Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design

In depth, thought provoking book.

I'm not yet finished reading this book but I can already sense that it would further widen my knowledge and perspectives on how people and their elected representatives run their towns and cities in the pursuit of happiness, which of course differs according to one's interests, agenda, and predisposition.

Honestly first third of this book was hard to read. Too much philosophical questions. I wish there were more real-life examples and research between history and philosophy pages. But the rest of the book makes up for it. I was fascinated to read about how proper cities are done, and how such improvements bring life and new experience into citizens' lives. Living in post-USSR, I see a lot of examples of cities done wrong, not for people but for military parades. So it was like a fresh air to read the thoughts I often had about problems that each one encounters in modern city life, and see these problems solved in communities around the world. I really hope author does not give up on this topic, and will bring us more insight in how happy cities work and how they are built, hopefully with more examples from real cities all over the world. Thank you for your hard work and good read, Charles.

A book that is relevant far past the urban planner - anyone who wants to thrive with their environment needs to understand what Charles says here! A masterpiece.

Throughly enjoyed this book. A lot of urban design books are written in a dry manner; Montgomery does a great job keeping attention through his prose. The stories were relevant and on point, if not a bit recycled for other sources. His assessment is strong, but you couldn't call it objective. He uses many points in the book to assert his position, mainly around how awful cars are (which, while I don't disagree, is getting old as a rant in these kinds of books). I highly recommend it for any urban studies nerd, and would encourage you to additionally read Walkable City and Street Smarts as companion pieces. Between those three books, they do a great job of giving you the history, the science, the statistics, and the possibilities for the future of smart, happy, walkable cities.

This is such an important book to read I have recommended it for San Luis Obispo's City Wide Read for 2018. The book covers so many aspects of urban living but most important--how getting out of our cars and traveling on foot or by bicycle makes us happier. Montgomery shows how organizing our housing and neighborhoods to be social and trusting (convivial) rather than isolated and fearful will make us happier. He also demonstrates that disincentivizing car ownership can have a very positive effect on life satisfaction and make life safer for all of us, particularly children. If nothing else, read about the mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa promoted bike ways in his city. Inspiring.

As you might expect, the idea that people can be happy in a city doesn't come from the First World--at least today's. "The man who is tired of London is tired of life." --Samuel Johnson. It comes from Enrique and Guillermo Penalosa from Bogota, Colombia. And the amazing thing is that Enrique Penalosa (past mayor of Bogota) is a career politician. Find out what generally makes people happy in a city, then construct the city that way. What an idea. Again as you might expect, what makes people happy is generally NOT what said people think will make them happy. Think of the number of times that you thought a new thing--house, car, music player, large screen TV--would make you happy. And then things were pretty much the same within a couple of weeks of getting said thing. What makes you happy is more likely to be a continuing series of experiences, and most likely experiences with other people. If the way your neighborhood is constructed and managed isolates you from people, you'll have fewer experiences and less happiness. But uncontrolled interaction might be just as bad as no interaction. Details matter. This book is merely an introduction to the idea, but lots of us need the introduction, to learn another way of thinking about the subject. It's only about eleven bucks for your Kindle or Kindle app--buy it and read it.

I've always been intrigued by traffic engineering and urban design, though admittedly not very knowledgeable about either, so this book interested me as soon as I read an excerpt from Slate.com. Despite occasionally veering toward the preachy, it offers well researched and extremely compelling arguments for cultivating more diversity and "conviviality" in the places we live. I'd recommend to anyone intrigued by similar subjects or just trying to understand more about how we're impacted by the structures and patterns around us. Quitting my day job to rewrite city code might be a bridge too far for me right now, even if it has some appeal after reading this. I'll at least invite the neighbors over for happy hour and maybe start reading more about the new development plans for my town... it's a start. :)

Always enjoy reading a good book and its great that amazon offers such a good collection of paperback books.. The story is very interesting but not exactly my type

Aborda el tema de movilidad desde diferentes enfoques, como la psicología social. Da la importancia al usuario dejando un montón de referencias bibliográficas para quienes quieran saber más del tema.

The book is excellent. Worth reading for any amateur . Talks about how our environments need to have a perspective other than "development" in monetary aspect or consumption patterns

It’s been almost a decade since journalist and author Charles Montgomery published his debut book, the Charles Taylor Prize winning The Last Heathen: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia . Fortunately for us he has spent much of that time researching and experiencing urban life at its best and worst, and in focussed, insightful, and engaging prose he tells us how urban design enhances or detracts from our daily lives. Happy City is not about the environment, healthy living, or meeting our neighbors, though these subjects are covered. Happy City is about us, about how we live our lives and why, which makes it inherently fascinating. Why do we do the things we do, especially those things which detract from our happiness? It turns out our grand urban design may have us traveling - literally - in the wrong direction. A few quotes from the first half of Montgomery’s book outline his thesis. "A city can be friendly to people or it can be friendly to cars....” "The way we organize most cities actually encourages individuals to make choices that make everyone's life harder." “The most dynamic economy of the twentieth century produced the most miserable cities..." which shows "...just how dangerous it can be to leave the design of public life to private hands." Like bestselling financial author Michael Lewis ( Moneyball ), Montgomery populates his story with colorful characters, such as Enrique Penalosa, the mayor of Bogota, Columbia, who is introduced on his bicycle “jumping curbs and potholes, riding one-handed, weaving across the pavement, and barking into his cell phone while his pin-striped trousers flapped in the breeze.” Riding his success with Bogota's urban renewal, Penalosa becomes important as “one of the central figures in a movement that is changing the structure and soul of cities around the world,” and Montgomery returns to him and others like him throughout the book. Like the best travel writers - Paul Theroux, for example - Montgomery has a poetic sense of place, transporting readers along with him to countries, cities, towns, and intersections. It is here - in New York, Paris, Vancouver, Main-street Disneyland and dozens of other places - that successful urban design springs to life, and we imagine ourselves standing in traffic-free Times Square or sipping coffee in a Copenhagen street cafe. (The first chapter alone made me want to visit Bogota to see Penalosa’s civic transformation firsthand.) The photographic examples - especially the before and after pictures - are captivating, and act as repeated exclamation marks to the narrative. Sadly, most of us live in the ‘before’ side of the photos, which makes their inclusion all the more riveting. Montgomery’s impeccable and exhaustive research is woven so well into his narrative that the book reads more like a novel or travelogue than the important work it is. In fact, Montgomery synthesizes others’ works so well that his book may become a primary source in future. Very few authors - especially non-academics - can claim this mantle. In his concluding chapters, Montgomery tries to answer the question of what holds us back from happier cities. Our frustration with long commutes is reframed to have us pondering why we want larger (suburban) homes, why there is no employment in our neighborhoods, why transit works in some areas and not others, and for whom cities are designed. Zoning, Montgomery says “organizes the system of a city, and thus the lives led in it .... It is not market-based, nor is it democratic.” Anti-planning groups such as the Tea Party in the US are acknowledged as “quite natural in a nation that holds its sense of liberty close, but they are not based on a clear view of reality. For one thing, they ignore the fact that their tax dollars are already being used to massively subsidize the sprawl model.” With respect to bike lanes, which also are often sub-optimally designed, Montgomery singles out cycle enthusiasts who push for their needs at the expense of other cyclists. And finally, outside interests such as the auto industry (the history of the introduction of jay-walking laws is thought provoking) and even international aid agencies (Penalosa thankfully nixed a proposal by car-exporting Japan to build elevated freeways in Bogota) are discussed. Happy City is thought provoking and a call to thoughtful action. It should be read by citizens who want to be informed about the forces that shape their daily lives and routines, and by those who want to make a difference in their neighbourhoods.

Buen producto, tal y como se describía. Buen sistema de entrega, puntual y eficiente. Compra satisfactoria, 100% recomendable. Volvería a realizar la transacción.