There are 13 chapters in Charles Montgomery’s new book – Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. 
For the next 13 days of Price Tags, selected quotes from each chapter – today ‘The City has always been a happiness project’:
One thing is certain: we all translate our own ideas of happiness into form.
The search shapes cities, and cities shape the search in return.
… the landscape now commonly known as suburban sprawl … has some roots in the American notions of independence and freedom. But those roots go deeper, tapping into a particular way of thinking about happiness and the common good that reaches all the way back to the Enlightenment. …
It is as much the result of zoning, legislation, and lobbying as a crowded city block . It did not occur naturally. It was designed. …
The question then is, how can real designs in real places infuse life with the sensual and sensory pleasures we often pay to experience? Should they even try?
The city is not merely a repository of pleasures. It is the stage on which we fight our battles, where we act out the drama of our own lives. …. The good city should be measured not only by its distractions and amenities but also by how it affects this everyday drama of survival, work, and meaning.
When it comes to life satisfaction, relationships with other people beat income, hands down.
Happiness is a house with many rooms, but at its core is a hearth around which we gather with family friends, the community, and sometimes even strangers to find the best part of ourselves.
It is good to see “hearth” evoked to apply to happiness and local communities. I use it to promote a reverse of most people’s bias toward the global vs. the local, and the need to “nest” one various scales of life: personal, household, block, neighbourhood, city-region, nation-state, and global last. Just as heat dissipates with distance, warmth (acceptance, support, caring) declines with distance (geographic scale) as well; at least it should. Time scales also work in parallel (shorter times and durations for the more local). Thus being “grounded” is important to happiness, making sure it is rooted in unchangeable values and meaningful experiences.