Urban planning and the pursuit of happiness: European variations on a universal theme (18th-21st centuries)

The ultimate goal of urban planning must always be utopian--to improve the lives of citizens, at work or at play. The course of history shows that notions of civic "happiness" as expressed in urban design can take many different forms, from Baron Haussmann's Parisian boulevards in the nineteenth century to the many urban experiments of the twentieth century. Not that the ideals of planners always match the needs of the inhabitants; as we know, all too often the opposite occurs, and the actual usages of urban space end up undermining the intentions of their original conceptions. Urban Planning and the Pursuit of Happiness assembles 12 case studies culled from various countries and eras, from the Enlightenment to late Modernism, that compare the perspectives of state planners and users of urban space.

Arnold Bartetzky and Marc SchalenbergMascha BispingMohsen Aboutorabi and Andreas WesenerChrista KamleithnerJacek FriedrichAna KladnikMart KalmClarisse LaurasBruno BonomoJacek G&acedil;decki and Christian Smigiel

Shapes of Happiness: Planning Concepts and their Manifestations in Urban Form	p. 6
"Glückselige Städte": Johann Peter Willebrand's Conception of Urban Happiness	p. 18
The Changing Pattern: of Urban Form in Relation to the Perception of Happiness in Georgian Birmingham	p. 34
"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness": Liberalism and the Image of the City in German Planning Theory around 1870	p. 52
The Attraction of Heimat: Homeland Protection in Vienna around 1900, or the Preservation and Reform of the City
Happiness Through Discipline: Soviet Cities in the Travelogues of Foreign Visitors in the Nineteen-twenties and Nineteen-thirties
"... A Better, Happier World": Visions of a New Warsaw after World War Two	p. 98
Happy Living in a New Socialist Town: The Construction, Distribution, Management, and Inhabitation of Apartments in Post-War Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia	p. 116
Does Urban Life Make Farmers Happy?: The Central Settlements of Collective Farms in the Estonian SSR	p. 128
New Horizons: The Representation of Ideal Practices in a Modern City: Firminy-Vert 1959	p. 148
"On Holiday 365 Days a Year" on the Outskirts of Rome: Urban Form, Lifestyles, and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Suburb of Casalpalocco, ca. 1955-1980	p. 168
A Paradise Behind Gates and Walls: Gated Communities in Eastern Europe and the Promise of Happiness	p. 198
List of Authors	p. 218
Image Credits	p. 222

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