What do you mean by a happy city?
The most important ingredient is social connection. People are happiest when they can establish casual but regular relationships with people they know through simple residential proximity.
The great metropolises have triumphed in the 20th century.
According to our studies, expanded cities do not work. We must incorporate biophilic design, revitalize urban centers, look for alternatives to the automobile and monitor population density.
Now in Barcelona, ​​walkable and car-free spaces are being built.
Taking space out of cars and giving it to people is a great success, but an essential part of the happiness equation requires exposure to nature.
Nature is trees and not pots?
Indeed, complex wild ecosystems need 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 happier, and there is something surprising.
explain it to me
People feel more trusting towards strangers simply by seeing nature in their everyday urban life.
Show me cities with brilliant initiatives.
Bogotá stole its best roads to give them over to a high-speed bus system, so even the poorest people can cross the city faster than the rich in their BMWs.
They call them the sexy buses.
Vienna has been investing in affordable public housing for 80 years, so despite being a high-status city, tens of thousands of working people don’t have to leave the city.
This is much better than the occupation.
In Paris they changed the highways to beaches and there are thousands of people who ride their bikes to work safely, and this gives them a lot of joy.
In Washington DC they are building green areas in depressed places.
With the success of reserving land for affordable housing so that people with lower incomes do not end up displaced.
Can cities shape our behavior?
And our thoughts. People who drive alone experience more uncivilized behavior than those who go on foot. 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, talk to all kinds of citizens to understand what they want, and conduct experiments and scientific studies.
Tell me the conclusions of your studies.
People are friendlier to strangers in streets that have many shops, small cafes, restaurants and services than in streets that do not. Empty walls kill street life and alter our behavior and mood.
We like neighborhoods with personality.
We tested this in Vancouver by experimenting with tourists: we placed electric conductors on them to measure their level of arousal as they walked around the city.
And what have they discovered?
In an LGTBI area, zebra crossings were painted with the colors of the rainbow. Outsiders at this crossroads felt happier, inclined to care for the space, and felt more confident, and it was nothing more than a cheerful painting on the floor!
Because of the color or because of what it symbolizes?
Unique places connect us emotionally to the place. No one feels that way in a McDonald’s. It is necessary to let the neighbors transform their neighbourhoods.
How can relationships be fostered?
The human capacity for intimate relationships is limited: people who share an elevator every day in an office block do not become friends.
Propose me the solution.
I live in a vertical village of fifty inhabitants where there is a common house where we can all cook, in fact we have dinner together three times a week.
End up.
There are also smaller spaces, such as a library, a terrace, a music workshop… I know all my neighbors by name. There are many people in the world who feel alone, I live alone but within a tribe.
Is it necessary to redefine the concept of quality of life?
We need to aim for friendlier cities and give a pragmatic response to tourism. European cities are attractive because they are beautiful and walkable, but tourism is being developed at the expense of citizens.
