Can better city design improve your happiness? | Happy City by Charles Montgomery YouTube video by Urban Mobility Explained

Thank you for this terrific visual summary of Happy City, George Liu!

youtu.be/x4Sdtme0dN4?...

Trend in average number of cars per household. City of Paris shown in light blue; Paris metropolis overall in middle blue; Paris metropolis outside of Paris in dark blue.

Trend in gas sales in Paris and the near suburbs, in thousands of tons.

Gas stations in Paris metropolis. Light blue dots show stations that were open in 2024. Dark blue dots show stations that closed between 2019 and 2024.

Paris metropolis: Striking reductions in car use due to proactive efforts to encourage bike, walking, transit:
—Less car ownership: From 0.5 cars/HH in Paris to 0.36, 1999–2022. Outside of Paris: 0.88➡️0.8
—35% less gas sold 2005–24
—15% fewer gas stations between 2019–24
www.apur.org/sites/defaul...

A small group of Canadians are living it up. The rest of us are struggling. Welcome to the K-shaped economy | The Canadian Tax Observatory Since the pandemic ended, life for the wealthy has been a joyride. Life for the rest of us has, more often than not, been a grind.

We are officially living in the K-shaped economy: where the wealthy get richer, and the poor get poorer.

Apart from being unfair, this is a disaster for social trust and societal cohesion.

canadiantaxobservatory.ca/welcome-to-t...

😱

Usually more mixed use neighbourhoods offer more reliable car share throughout the day. What’s going on in that Bermuda triangle?

@feathersmcg.bsky.social

Your Happy City Hero for the day…

The Trust Experiments will be published in January!

We're delighted to be a part of Jessica's new book, 'No Place Like Home: The Missing Key to Our Housing Crisis,' and you can read an excerpt on @thewalrus.ca! Sparking connection and conversations can be as simple as, say, organizing doggy dates or leaving a puzzle in the lobby. 🧩

You could say that pragmatism and acknowledgement of urgency is a key part of critical thinking!

Great thread but this post really got me. We all need to avoid dogmatic thinking. Don’t ever let slogans be a replacement for critical thinking and evidence.

What Urban Planning’s Past Says About Tomorrow’s Cities A new book from Harvard scholar Bruno Carvalho marks the milestones and missteps that have shaped urbanization patterns around the world.

If we don't want to screw up the future of cities, we need to study the (modern) past.

Lovely review of Bruno Carvalho's Invention of the Future by @linpoonsays.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Charlotte, NC, is one of the fastest growing cities in America.

How can Charlotte grow in a way that actually makes residents healthier and happier?

That's what we're talking about at the Charlotte Ideas Festival. Join us April 13!

events.humanitix.com/the-2026-cha...

How Indonesia is Protecting 80 Million Children from Online Harm Their first-of-its-kind regulation cracks down on harmful design and incentivizes safer technology.

Safe streets.
Safe cities.
Safe digital platforms.

They are all part of the same fight. For our kids, and for ourselves, we must demand safe infrastructure.

Indonesia's digital safety law doesn't ban sites. It fights harmful design. This is the way.

open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Bad Housing Is Turning Us into Bad Neighbours | The Walrus We’re growing lonely, with no ties to the people next door

Jessica Barrett charts the connection between crappy modern housing and social isolation.

There's a way out. As @heyneighbourcollective.ca and @happycities.com demonstrate, we can design housing that actually nurtures friendly connections. Read on...

thewalrus.ca/cramped-cond... via @thewalrus

Thank you, Ray!

Phew. I think all three of the publishers of my upcoming book on designing the world for social trust now agree on a title!

We publish in January, 2027. Title reveal coming soon 🤩

It's Possible to Reduce Polarization without Reducing Engagement The results of the Prosocial Ranking Challenge

We all know that social media algorithms deepen polarization.

But this study shows that these sites can be redesigned in ways that reduce polarization -- without losing user attention. So it's a potential win-win for society and for the tech bros.

open.substack.com/pub/rankingc...

😢

Made in Canada: Beachman Electric Bikes has found its winning formula Beachman is redefining what an e-bike can be

Love this visual story of a Canadian company building super sexy e-bikes:

200k range🥳
www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/2d66089...

Welcome to Paris, the City That Said No to Cars Outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo leaves the city more walkable, bikable, greener and cleaner.

Gorgeous and inspiring photo essay on Hidalgo's transformation of Paris into a healthier, happier city (with some caveats)

Gift link to @bloomberg.com story...

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

I love this initiative to combat misinformation and BS in urban realms.

Follow @urbantruth.bsky.social !

Portland has a wonky secret to building cheaper houses. Other cities are copying. Portland legalized fourplexes, tiny houses and backyard homes and then sorted out how to actually get them built.

Portland's move to legalize "gentle housing density" is starting to work, slowly. Bring on the cozy quads!

wapo.st/4rJ66Vt

Thanks for taking the time to explain, I appreciate it!

I appreciate your post and the replies but as a generalist who does knowledge translation for lay people…I can’t get past the economics jargon to understand what you are saying. Is there a way to say this in plain terms?

Despite its growth-including on the social media platforms X (Twitter), Telegram, the Russian-based VK, and Bluesky-the network remains user-unfriendly across all domains and subdomains. For example, it has no search function, a generic navigation menu, and dysfunctional scrolling on many sites and pages. Webpage layout issues and obvious mistranslations persist on the network's sites as well, contributing to appearances that the network is not primarily intended for human consumption. Given what appears to be its small human audience and the massive footprint of the network, we believe the network isn't targeting humans, but an automated audience: web crawlers involved with search engine optimization and scraping algorithms that collect data for training datasets such as those used for large language models. This targeting strategy is a stark departure from other pro-Russia information operations, and one with serious social, political, and technological consequences for the world.

Tricking AI chatbots by lying about hot dogs sounds fun! Now read about a Russian operation with an annual publishing rate of at least 3.6 million pro-Russia articles. It is not designed for access by human eyes which implies it is there to influence AI chatbots
thebulletin.org/2025/03/russ...

The beauty of concrete - Works in Progress Magazine Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.

Why do live with so many bland-looking buildings? It's NOT because ornamentation is expensive. It's because modernists convinced city builders that it was philosophically suspect.

Samuel Hughes shows how ornamentation could be revived, by looking to the past. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-be...

This makes my day. I have admired @fabulavancouver.bsky.social ever since she mentored me as a student reporter at
The Vancouver Sun in the 90s.

Now, our city’s most clear-eyed observer is running for city council. She’s just the combo of pragmatic, compassionate and honest we need.

When Polarization Pays An investigation by Foundation Maldita reveals how creators are incentivized to inflame divisions for profit

How TikTok and other social media platforms reward creators for inflaming division:

Wanna make a load of cash on TikTok? Just use AI to make fake videos of social unrest. Go ahead, inflame both sides. The outrage is the product. open.substack.com/pub/techands...

Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math [ST07] YouTube video by Not Just Bikes

WATCH: If you STILL don’t understand how car-dependent suburbia is HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED by downtown and all the urban parts of your city, watch this EXCELLENT video by #NotJustBikes with #Urban3 & @strongtowns.bsky.social. And PLEASE SHARE it as much as possible.

I’ve sent it to a LOT of politicians.