el paso is delightfully happy, but then again, i live on the illustrious west side. east side sucks, as does northeast. too many gangs and violence. fort bliss, west side and central are totally divine. if you ever lived here, you wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. it’s the land of sun, salsa and soldiers — and then a bit of lithium in our water doesn’t hurt, either!

The issue of insurance/money to afford anti-depressants is a potential confound. Another related confound is that the education level in the top cities tends to be very low – this means that many people in these cities may have world views which include barriers to seeking professional help for symptoms of depression.

There is also just the issue of using anti-depressant consumption as a measure of happiness. I can tell you that many of my clients are happier ON medication than off of it – depression affects 85% of the population at some point – this is a poor measure of “happiness” – it might be a good measure of help seeking behavior in depressed persons – but even as a measure of something that discrete it is not a reliable variable because of the other unmeasurable confounds included in the process of seeking, taking and having access to psychotropic medications – everything from religions, education, employment, insurance coverage, attitudes toward mental illness, cultural factors & c.

This list is not valid as the basis for the conclusion is inherently flawed for all of the above reasons and many more -