Happy City (2013)

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design is a 2013 book written by the Canadian author Charles Montgomery.

Overview

Gathering insights from the disciplines of psychology, neuroscience, urban planning and Montgomery’s own social experiments, the book makes the case that the manner in which we build our cities alters the way in which we feel, think, and behave as individuals and as a society. Montgomery argues that the happy city, the green city, and the low-carbon city are the same place, and we can all help build it.

Montgomery states that the book is about "seeing our city streets, hearts, and mobility systems as emotional infrastructure that can make or break the health or happiness of our citizens." From Stockton, California to Bogotá, Colombia, Montgomery discusses the urban challenges cities face and the innovative solutions being implemented all over the world to empower communities.

The book was a Finalist for the Shaughnessy Bishop-Cohen Prize for Political Writing and Charles Taylor Prize for Non-fiction, and a Winner of the Robert Bruss Real Estate Book Awards. It was also a shortlisted nominee for the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

The success of the book led Charles Montgomery to found the consulting firm, Happy Cities, which seeks to turn the lessons of the book into action by offering urban planning, design, and research consulting services to municipalities.

Content

The book contains 13 chapters and an epilogue:

The Mayor of Happy

The City has Always Been a Happiness Project

The (Broken) Social Scene

How We Got Here

Getting it Wrong

How to be Closer

Convivialities

Mobilicities I: How Moving Feels, and Why It Does Not Feel Better

Mobilicities II: Freedom

Who Is The City For?

Everything Is Connected to Everything Else

Retrofitting Sprawl

Save Your City, Save Yourself