and may indeed be taken aback when you start talking to them in public. If you insist on conversing, you will find most here to be warm, curious, and helpful. Everyone's English will be fine and fluent, though not polished to a preposterous sheen like in Copenhagen. If you ask, locals across the political spectrum will ruefully share their laundry list of complaints about how noisy the city has become, how shops struggle to stay open on the high street, how those of certain backgrounds are spreading disorder, and every scandalous time the local government has blown city funds on dead-end or grossly under-budgeted projects, on top of other various political follies.

If you look really hard, you might see or hear tourists, taking in the city sights, but not polluting them or falling prey to the scammers & pickpockets that can be found in any other Western European city of a certain size. At certain times in the day and in certain corners of the city center you might come across a small gathering of drunks/druggies, looking worse-for-wear but otherwise keeping to themselves. You will (hopefully) never see someone living in a tent or anyone dangerously strung out.

On weeknights the city will be quiet and resting up for the bustling day ahead (except for the festival weeks, the nights the football club has home games or the national squad is playing well, and of course on New Year's Eve where every single resident loads up on fireworks and blows up every available inch of the city).

Conclusions

So, do I agree? Could Aarhus truly be "the worlds happiest city"?

Perhaps?

I've been to, lived in, or know people from many of the cities in the top 50-or-so in this list. As an overeducated and skilled IT professional (ahem...humblebrag), I have ended up in Aarhus by dumb luck, but have always known that I could uproot and move to any of these cities if I wanted to. I have chosen to place my roots down deep here for what Aarhus (and Denmark) offers, but also for what it doesn't have. There are no creepy tent communities like in all the large cities in America, even very old flats are in far better condition than the norm in Britain and even wealthy Switzerland, and the government and public systems, for all its faults, are virtually free of corruption and not in danger of crumbling at any moment from mismanagement and neo-fascist populist takeover.

Regardless what this particular study suggests (and even though I still feel my true home is 30 minutes to the south of here), I am proud to call myself an Aarhusianer, and proud to live in the epicenter of what might actually be the happiest place in the entire world 😇