Happy city, happy life

I spend a lot of time thinking about happiness. Anytime I see a TED talk, a book, or a blog post on the topic, I tend to stop what I'm doing to watch or read what others have to say on what happiness means and/or how to achieve it.

One recent example that I think is worth sharing is the book Happy City by Charles Montgomery. It presents a compelling argument for how the community in which we live plays one of the most important roles in our psychological well-being. This topic has been especially relevant to me recently because my wife and I are preparing to purchase a new home in Shanghai.

The book helped me to clarify what aspects of a neighborhood are the most conducive to happiness - and therefore the most important. I'll share what I think are the key points of the book below.

Live close to a subway station (and avoid driving)

There's ample evidence in the book to suggest that an extensive workday commute has a substantial negative impact on happiness.

Driving is particularly bad. For those who live in the suburbs, spending anywhere from 1.5 to 3+ hours each day alone in a car - often in traffic - takes a psychological toll. The daily commute contributes no value to society while harming the environment. It's at once a monotonous chore and perhaps the most life-threatening activity we engage in on a daily basis; there are four times as many deaths on suburban roads as on city streets.

The solution is a combination of biking, walking, and taking the subway. It's safer, better for the environment, better for our health, and less expensive. Perhaps most importantly, it makes us happier.

I'm fortunate to live in Shanghai, one of the most bikeable cities in the world with one of the most extensive metro systems (perhaps second after Tokyo). I know how to drive and have a valid Canadian drivers' license, but in my seven years living in Shanghai, I have never felt the urge to obtain a Chinese drivers' license. I spend approximately 2500 RMB (~400 USD) per year on public transportation (including bike-sharing) in Shanghai. Maintaining and insuring a typical car in Canada would cost at least ten times this.

Extensive automobile use also impacts city design. The three images above succinctly capture how space-inefficient cars are when compared to public transportation or bikes. In fact, these images underestimate the space needed for cars because the vehicles in the pictures are not moving. If they were in motion, the cars would need even more space for safety reasons.

In the book, Montgomery notes how the ubiquity of automobiles and suburbs in the United States has introduced "suburban sprawl" that has reduced the walkability of most neighborhoods to the point that most suburban roads don't even have sidewalks. Buying groceries at the "local" supermarket requires a 10-minute drive. Children, constrained by their inability to drive, are often faced with loneliness, starved for spontaneous activities and social interactions beyond their immediate neighborhood block.

Transit-oriented development (TOD), an urban planning philosophy that focuses on creating communities within walking distance of transit hubs, is a better way. Imagine a community where people only drive when they need to transport a lot of stuff or they're traveling to a rural area without public transit. Fewer cars would require fewer public roads, allowing more room for other types of public spaces - which leads to my next point.

Prioritize access to public spaces

From my personal experience, places such as libraries, parks, beaches, and pedestrian walks have been constant sources of joy and fond memories. This is in contrast to more "commercial" spots such as shopping malls, movie theatres, and restaurants, which have expectations on us to be consumers during our time in them.

As the recent COVID-19 pandemic has shown, public spaces provide a much-needed escape from the confines of our own homes. Montgomery writes, "the most important psychological effect of the city is the way in which it moderates our relationships with other people."

The image above is of the Strøget, Copenhagen's pedestrianized downtown. It's the result of a Danish experiment that began in the 1960's, when the Copenhagen City Council chose to ban cars in the city center.  In the words of Danish architect Jan Gehl, they found that "if you make more road space, you get more cars. If you make more bike lanes, you get more bikes. If you make more space for people, you get more people and of course then you get public life."

Gehl made many more insightful observations. For example, he discovered that the placement of public benches matters; those facing the passing crowds were used ten times as much as those facing flower beds. He also noticed that more people gathered at the edges of construction sites than in front of department store display windows. The takeaway is clear - people like to observe and be around other people. As Gehl concluded, "Activity in human life is the greatest attraction in cities."

In my mind's eye, I think of the activities that add color to an urban setting: people playing chess in the park; bonfires and barbecues at the beach; street artists and musicians in city squares; and perhaps the most iconically Chinese communal activity - "public square dancing" (广场舞).

Density + greenery

A high population density is required to justify subway stations and numerous public spaces. Montgomery notes that it usually takes 800 dwellings to support a small corner store, and many more to sustain parks, community centers, hospitals, and schools.

However, a key point the book makes is that density of people is not the same as crowding, and urbanization cannot come at the expense of access to nature. There is a delicate balance of proximity and isolation that needs to be observed; we all need social interactions, but we also need privacy and the calming influence of green spaces.

Countless studies have demonstrated the importance of greenery to our psychological and physical well-being. The book cites research that finds environments with more green space to be livelier, healthier for inhabitants, and less prone to violent crimes.

From my own experience, I didn't feel the privilege of growing up in Vancouver, one of the greenest cities in the world, until I spent a year living in Chiba, a Japanese city and de facto suburb of Tokyo. I still have vivid memories of the endless concrete and dearth of public spaces in my neighborhood that drove me to either stay home or seek refuge in the denser but more diverse landscapes of central Tokyo.

Social relationships are the key

While there is a nod towards the importance of nature, the key thesis of Montgomery's book is that people are social beings who avoid loneliness and seek to be part of larger groups. We gravitate towards community structures that improve the frequency and quality of our social interactions.

Perhaps the best TED talk on happiness I've seen is by the director of a Harvard study that followed a group of 724 men (and their children) as they lived through multiple generations. The research clearly shows that the most important component of a good life is not wealth, fame, or any other outward indicators of conventional success. Rather, tending to our relationships with others is the key to living longer, healthier and more fulfilled lives.

As the speaker notes, this is "wisdom as old as the hills", and yet we still find it so difficult to shape our lives in ways that bring us joy. Many of us choose to live in sparsely populated suburbs with hour-long commutes, where we and our children are deprived of the serendipity that can arise from livelier neighborhoods and unplanned social encounters. We take our families to shopping malls to be swayed by the invisible hand that urges us to consume restaurant meals and purchase toys and movie tickets. We take comfort in our mobile phones that have become a panacea for boredom and awkward pauses in real-life conversations - and in the days of the pandemic, for the prolonged absence of any real-life interactions.

As resistant to loneliness as I am, even I recognize that happiness requires other people. A fruitful first step would be to maximize our exposure to chance social encounters that can grow into quality relationships. Such relationships begin and are nurtured in the communities that we are part of. And these are determined by where we choose to call home.