[UPDATED] In Search of the Happy City ⋆ Mississauga Life ✫ Spirit of the City

If you look at the current set of hot topics in urban redevelopment, you’ll find that issues such as mass transit, walkability, sustainability and mixed-use spaces are front-and-centre. While such matters certainly have a significant impact on a city’s livability, they don’t really address what many feel is a far more important subject: the actual happiness of city residents.

There’s no better way to rekindle the soul of a city than to make it a happier place to live, work and play. But what makes for a happy city? What specific things can cities do to make them more vibrant places that people genuinely enjoy? And how can these ideas be put into action?

The work of leading theorists and urban revitalizers including Storm Cunningham, Andr?s Duany, Charles Montgomery, and Guillermo (Gil) Pe?alosa offers many intriguing clues. According to these thought leaders, economic and social capital must be carefully cultivated and properly leveraged to create the kind of atmosphere that truly improves the spirit of a city and the people who live in it.

Storm Cunningham and the “Restoration Economy”
Storm Cunningham is among the world’s leading community revitalization theorists. He has published two highly influential books on the topic: 2002’s The Restoration Economy and the 2008 follow-up, reWealth. His intricate and compelling ideas can be boiled down to one central, unifying principle: outmoded and discredited urban development practices must be jettisoned in favour of sustainable, forward-looking alternatives that take a long-term view and focus on community restoration.

Restoration Economy book cover reWealth book cover According to Cunningham, municipal leaders have long been programmed to do whatever it takes to draw employers to their cities, hoping that the resultant influx of jobs will then have a trickle-down effect and improve overall quality of life. Cunningham believes that this approach is fundamentally flawed. In an interview with urban journalist Michael Scott, Cunningham said, “If one looks at the truly great ‘back-from-the-dead’ stories, we see the opposite strategy at work. Communities that have perpetuated their revitalization for a decade or more focused on improved quality of life first. This attracted high-quality employers that wanted to be there, who didn’t pull up stakes as soon as the freebies ran out. That doesn’t mean that tax incentives aren’t a useful tool, but they shouldn’t be the only tool, and they certainly should not comprise the heart of their strategy.”

So, what is the better path? Cunningham advocates what he calls “renewal partnerships,” in which the public and private sectors cooperate to renew existing municipal assets. He outlines three golden rules of renewal partnerships.

First, they must use assets already in place to generate new wealth; this keeps urban sprawl in check. Second, they must use an integration-based strategy that draws on existing socioeconomic resources instead of looking outside the city to attract new resources. Finally, they must engage all stakeholders—everyone who’s involved in or affected by the project should contribute in some way.

Andr?s Duany and New Urbanism
Andr?s Duany is a central figure in a movement known as “new urbanism.” The fundamental tenets of new urbanism include the creation of enduring neighbourhoods, the prioritization of shared spaces, the reclamation of outmoded assets and the importance of social connections.

In Duany’s new urbanism, “enduring neighbourhoods” are those which have what he calls a “human scale.” Walkability is key, for numerous reasons. First, walkable neighbourhoods are inherently more sustainable. Second, walking promotes interaction with other residents. According to Duany and many other theorists, there is a positive correlation between human interaction and happiness, even if the interactions themselves are fleeting and impersonal. In other words, people are happier when they’re around other people, regardless of the degree to which they may intermingle with one another.

Duany seeks to put that principle to work through the creation of shared spaces. In addition to tried-and-true shared-space standards like parks and squares, new urbanism posits that sidewalks, storefronts, caf?s, porches and rooftops can all be used to facilitate human interactivity. When it comes to urban redevelopment, Duany believes that these principles should be applied to what he calls “reclaimed places” whenever possible. Abandoned buildings and empty commercial sites can be refashioned into mixed-use, mixed-income neighbourhoods, promoting greater levels of social harmony and a stronger sense of community.

Charles Montgomery and the Happy City
In contemporary urban redevelopment theory, the link between happiness and human interactivity shows up time and time again. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of Canadian journalist Charles Montgomery, whose 2013 book Happy City: Transforming Our Lives through Urban Design has already proven highly influential in the brief time since its publication.

Montgomery’s urban design philosophy promotes social interaction at every available opportunity. He wants cities to offer vibrant, mixed-use common spaces, accessible and affordable mass transit, and an end to suburban sprawl. In a 2014 interview with The Globe and Mail, Montgomery said, “My concern is that, in planning cities just for cars, we have stretched our lives across the miles. And it’s that time spent in the commute alone that drains us of the opportunity for social interaction.”

Montgomery also points out that social interaction is a proven driver of urban economic growth. More importantly for him, though, it connects people to their surroundings and builds a stronger sense of community. However, on the subject of high-rise, high-density urban growth, Montgomery has words of caution. “People who live in residential towers are most likely to complain of feeling crowded and lonely at the very same time.” High-rises are the most efficient way to achieve density, but for Montgomery, they require careful attention to design and execution. A balanced approach that uses the full gamut of housing styles, from high-rises to detached single-family dwellings, creates mixed-use neighbourhoods with variation, vibrancy and harmony.

Montgomery’s key overall message is that happy, vibrant, sustainable cities are attainable, but only if policy-makers and citizens work together to achieve a common, shared vision.

Gil Pe?alosa’s Concept of 8–80 Cities
Gil Pe?alosa is the executive director of 8–80 Cities, a Toronto-based non-profit urban development collective. The group takes its name from Pe?alosa’s core belief that if cities work for eight-year-olds and 80-year-olds, they will work for everyone.

According to Pe?alosa, 8–80 cities have four distinctive characteristics. First, they are people-oriented in their design and prioritize what he calls “social equality.” Second, they encourage physical activity through walkable spaces, trail networks, parks, and recreation areas. Third, like many other urban development theorists, Pe?alosa believes that cities should nurture greater levels of social interaction. Finally, they should be accessible by all, regardless of age, gender, socioeconomic status or ethnicity.

[Below is a video of Pe?alosa’s TedX Carlton talk on 8–80 Cities]

Pe?alosa developed these principles during his stint as the Commissioner of Parks, Sport, and Recreation in Bogot?, Colombia, while his brother Enrique was the city’s mayor. Pe?alosa’s team initiated numerous transformative improvements in the city’s recreational infrastructure, including the design and construction of 150 neighbourhood green spaces as well as the revitalization of Simon Bolivar Park, which now draws over 6 million visitors annually. He also created a 91-kilometre network of car-free roads on Sundays, which encouraged more than 1.5 million people to walk, jog, bike and rollerblade through the city each week.

Here in Ontario, Pe?alosa is now leading the Make a Place for People Project, an educational initiative designed to help citizens and municipal leaders transform underused public places and parks into thriving community destinations. The Make a Place for People Project is currently spearheading programs in Thunder Bay, Wasaga Beach, Guelph, Kingston, Toronto and Ottawa. It has also led a redesign and redevelopment of Streetsville’s Main Street Square, which was deteriorating due to underuse for years. The Streetsville program aimed to preserve Main Street Square’s historic character by improving its layout, reducing car traffic and beautifying its neglected elements.

Common Characteristics of Happy Cities
The role of social interaction in urban happiness has been well-documented, but what other specific features do successful cities share?

Going back to the example of Bogot? provides one important clue. As mayor, Gil Pe?alosa’s brother Enrique tried an experiment in 2000, in which he eliminated vehicular traffic from the city’s roads for a 24-hour period. During that 24-hour period, hospital admissions declined by a sharp 33 percent and surveys found that citizens generally felt more optimistic and positive about the city. While eliminating vehicular traffic from roads will never work on a permanent basis, moving towards car-shares and rapid mass transit seems an obvious place to start building a better community.

According to surveys and studies performed in London and Barcelona, walkability and access to affordable housing also show strong positive correlations with boosted levels of urban enjoyment. Mississauga is showing signs of embracing these trends, but decades of urban sprawl and notorious delays in developing mass transit alternatives have left it playing catch-up. Even so, the city is continuing its evolution from a bedroom community of Toronto into a thriving, vibrant and progressive city. Urban development experts like Cunningham, Duany, Montgomery and Pe?alosa have given municipal leaders plenty to think about as they plan their urban transformation.

Like this? Check out more in our series of city-building feature articles:

[UPDATED] In Search of the Happy City

Categories

Recent Posts