London is the Unhappiest Place to Live in Britain

London might be an attractive destination for investors and tourists around the world, but a recent survey indicates that the capital induces stress and misery among those who live there.

Rightmove's "Happy at Home Index", which ranks Britain's towns and cities according to the mood of their inhabitants, found that nine out of the 10 "unhappiest" parts of Britain are in Greater London.

Six places were taken by inner London postcodes (N, W, NW, SE, EC, E) while the capital's suburbs of Croydon, Ilford and Enfield took three further spots on the list.

Dudley in the West Midlands was the only place outside London that made the bottom 10 misery low spots.

London residents sampled by the survey ranked their living arrangements poorly for space, civic pride, safety and neighbourliness.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said the main reasons for London's poor performance were the lack of safety in local neighbourhoods and the spatial constraints of a big city.

"With nine of the UK's least happy places to live in our nation's capital, it does beg the question - are those sacrifices worth it to be happy at home in London?" he said.

The survey found the Yorkshire town of Harrogate is the happiest in the UK, and people living in the north are more satisfied in their current houses than people living in the south. Swansea and Aberdeen residents were marked to be the happiest in Wales and Scotland respectively.

The survey's result was based on 12 parameters, covering feelings of residents towards their property, community and their emotional attachment to their home. The survey also took recreation, decor and value into consideration.

Harrogate did not rank highest in any of the 12 parameters, but featured in the top 10 of each of them. Apart from the emotional aspect, Shipside added that the Yorkshire town's property values were well above the national average as well.

"Average asking prices in Harrogate are up 5.6% year-on-year, outperforming the national average of 1.2% and North Yorkshire average of 0.4%, indicating that there is demand to live in the UK's happiest place," he said.

In total, 38,624 people responded to the survey conducted by Rightmove, which is an online real estate portal in the UK.