According to the new SKL Happiness Atlas 2025, Karlsruhe is objectively the most liveable city in Germany – and yet only ranks 38th out of 40 cities in terms of subjective happiness. The FÜR Karlsruhe electoral group on the local council is alarmed by this striking discrepancy and sees a need for action in many areas.
The SKL Happiness Atlas is based on over 23,000 personal interviews in the 40 largest cities in Germany. Both objective living conditions and the subjective satisfaction of the population were assessed. According to the study, Karlsruhe scores extremely well in terms of the hard facts – but people’s actual happiness lags far behind. Karlsruhe’s so-called “underperformer” status describes the gap between measured quality of life (1st place) and experienced happiness (only 38th place). Although the fan-shaped city scores highly in terms of income, living space, environment and infrastructure, subjective well-being lags behind.
“The fact that Karlsruhe performs so poorly in the life satisfaction rankings, even though we objectively have a lot to offer, should be a wake-up call for us all. Cities that we can measure ourselves against, such as Mannheim, Freiburg and Mainz, are well ahead of us. Life satisfaction there is much more pronounced than here,” says city councillor Friedemann Kalmbach (FÜR Karlsruhe).
For Friedemann Kalmbach (FÜR Karlsruhe), the key lies in a policy that places greater emphasis on social proximity, opportunities to help shape the city and social well-being: “Satisfaction must also become a key factor in municipal development. Our city lives not only from projects and events, but also from good relationships and upright cooperation. We want to be a city that is people-oriented. And that is precisely why we need to ask ourselves why the perception of our city is so far removed from the measured situation. If we want to do better in the happiness atlas in future, we need to do more than just manage the city – we need to make it more human. This can also take the form of listening more to the concerns of our citizens. For years, the many construction sites in central areas of the city have been a major point of criticism. Putting an end to these construction sites and not adding more is a concern that we should take into account when making decisions.”
