Happy City: Transforming our Lives through Urban Design

Montgomery makes the evidence-based case that how we design cities shapes how happy and healthy we are — and that better urban design can measurably improve life. A vivid illustration of the SDF's grounding idea of eudaimonia: design in service of human flourishing. Charles Montgomery draws on psychology, neuroscience, urban planning and his own social experiments to argue that the way cities are built shapes how residents feel, think and behave, both individually and collectively. The book makes the case that retrofitting cities for happiness, rather than only efficiency or growth, offers a practical way to address pressing urban problems. On publication in 2013 it was a finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the Charles Taylor Prize for Non-fiction, and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.