Cities, Inequalities and the Geography of Societal Discontent in European Regions

The “urban wellbeing paradox” is a recurring theme in research examining the differences in life satisfaction across settlements of varying sizes, suggesting that large cities are consistently associated with higher levels of dissatisfaction due to disproportionately high interpersonal income inequalities. This paper re-evaluates that conclusion by analysing the relationship between individual dissatisfaction, conditions of personal disadvantage, and income inequality in large cities. Our extensive study, based on self-reported dissatisfaction from over 760,000 citizens living in EU and UK NUTS2 regions between 2013 and 2018, reveals that individuals facing occupational and economic disadvantages are the most negatively affected by living in urban areas. However, urbanization economies partially offset these negative effects, particularly for those individuals in disadvantaged conditions.