Strong Towns Buffalo Book Club: Happy City by Charles Montgomery

Free + open to the public!

Our second book club pick is Happy City by Charles Montgomery.

As more people move back to cities after decades of sprawl, Montgomery asks a simple but big question: does the way we build our streets and neighborhoods actually make us happier? Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, and his own urban experiments, he travels to some of the world's most dynamic cities to find out.

Along the way, you'll meet Bogotá's mayor who used bold bus design to take on status anxiety, an architect bringing lessons from Tuscan hill towns to New York, the activist who turned Paris's riverside freeways into beaches, and everyday American suburbanites who reshaped their lives by rethinking their own streets.

Montgomery's hopeful conclusion: the happy city, the green city, and the low-carbon city are the same place, and all of us can help build it.

Can better design help make Buffalo a happier city? Let's discuss!

📖 Haven't finished the book? Come anyway. All are welcome, whether you've read every page or just the first chapter.