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28 March 2024

Revealed: Dubai’s Top Three happiest neighbourhoods... are you in one of them?

Published
By Shuchita Kapur

Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can certainly help you live in a place that makes you feel a little chirpier at the end of the day.

Ask a life guru – you’ll find them dime-a-dozen in this ever-confused world – and she’ll tell you that the happiest people in this world are not those that have multi-millions to worry about. And certainly not those that don’t have a penny in their pocket. The happiest folk are those that have a little less than just enough to live their life lavishly.

No wonder, then, that the top three areas of Dubai to live in terms of cheerful residents are high to mid-level areas, according to a special ‘Consumer Happiness Survey’ by propertyfinder.ae

When asked ‘How happy are you with where you live?’ the three best rated locations were: Umm Suqeim, Dubai Marina and The Springs, in that order.

More respondents in these three areas chose the ‘Absolutely Love It’ option than those in other locations. Surprisingly, all these three ‘happy’ areas are located next to an even more upmarket address – 2- and 3-bed villas in The Springs, for instance, are flanked by palatial villas in Emirates Hills on the one side and Jumeirah Islands on the other.

Huge houses in Umm Suqeim, in addition, are flanked by large houses in the more established and better known Jumeirah, and Dubai Marina is in the vicinity of the Palm Jumeirah and JBR.

This, perhaps, more than anything proves that wealth alone does not bring the greatest degree of happiness. If that were true, then Norwegians would be the happiest people in the world (it has the highest GDP per capita in the world, of approximately $100,000).

In fact, a 2009 worldwide Gallup poll ranked Norway as the ninth happiest country in the world. The top spot went to Denmark, which then had a GDP per capita of $68,362, about a third lower than that of Norway.

Coming back to the Dubai survey, what’s common among these residential happiness hotspots areas is the fact that all three are close to schools, supermarkets and shopping areas, as well as the beach.

“I moved here six years back and can’t think of being anywhere else in Dubai,” said a resident of Springs 11. “The park, the lake, the two-minute drive to my kid's school – everything is so important. The community feel is so important,” she added.

Says Renan Bourdeau, Managing Director, Propertyfinder.ae: “What is interesting about our happiness survey is that it has thrown up quite a few surprises – as much in the places that did not rate in the top spots as those that did. The kind of trends we are uncovering should shed light on what property hunters really want and will prove useful the industry as a whole.”

According to a propertyfinder.ae statement, the in-depth survey, taken by 300,000 propertyfinder.ae website visitors and registered users, posed a number of questions about the respondents’ neighbourhood and asked them to rate it for convenience, attractiveness and quality of facilities.