Happiest and Most Miserable Cities in America

Need your morning coffee before you deal with chipper, happy-go-lucky people? Well, you might want to steer clear of California. Think life's too short to be a drag? Then Michigan isn't the place for you.

Forbes has released its annual list of the most miserable cities in the country, while at the same time, a study by the University of Vermont uncovered the happiest cities. For the downtrodden places, Forbes looked at factors including unemployment, violent crime, foreclosures and home prices (as well as less-serious indicators such as commute time and weather) to come up with its list of most miserable cities. The University of Vermont, on the other hand, analyzed more than 10 million geotagged tweets to find positive and negative terms. The cities that used the most positive terms in tweets, as you might guess, made the list of the happiest cities.

Cities in California make up the bulk of the happiest cities in America -- perhaps, in part, because the state's home price increases are among the most dramatic in the country. Cities in Michigan take the top two spots for the most miserable in the country -- and we all know why (because of depressing stories like this one). So is your town happy or sad? Click through the gallery below to see the top 10 most miserable and top 10 happiest cities in America.

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