Happy City
by Charles Montgomery · first published 2013
67% recommend33% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Explores how city design shapes happiness, drawing on research and everyday examples. An accessible, down-to-earth take on urban planning for general readers interested in new urbanism and good places to live.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…much more expensive due to, for example, the amount of pipe and construction labor required per resident. (edit): I wanted to add a book recommendation for anyone interested in this stuff. It's called Happy City by Charles Montgomery. It speaks to the history of suburban America, and explains why suburban cities are the way they are.
on “2017 State of Global Tech Salaries” ↗For those who are interested in what makes a great town, I recommend two books: Happy City by Charles Montgomery, and Strong Towns by Charles Marohn. Both were red pill/blue pill books for me on what makes a great city. When my wife and I moved we completely changed what we were looking for…
on “Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US” ↗Happy City is one of the better "published in the last year" books on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Happy-City-Transforming-Through-Design...
on “Why Loneliness Matters in the Social Age” ↗"Happy City" by Charles Montgomery brings an interesting angle on the typical urban planning story by focusing largely on how we can plan cities and communities to maximize happiness. In the book, he discusses that…
on “Zero energy ready homes are coming” ↗Anyone interested in nature in cities, urban planning and new urbanism should vhe l out "Happy City" by Charles Montgomery. A really enjoyable read.
on “An old idea to make cities more pedestrian-friendly: pedestrian scrambles” ↗…and living in Italy, and 8+ years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I liked how this article provided clear examples of what's different, and what's important, about a city. A great book I'd recommend is Happy City, by Charles Montgomery. [0] It will most likely change your perspective on how a city should be, but often isn't. [0]: https://thehappycity.com/the-book/
on “Barren American Suburbs” ↗You might enjoy the book Happy City, by Charles Montgomery.
on “You'd Be Happier Living Closer to Friends. Why Don't You?” ↗Walkable City and Happy City are also both fairly good books. Walkable City is better in terms of suggesting actual changes, but Speck's tone is unrelentingly unconstructive. Happy City is better on tone (passing a low bar there),…
on “What Snow Tells Us About Creating Better Public Spaces” ↗…talking about the common strip mall, cul-de-sac suburb type that isn't this. There's studies that show that these poorly built suburbs discourage walking and negatively affect health. Pick up the book Happy City if you're interested. It discusses how the differences in design of cities has implications on people's lives
on “Master Plan, Part Deux” ↗"Happy City" (mentioned in the article) is a terrific book, and surprisingly down-to-earth.
on “The hidden ways that architecture affects the way you feel” ↗…Walkable City! For everyone saying that the conclusions in the post are obvious, it apparently wasn't obvious enough that in the US, many cities are built for cars and not people. Another good book is 'Happy City' although I liked Walkable City more. https://www.amazon.com/Happy-City-Transforming-Through-Desig...
on “Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?” ↗…continued reading. I'm interested to see what the HN community considers the top books of all time to add to my list, both fiction and non-fiction. My current list is as follows (no particular order): 1: Happy City (Charles Montgomery) 2: Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) 3: Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl) 4: Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Peter Thiel) 5:…
on “Ask HN: I have no commitments for the next 6 months – what books should I read?” ↗…but they serve as a reasonably comprehensive answer to this question: * http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp... (Warning: Speck's tone is pretty bad.) * http://www.amazon.com/Happy-City-Transforming-Through-Design...
on “What Snow Tells Us About Creating Better Public Spaces” ↗This is an edited extract from Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_City
on “City life is as much about moving through landscapes as being in them” ↗That sounds like a nightmare. Charles Montgomery wrote a book, The Happy City, about how urban design affects people. He cited multiple studies that showed that long commutes are very detrimental to people's happiness. Long commutes dramatically increase divorce rates for example.…
on “The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute” ↗