Nine ways we can use the power of cities to boost happiness

Vancouver boosts social trust by investing in public spaces like the Robson/Bute Plaza. Image: Alison Boulier/City of Vancouver.

It’s become a spring ritual. Every March, the release of the World Happiness Report — which ranks countries according to citizens’ self-reported life satisfaction — triggers a storm of tweets from pundits bragging or complaining about their place on the list.

And then we all forget about societal happiness for another year.

That’s a mistake. The authors of the report offer a mountain of evidence that human happiness is a much smarter measure of success for cities and nations than just economic growth. Happy people are healthier than unhappy people. They perform better at work. They are less likely to kill themselves — or other people, for that matter.

What are the conditions that predict societal happiness? According to the 2019 World Happiness Report, released this week at the United Nations, wealth does matter, but so does a long and healthy life, and so does the feeling that one lives in a generous society. Freedom to make life choices and freedom from corruption matter, too.

Above all, though, happiness depends on positive social relationships. Happiness used to be seen as a personal pursuit. But scientists are realizing that the environments and systems that surround us have a huge impact. The cities we live in (about 4.2 billion, or 55 per cent of us, as of 2018) are particularly important.

For example, researchers have found that when people move to cities planned around cars, they gain weight; that some public park designs actually repel women and girls; and that drivers in heavy traffic experience the same stress response as fighter jet pilots.

But few of the people who design, plan and run most cities understand the wellbeing connection. We want to change that. Over the past year, dozens of experts have been meeting in Dubai, to explore how lessons from happiness science might be transformed into practical ideas to boost societal wellbeing. We found inspiration from countries around the world, which we rolled into the Global Happiness Policy Report. Some of the ideas and actions have come from governments. Others started at the grassroots.

We’ve gathered some of the most powerful urban happiness actions in a story for the National Post. Read the full story here.