I get a lot of emails every day and among the most common items are the results of various surveys that purport to shed some sort of light on local towns by including them in lists that usually begin with the phrase “the top (fill in the blank with an adjective) communities.”

Most of the time I assign these messages to the garbage, but occasionally I take a look at them. The most recent one was one from zippia.com that apparently measured the income, education, employment, commute, cost of living, family, home ownership and poverty rate to determine the “The 20 Happiest Places in Massachusetts.”

I’m sure you’re curious as well to see if your town is on the list.

The only community in Western Massachusetts to make this designation was Longmeadow.

It should be noted that no major city, or small city for that matter, made the list. Instead it was suburban communities such as Newton, Belmont, Wellesley and Walpole.

 Boston, the hub of the universe, didn’t make the cut, nor did Worcester, or even Northampton. People are constantly lauding Northampton. People love Northampton. What the heck?

It has had the nickname “The Paradise City” since the 1850s when legendary Swedish singer Jenny Lind proclaimed it “the paradise of America.”

Nope, Northampton is not “happy” enough for this list.

There wasn’t a single town from Cape Cod on the list. Come on! There are thousands of people whose idea of happiness would be to live on the Cape as close to the water as they could get. Look at the real estate prices and tell me if I’m wrong.

The Cape is like the sacred elephant burying ground for people from landlocked Western Massachusetts. We yearn to go there once we retire.

And what about Stockbridge in the Berkshires? Once again there are many people who clamor to live in a place such as that. It’s beautiful and artsy. Karen Allen lives there for goodness sake – sigh. Yes, I still have a crush on her.

If Northampton, Cape Cod and Stockbridge aren’t among the happiest places in the Commonwealth, there isn’t much hope for the other communities.

What the list seems to say is in order to be happy you need to be in a small upper middle class community – and probably a predominantly white one as well.

Do you feel that your community makes you “happy?”  Do you leave your house whistling a song because you live in a particular town?

On a scale of one – get me out of here – to 10 – I’m singing my town’s praises – where do you find yourself?

What are your criteria? How quick you can get a good pizza? Springfield ranks pretty high there. Public attractions such as museums and libraries? A lot of Western Massachusetts towns score high on that count.

How about the proximity of brew pubs? Places to listen to music? Does your garbage get picked up on time and neatly? Are your streets plowed well in the winter? If you have a complaint, do city officials address it? How are the schools your children attend?

These are some of my criteria.

My biggest complaints have relatively little with the city in which I live.  My beefs are with the neighbors who cause me grief through their selfishness.

I hate to break it to zippia.com, but all it takes is one bad neighbor on the street to create a constant source of irritation and a lack of happiness. It doesn’t matter how well I’m paid or what education I received or how long is my commute if the idiot down the block is playing his music too loud or his garbage is piling up or he decides the proper way to settle marital differences is yelling about it while in the street.

Those are “Life shorterners” as Eddie “The Old Philosopher” Lawrence would say.

Happiness, like beauty, is in the mind of the beholder and I’m afraid this list is as flawed as much as the other community surveys I’ve seen.

Hey, does your community make you happy? Tell me about it through our Speak Out page.

This column is the opinion of its author and does not necessarily reflect the position of the owners or advertisers of this newspaper. Got a comment about this story? Go to http://speakout.thereminder.com and let us know.