What do you understand by a happy city?
The most important ingredient is social connection. People are happiest when they can form casual but regular relationships with people they meet through simple residential proximity.
The great metropolises have triumphed in the 20th century.
According to our studies, expanded cities don’t work. We must incorporate biophilic design, revitalize urban centers, seek alternatives to the automobile, and monitor population density.
Now in Barcelona walkable but concrete spaces are built.
Taking space away from cars and giving it to people is a great move, but an essential part of the happiness equation requires exposure to nature.
Is nature trees and not pots?
Indeed, complex wild ecosystems have to be woven into the city. We know that people who have access to nature, views of a natural space from the office, for example, are more productive and happy, and there is something surprising.
Tell me.
People feel more trust towards strangers just by seeing nature in their daily urban life.
Show me cities with brilliant initiatives.
Bogota stole its best roads to give them over to a high-speed bus system, so even the poorest people can get across the city faster than rich people in their BMWs.
They call them the sexy buses.
Vienna has been investing in affordable public housing for 80 years, so even though it is a high-status city, tens of thousands of hard-working people should not leave the city.
Much better that than squatting.
In Paris they changed the highways for beaches and there are thousands of people who cycle to work safely, which gives them great joy.
In Washington DC they are building green zones in deprived places.
With the success of reserving land for affordable housing so that people with less income do not end up displaced.
Can cities shape our behavior?
And our thoughts. People driving alone experience more uncivil behavior than people walking alone. We also know that people who take a long time to drive to work have much higher divorce rates.
He founded Happy Cities, where he works with neuroscientists.
We design healthier and happier places, we talk to all kinds of citizens to understand what they want, and we carry out experiments and scientific studies.
Tell me the conclusions of your studies.
People are kinder to strangers on streets that have lots of little shops and services than on streets that don’t. Empty walls kill the street life and alter our behavior and mood.
We like the neighborhood with personality.
We have verified it in Vancouver experimenting with tourists: we put electrical conductors on them to measure their level of arousal while they walk through the city.
And what have they discovered?
In an LGTBI area, zebra crossings were painted in the colors of the rainbow. Outsiders at that junction felt happier, inclined to take care of the space, and felt more confident, and it was just paint on the ground!
Because of the color or because of what it symbolizes?
Singular places connect us emotionally with the place. No one feels that way at McDonald’s. Let the locals transform their neighborhoods.
How to promote relationships?
The human capacity for intimate relationships is limited: people who share an elevator every day in an office block do not become friends.
Propongame the solution.
I live in a vertical town of fifty inhabitants where there is a common house where we can all cook, in fact we have dinner together three times a week.
Sounds good.
There are also smaller spaces like a library, a terrace, a music workshop… I know all my neighbors by name. There are many people in the world who feel lonely, I live alone but within a tribe.
Is it necessary to redefine the concept of quality of life?
We must aim for friendlier cities and give a pragmatic response to tourism. European cities are attractive because they are beautiful and walkable, but tourism is developing at the expense of citizens.
