(La Rambla, Barcelona)
A provocative question from an October post on a great blog: "How do we measure national happiness, well-being, and social capital as they relate to the way we plan our neighbourhoods, towns and cities?"
Vancouver is working on ways to correllate urban form and senses of well-being:
As one of the world’s most livable cities, Vancouver is asking itself what more it can do to provide for physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs. In doing so, it’s adding spirit to the other pillars of a healthy community: complete community (land use, density); healthy mobility (transit); healthy buildings (zero carbon); thriving landscapes (open space); green infrastructure (water, sewers, storm); healthy food systems (organic agriculture, nutrition); healthy community (facilities, programs); and healthy abundance (sustainable economic development).
Advancing the idea of ”spiritual urbanism,” Vancouver’s Healing Cities finds inspiration in the human body’s ability to rebuild, repair and regenerate, and asks what it takes for our cities to heal themselves, and in turn heal us. Oxytocin, the trust hormone, goes up with eye contact. We get a whole lot more of it while walking. Which is just the beginning of balm to the spirit fostered in walkable neighbourhoods.
this is a great post, in it they describe that people were very happy in that palace.
Posted by: rejuv by caci | 12/23/2010 at 00:03
To me, happiness is a measure how much work we have done in relation to how much work needs to be done. Overall, society seems to be happiest when all the proverbial ducks are in a row and things are being taken care of.
We, as citizens of our respective societies, are somewhat responsible for how much is getting done. If we approach all things, even city planning, with this ethic in mind, we can achieve true sustainability and, by proxy, true happiness.
Posted by: Monarchrh | 12/27/2010 at 16:17