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    Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
    Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
    Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
    Audiobook12 hours

    Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design

    Written by Charles Montgomery

    Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and tower dwelling an improvement on the car-dependence of sprawl?

    Award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery finds answers to such questions at the intersection between urban design and the emerging science of happiness, and during an exhilarating journey through some of the world's most dynamic cities. He meets the visionary mayor who introduced a "sexy" lipstick-red bus to ease status anxiety in Bogotá; the architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan hill towns to modern-day New York City; the activist who turned Paris's urban freeways into beaches; and an army of American suburbanites who have transformed their lives by hacking the design of their streets and neighborhoods.

    Full of rich historical detail and new insights from psychologists and Montgomery's own urban experiments, Happy City is an essential tool for understanding and improving our own communities.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 8, 2015
    ISBN9781494589349

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    Reviews for Happy City

    4.5/5

    86 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Changed my life. Nixon goes to China. Arthur pulls the sword from the stone. Finding god. And Charles Montgomery has liberated modern life from the chains of consumerism and intransigence.
    • 5/5
      A mind blowing book, full of logical conclusions that are both incredibly insightful, and incredibly obvious. Most of them boil down to the fact that a city based around cars is terrible and makes everyone miserable, and a city based around walkability and public transit benefits everyone's happiness and well being. To me, these are super obvious takeaways, but there was still a ton of value to the book.

      It did make me realize that I think I'm missing a lot of life in a traditional suburban neighborhood, and I'm craving to live somewhere a bit more dense and walkable, even at the expense of lot size and privacy.

      It also made me realize that I am fascinated by urban planning type policy decisions. I definitely want to read more books on the topic.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book with a hopeful attitude...about time! Well written and a fast read.
    • 4/5
      This book could easily have been a 5-star work, but it occasionally stumbles or loses focus. The title, for instance. I have a hard time imagining the persons who need to read this book the most, doing so, based on the title. Those folks aren't looking for "happy" cities. This isn't Disneyland. They're looking for fast, congestion-free commuting. There's nothing wrong with single-occupancy car driving that having everyone else take the bus or stay at home wouldn't cure. Or better yet, the ability to walk just a few steps to everything we need on a daily basis. As the author, himself, says, "In other words, we would like to have our cake and eat it, too, the ideal world being one in which we reap the benefits of OTHER PEOPLE choosing to live in apartments and town houses nearby, but not close enough to disturb our sleep [in our single family homes.]" The author does do an excellent job of providing ample and significant data plus colorful and insightful anecdotes to explain why modern cities tend to be the way they are, why that is often a problem for the cities' inhabitants, and concrete steps that could be taken to solve those same problems. However, he missteps to various degrees in areas, such as what seems an unfounded bias specifically against bus transportation, beyond the obvious. He recognizes that implementing solutions is often a tedious, thankless, and frequently unsuccessful endeavor, but, knowing how government works, as I do, I seldom see him show much appreciation for the level of negative reaction to the change he advocates, for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with rational thought. Perhaps, it is because the author is Canadian and not American. I've watched enough Canadian news media to know Canada has its own political squabbles and shenanigans, but I doubt they match the current America temperament for taking an opposing position for no other reason than that someone else who is not just like us in race, religion, and other demographic characteristics proposed it. In short, many folks will never read this book who should, but, fortunately, those who will read it, will find many ideas and much encouragement to implement them. Good luck to them.
    • 5/5
      I wish I could force everyone to read this book. Those of us interested in urbanism have been schooled in the benefits of shaping our cities to a scale suited for humans rather than designing them to facilitate motorized traffic. Human-scaled cities, in which the tyranny of cars is minimized so that residents feel comfortable navigating public space, can reduce pollution, improve health, and save money. In Happy City, Canadian writer Charles Montgomery focuses on another benefit that is often overlooked: good urban design can make us happier.

      Drawing on the findings of psychologists and sociologists as well as designers, architects, planners and philosophers, Montgomery considers both the large and small elements of design contributing to well-being. That happiness is increased when the view out the window is a lovely body of water rather than a cement wall will come as no surprise. But quite likely, very few people are aware that the arrangement of windows and doors in buildings will impact their comfort and enjoyment when walking by at street level, or that the height and layout of living spaces can influence residents' relationships with each other.

      As in most books and articles touching on the movement known as New Urbanism, suburbia does not get much love in Happy City. However, Montgomery refrains from vilifying sprawl. He notes that some people enjoy suburban living and he does not condemn that preference. The family with the one-acre lot on a cul de sac in Rockville is just as entitled to their happiness as are the apartment denizens of Dupont Circle (my example). However, as other writers have argued, Montgomery agrees that urban dwellers should not be subsidizing the inefficiencies of sprawl, and the gap between supply and demand of housing in walkable communities needs to be reduced so that this choice is available to more who want it.

      Montgomery travels the world to highlight places where human-scaled design interventions have met with utilitarian success such as Bogota, Vancouver, Portland, London, and, of course, Copenhagen [note to self: must stop googling Danish immigration policies]. Ultimately, this is a call for citizen activism (with a supporting website), to inspire neighbors and "citadins" that the road to happiness is more easily walked together.
    • 4/5
      A book briefly exploring what makes us happy and then shows how our cities as presently configured, particularly in the dispersed city, does not foster happiness. Plans and examples of how the city can be made happier make up the second half of the book. It is good and further supports the prescriptions of Jane Jacobs and her followers.