Happy Cities resources
Free resources from Happy Cities, packed with urban planning and design strategies for happier, healthier, more inclusive communities.
Happy Cities has conducted wide-ranging research into the most effective planning and design strategies to boost community wellbeing—in housing, neighbourhoods, streets, and public spaces. We’re committed to sharing our learnings so that cities, communities, advocates, and regular citizens have the tools to take wellbeing into their own hands. Our public resources are packed full with actions and ideas, to nurture health, happiness, and inclusion for all community members.
Neighbourhood planning and design
Dementia-inclusive planning and design guidelines: Planning and design strategies to support independence, wellbeing, and social connection for people living with dementia in the neighbourhood built environment.
Community wellbeing assessment tool: Our cutting-edge assessment tool identifies four design realms and over 80 evidence-based design criteria to measure a development’s wellbeing impact.
Placemaking
Rapid placemaking to bring back Main Street: A toolkit packed with design recommendations for low-barrier placemaking initiatives, templates for project planning, and a design thinking path to support the creation of inclusive, welcoming, and vibrant main streets.
Power of placemaking research snapshots: Stories and evidence that prove how community-led initiatives can boost health, resilience, economic vibrancy, inclusion, and social connection.
Housing
Happy Homes: Our pioneering research into design principles and strategies to support resident wellbeing in multi-unit housing.
Building social connections: Case studies, research, and engagement with six Metro Vancouver jurisdictions to inspire socially connected multi-unit housing policies.
Aging in the right place: Design strategies to support wellbeing for older adults in multi-unit housing.
The happier missing middle: Research and stories identifying key design principles, strategies, and policy learnings to enable more socially connected homes, including specific design recommendations for social lobbies, corridors, and parking
Social wellbeing in modular housing: Design and programming recommendations to nurture health and wellbeing for people transitioning out of homelessness and into permanent housing.
Learning from the community connectors: A practice guide for implementing resident-led social programming in multi-unit rental housing.
Resident relocation best practices: Evidence-based recommendations on housing providers can better support resident wellbeing during redevelopment and relocation processes.
Living Together workshop brief: Reflections and ideas around mainstreaming social connectedness in multi-unit housing in the Lower Mainland.
Looking for something else?
Send us an email at info@happycities.com if you have more burning questions about urban design and wellbeing that you want to investigate. Have these resources been helpful for you? We’d love to hear from you!