#the happy city

[whilereadingandwalking]

I wanted to like The Happy City by Elvira Navarro more; after all, I picked it up in a bookstore in Spain, and those memories are precious—I hoped to make this a souvenir. The writing is good, and the story is compelling, but both novellas feel vaguely unsatisfying in their current forms. I liked their ideas, their tone, the way Navarro wanted to touch on the teen angst, the disillusionment, etc. But ultimately both simply—ended. Both felt like introductions to a protagonist, both ended abruptly. The second had more of an arc, the first was connected small tales of a young boy’s life. But neither really made it there for me. I’ll have to try another book from Navarro.

[davidpotash]

Happy Cities: Hedonic Studies and Engineered Environments

Happy Cities: Hedonic Studies and Engineered Environments

Canadian journalist Charles Montgomery is an outstanding publicist for cities and all things urban. In his recent book, The Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, Montgomery extols the benefits of density, mass transit, and mixed used development. He argues that the ultimate aim of cities since ancient Athens has been the transformation personal happiness into concrete forms.…