I came across this article in Montreal’s enRoute magazine, and it got me daydreaming about Windsor joining the ranks of the Happy Cities…

The Happy City

From Paris to Bogotá, urban spaces are undergoing a radical transformation with one thing in mind: your well-being.

It is rush hour in central Paris. Late July. Michelle Ueberschlag, a Swiss-born fashion designer, has stripped down to her bikini and settled into her deck chair, smack dab in the middle of the Pompidou expressway.

She squints out past the guardrail at the Seine. With its churning grey eddies, the river is certainly no substitute for the Mediterranean. Why spend the afternoon here?

“Life is easier,” she says with a chuckle.

This is a perfectly reasonable answer, especially right here, near the centre line of a freeway that, at this moment, is not a freeway in a city that has changed its mind about what streets are for.

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And my favourite paragraph from the article, highlighting the French’s way of getting their way with politicians…

These measures are often sold as emergency actions to tackle global warming. In fact, changing the way we design and use public space can change the way we move, the way we treat other people and ultimately the way we feel. Now you might think that Paris had long ago figured out the art of urban joy. But in recent years, residents have become so sick of noise, pollution and congestion that they have thrown their support behind a radical plan by Mayor Bertrand Delanoë to reclaim their streets. By 2012, suburban cars will be banned entirely from the city’s core.

Who knows? Someday, if we all try really hard, maybe Windsor will use our well-being as the benchmark for all our policies.

Tags: revitalization, Urban Design, walkable