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by dispat0r 1642 days ago
Maybe not happiness but definitely living standards. In the US air conditioning systems are common in Germany not so much.
2 comments

Right but you can't jump from that to assuming that US homes are nicer to live in - the difference is at least partly because more solid construction, traditional styles, and environmentalist design mean that German homes passively hold a comfortable temperature better than US ones. Air conditioning is a very brute-force solution to the problem and it comes with a significant downsides (noise, dry air that you then have to add more appliances to address, ugly, have to keep your windows closed...).
Lots of housing in Germany is well-insulated enough that AC is not needed. This argument seems dubious.