I wish everyone would read this book and come to the realization that living happily in a city requires that city to be built for humans, not cars. Then maybe we'd elect people who are willing to make the necessary changes.

I've never been so excited while in the middle of reading a book. 40% of the way through my library ebook, I bought a physical copy for myself. In the past year or two, my eyes have really been opened to all of the problems with America's urban planning and infrastructure, from zoning to our deference to car culture (eight parking spots for every car in the U.S!!). Charles Montgomery outlines the underlying reasons, based on a variety of studies, that explain why I swoon over transit-friendly, walkable cities with community spaces, mom-and-pop shops, and easy access to nature every few blocks. His many examples of the different world that is possible and the people that strove to make it so give me both hope and extreme jealousy/ a desire to immediately pack up and move to Copenhagen. Very excited to take my many Kindle notes and transform them into real highlights in my new physical copy.

"They realize that the happy city, the low-carbon city, and the city that will save us are the same place, and that they have the wherewithal to create it."

a solid read! well-researched, documented, and narrated. will make you never want to live in a suburb again and definitely had me considering moving to vancouver. for someone who does not have a background in urban planning, the prose was not dense at all and viewing this topic through the lens of happiness economics made the content very approachable. meandered a little in the middle, hence the 4-star, but i recommend!

3.5 really. Interesting take on the sociologies of people and how we prefer to live, yet our town seems to dictate otherwise. Confirms that my little place might just be heaven. Extremely walkable, bikeable, transitable. I see trees out my window rather than skyscrapers. I can sit at just about any coffee shop in my hood and people watch. Now if only I can get my neighbors to tear down those hideous 10 feet tall barricades they call fences so we could actually talk to each other when we garden or play, then maybe they'd realize just how much happier they could be too. The reason I didn't give it 4 or more stars is mainly for the fact of too many asterisks. Seemed like every single sentence had an afterthought. Felt like a huge task to constantly read up and down and up again. So I just stopped reading them altogether by about page 50. It didn't seem to lessen the book in any way, which to me says, he probably didn't need it, his editor asked him to toss it, and he refused (just my thought of course). Either way, it was a bit much.

This book made me look differently at the world. It has the ability to made me appreciate the smart urban aspect of the city I live in while simultaneously making me frustrated while pointing out bad car-centric design.

This book is an eye-opener that everyone that is interested in improving the place they live in should read.

“No age in the history of cities has been so wealthy. Never before have our cities used so much land, energy, and resources. Never before has the act of inhabiting a city demanded converting so much primordial muck into atmosphere-warming gas. Never before have so many people enjoyed the luxury of private domesticity and mobility. De-spit all we have invested in this dispersed city, it has failed to maximize health and happiness. It is inherently dangerous. It makes us fatter, sicker, and more likely to die young. It makes life more expensive than it has to be. It steals our time. It makes it harder to connect with family, friends, and neighbors. It makes us vulnerable to the economic shocks and rising energy prices inevitable in our future. As a system, it has begun to endanger both the health of the planet and the well-being of our descendants.”

Really enjoyed this one, one of my favorite non-fiction reads in recent memory!

I enjoyed this book - however, as a city planning student, much of this information was not new to me, so I hope that didn't color my opinion too much. I think many people would find a great deal of new information in Happy City and I think that more people should read it. Thinking about urban living (or suburban or rural living, for that matter) as a way to increase quality of life should be a standard viewpoint.

I think my favorite parts of the book were the case studies, rather than the historical sessions - although the historical context is absolutely necessary to understand our current situation. I'm glad that the case studies ventured beyond Europe and English-speaking North America to Colombia and Mexico City, but I would have loved to see a few set in China, as they were mentioned in passing several times.

Explanation of my rating, which may seem unfair: I think it is a great book. But I don't personally like it, did not enjoy reading it and actually gave up on it. it was just too depressing for me. The author does a great job at pointing out the ways in which our current urban design makes us miserable, with a wealth of details, stories and theories. I find it great, intellectually. But really too depressing. Maybe the book gets more hopeful, with more ideas of things that can be done, that would make things better. I hope I will have a chance to go back to it and finish it but for now... nope. I don't like it.