We bitch and moan a lot on Bacon’s Rebellion about the failings of our fair state, but the Old Dominion must be doing something right. Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard University found that residents of Virginia metropolitan areas are the happiest in the country based on self-reported survey data on subjective well-being gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dig this! Richmond-Petersburg ranked No. 1 in happiness of all metros with more than one million people. I can vouch for that. I love my home town and I’m darned happy here. It isn’t perfect — as anyone who reads this blog will discover in short order — but it’s a great place to live.

Number two on the list of large metros — Hampton Roads! How awesome is that?

Number three — Washington, which, of course, includes the Northern Virginia suburbs. The traffic is awful, but everything else must be great!

Now for the pièce de résistance — among smaller metros, Charlottesville ranked highest in reported happiness.

That’s a clean sweep, folks! Who needs “Best States for Business” when you’ve got the happiest citizens?

— JAB