Happiness and Urban Environment:

The concept of “happiness” is one of the most popular in psychology, sociology, in the entire complex of the humanities, and even in some areas of economics. The theme of happiness occupies a special place in urban environment studies.

There is no universally accepted definition of happiness. The World Happiness Database contains over 15,000 conceptual publications, almost 18,000 publications on happiness measurement methods, and almost 21,000 publications on issues related to happiness.

With all the variety of existing concepts of happiness, we can extract several invariant qualities of this mysterious phenomenon.

First, happiness has attractiveness. Humans strive for happiness, they are willing to pay for happiness, and happiness is a significant value (in some conceptual systems – the highest value, in comparison with which all other values are only a means).

Second, happiness belongs to the realm of experiences rather than to the realm of thought.

Happiness can be felt, but happiness cannot be thought of. That is, the phenomenon of happiness belongs to a greater extent to the affective sphere than to the cognitive one.

In our research in the field of social psychology of the urban environment, we use the following definition: happiness is an emotional state with maximum attractiveness.

At the same time, we understand emotions as characteristics of the information flow.

Several conclusions follow from this definition.

The distribution of the levels of attractiveness in the space of emotions is purely individual, and the maximum attraction can be in any area of this space.

The number of options for happiness is almost infinite, as is the number of unique individuals.

There are people for whom the emotions of the “conscience, guilt” group are most attractive.

For them, the highest value is a law and order, a sense of regularity and meaningfulness of the surrounding reality, a clear definite place that they occupy in reality.

A comfortable urban environment for such people is characterized by harmony, rhythm and balance, clarity, and orderliness of the urban structure at all levels.

The opposite type of people finds happiness in the field of emotions “fear, excitement, anxiety.” These are people inclined to risk, they find the highest pleasure in gambling, despite of comfortable urban environment.

In the extreme, such people are “adrenaline addicts”, and lovers of extreme entertainment, they despise the laws and are prone to criminal behavior and dangerous adventures.

A comfortable urban environment for such people is motley, contrasting, and saturated with dissymmetrical elements with sharp, convulsive dynamics.

Every area in the space of emotions is someone’s happiness. People who are happy in the field of emotions “joy, pride” often have a bright charisma, but they are also can be arrogant.

People who are happy in the area of “interest, and enthusiasm” are, like curious children, ready for anything for the sake of new experiences and discoveries.

Angry people love conflict, they fight and fight for any reason – simply because they enjoy the emotions of anger and aggression.

Even areas of the emotional space such as “disgust, contempt” or “sorrow, grief” can be someone’s happiness.

There are people (like Shakespeare’s Iago) who enjoy meanness and hideous intrigue, even if these intrigues do not bring them any benefit.

Sad and discouraged people irrespective of the urban environment, cherish their spleen and get real pleasure from the states of grief.

Most people are unaware of the nature of their personal happiness. Usually, a person is unconsciously convinced that it is his ideas about happiness that are normal and natural.

When faced with a different version of happiness, a person perceives it as “abnormal”, or “painful”, or begins to suspect another person of pretense.

In English, the word “happiness” has its own meaning as an area of emotion to the group “joy, pride”, which creates certain inconveniences for discussion.

Therefore, we prefer to use the special term “Felicitas” to denote emotions with maximum attractiveness, and we will use it here.

Also read: URBAN POVERTY, POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT