A globe-trotting, eye-opening exploration of how cities canand domake us happier people After decades of unchecked sprawl, more Americans than ever are moving to inner cities, mixed-use suburbs, and densely constructed small towns. Our surroundings have certainly changedbut is city living cheering us up, or are we as gloomy on our walks to the subway as we were on our long, predawn commutes? And if that's the case, how can we turn things around? Charles Montgomery's Happy Cityis a delirious tour through the planet's most exciting (and also most dysfunctional) urban forms. In breezy, vivid prose, Montgomery chronicles his trips to Bogotá, once a dangerous, car-obsessed city, now a bike-loving, bus-riding model of civic excellence; to a Vancouver suburb whose power company gathers thermal energy from sewage to provide heat and hot water for all its citizens; even to California's San Joaquin Valley in the aftermath of the housing crisis, an apocalyptic vision of suburban growth. Full of fascinating historical detail, cutting-edge insights from behavioral economists, and interviews with an array of leading urban thinkers, Happy Cityoffers a completely new way to examine city life, showing us how small innovations can radically alter our experience of city lifeand how they can make us measurably happier. Practical, genial, and fiercely open-minded, Montgomery has written a brilliant book about what today's cities are getting rightand how tomorrow's cities can do even better.