In May, Charles Montgomery visited the UCSB campus and participated in walking tours of Isla Vista and Santa Barbara before giving an author talk at Campbell Hall. This winter and spring, the UCSB campus and surrounding community came together through the UCSB Reads program to read Happy City by Charles Montgomery. Several events themed around the book were held on campus leading up to Montgomery’s visit to UCSB, including a book club, a zine workshop, and an exhibit in the library showcasing works from The Catalyst magazine’s “Happy City: Isla Vista” issue.
Montgomery is a Vancouver-based writer and urbanist. His book, Happy City, was published in 2013. In the book, Montgomery brings together diverse fields of study, including psychology, architecture, and city planning, to analyze what makes urban communities successful and pleasant to live in. In short, he asks and answers the question of what makes a happy city.
On the first day of Montgomery’s visit, he joined UCSB students and Santa Barbara community members on walking tours of Santa Barbara and Isla Vista. He applied what he learned about the community’s architecture, city design, and future urban planning visions to his Campbell Hall talk the following night.
Montgomery brought the spirit of community and connection into Campbell Hall with him. He started his talk with an experiment, asking the several hundred people in the crowd to find a complete stranger and have a conversation with them as if they were an old friend who hadn’t been seen in years.
“Ready? GO!” Montgomery shouted, and the hall erupted with chatter and joyous exclamations.
“Okay, stop! STOP!” He called out over the din a few minutes later, after hundreds of perfect strangers had hugged and swapped life updates. “Now, after that conversation, tell me: Do you feel better, or worse?”
“BETTER!” The smiling crowd unanimously replied.
Montgomery outlined the things that make us happy when we live in cities. At the center of it all was connection. Freedom of movement and safe bike infrastructure decrease our reliance on cars and long, solitary commutes. Public outdoor spaces create opportunities for togetherness. Active pedestrian-friendly streets inspire trust in others and casual conversation with strangers. Combating isolation in cities is the biggest way to increase happiness.
Informed by the walking tours, Montgomery shared that Santa Barbara and Isla Vista have “good bones.” State Street in downtown Santa Barbara and Pardall Street in Isla Vista are both examples of thriving pedestrian and bike-focused spaces. Their storefronts on the street level provide “active edges” with visual interest, which encourages people to stop, look around, and have conversations.
Santa Barbara community members are all too aware of the astounding lack of affordable housing in the area. Montgomery talked about how the housing crisis has a domino effect. When people have to live far away from where they work, they become automobile dependent and isolated. Building more and denser housing, including vertical expansion, is one solution Montgomery asked the audience to consider.
Another obstacle faced by the Santa Barbara community is a surplus of empty retail spaces on busy streets, including Pardall and State Street, caused by a mixture of factors including the rise of employees working from home and online shopping, both of which were exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. Empty spaces like this discourage the active edges that are so vital in creating connection in our communities.
In many ways, happy cities are also sustainable cities. Decreasing automobile dependence, ensuring safe and accessible public transportation, and creating robust bike infrastructure all encourage sustainable transportation and reduce carbon emissions and local criteria pollutants . So does building denser housing. City planning is an example of the ways in which a more sustainable life doesn’t have to mean giving things up. It can actually mean making your life happier.
By Caroline Hemphill, UCSB Sustainability Communications and Outreach Coordinator, 2022-2023