CAPS-ACÉAU 2015

What is the future of your city—of all cities around the world? How can the design and planning of a city affect how happy its inhabitants are? Urban experimentalist Charles Montgomery presents a message that is as surprising as it is hopeful. Doomsayers have warned that action to tackle the urgent challenges of climate change and energy scarcity will lead us into decades of hardship. But, in this talk, he looks to cities around the world that are doing it right, and he points to powerful evidence that suggests the opposite: that the green city, the low-carbon city, and the happy city are the same place. Drawing on his own experiments within cities, and using his deep understanding of history, neuroscience, psychology, and cultural studies, Montgomery presents a picture of flourishing cities, and of everyone—from governments to corporations to citizens—working together to make it happen.