The Key to Happiness in Cities: Social Connections and Sustainable Urban Design

In today's world, more than 50% of the population lives in cities, as stated by Costa and Oliveira in

“Human, Smart Cities.” This cumulation of population in smaller areas may cause some dissatisfaction

among a critical portion of its dwellers. As factors may differ, so do the solutions. The path to satisfaction in

city populations might be coming from addressing the causes first. In the writing

“Happiness Is Not for Sale: Public Spaces in Urban Places,” it is stated that modern cities fail to address

many of people’s basic psychological needs, such as watching and interacting with others in order to be a

part of a community and to obtain human connections. This point of view has an objective aspect, which

connects to a research by Easton in 2006. This means that social connectedness is a significant factor to

happiness and satisfaction in cities. Social connectedness is a need that is a result of humans being

inherently social animals, which are unable to thrive without human interaction. This need could be satisfied

by making cities more active by creating recreational areas such as parks, gardens, open markets, bazaars,

etc. These areas would be public meeting areas for public sport activities, concerts, and theatrical events.

This wide range of options may result in new friendships, romantic interests, etc., which would not only

socialize people with their relatives but with new people, total strangers, as well. Creating open areas would

have an additional positive impact as a bonus. This positive impact is the effect of clean air that is lingering

in lungs. As many people know, breathing deeply or walking in parks is an effective way to relieve stress and

to clear the mind for a more positive approach in life.

As result of rapid and uncontrollable development of cities, ugliness would be an inevitable

result. The ugliness came in many shapes, such as pollution, flawed city planning, crimes, bad and

unsuitable architecture, and the list goes on. To clean and terminate ugliness, and ideally achieve beauty,

these factors should be dealt with beforehand. Pollution and flawed city planning problems could be solved

together because pollution of air, water, sound, and streets are all a result of bad city planning. One solution

that could work is urban renewal of cities, which would mean that infrastructure that caused the pollution of

all kinds would be destroyed and renewed. The general destruction and reconstruction of urban areas would

make a better urban plan possible to design and apply.

To resolve crimes, a huge factor of unattractiveness in cities, first city police must be more

integrated into the city life itself, which would be a bit dystopian for some of its dwellers. However, some

dissatisfaction to achieve a better city for the majority is needed. Also, to give an example, in Çinçin in

Ankara, Turkey, both of these problems—crime, bad city planning, and pollution—were a huge part of the

lives of its residents. Despite the difficulties, with the collaboration of local and central governments in

2010, these problems were resolved. The people since 2010 have been happier.The last factor of ugliness to

talk about and address is unsuitable architecture. This may be a relatively easy problem to resolve because

it is not directly connected to people but is connected to the regulations and laws of the city. As stated in the

video “How to Make an Attractive City” by the channel “The School of Life”, presented by De Botton in 2015,

the contrast and the balance between small and big is an advisable aspect of suitable architecture.

In conclusion, to satisfy its dwellers, cities should have several properties and aspects, such as

being attractive and sociable for their residents. With proper investments and regulations by governments

and capital holders, these are accessible and relatively easy to achieve.