Smile, Northbrook, You're the 8th Happiest Place in Illinois

Do you feel happy, Northbrook?

You should, according to a list compiled by Zippia, a jobs and career website. The village was ranked No. 8 out of 340 Illinois communities with more than 2,000 residents as one of the happiest places in the state.

Northbrook was one of three North Shore communities to crack the top 10 of a list that distills one of humanity's greatest questions—what is the secret to happiness?—into an easily digestible, social media-friendly info nugget that people can share over Twitter and Facebook. Deerfield ranked the highest at No. 3, and Lake Bluff was No. 10.

Glencoe was edged out of the top 10 at No. 11, which quite possibly could make it a slightly less-happy place.

Mahomet, which is 10 miles west of Champaign, has the distinction of being the happiest place in Illinois. Ironically, Riverdale was rated No. 340, which means Archie Andrews, Jughead and the gang might not be the happy-go-lucky, all-American teens everyone thinks they are.

How did Zippia compile its list? The site crunched data from the 2010-2014 American Community Survey collected by the U.S. Census and then rated the communities using the following criteria:

• Being well educated (Population with at least a bachelor’s degree)
• Having a job (As measured by the unemployment rate)
• A short commute to work (God do people hate traffic)
• Low cost of living
• Having a family (Getting, and staying married, has a ton of happiness benefits, on average)
• Owning a home (That’s a big plus)
• And the poverty rate (Money definitely helps out)

Go to Zippia to see the complete list.