To date, the development of individual happiness and wellbeing has dominated much of positive psychology theory and practice, even though the founders of positive psychology, the scientific study of optimal human functioning, referred to producing “knowledge of what makes life worth living” for people, groups, and institutions (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 5). Some observers (e.g., Di Martino, Eiroa-Orosa, & Arcidiacono, Chapter 7 in this volume) have argued that attention needs to shift from researching whether specific psychological interventions have a positive or negative effect, towards an understanding of how differing contexts can determine beneficial outcomes for any intervention (McNulty & Fincham, 2012). It has also been proposed, from a public health perspective, that moving attention away from individual problems toward developing nurturing environments could potentially accelerate progress in promoting wellbeing and reducing mental ill health (Biglan, Flay, Embry, & Sandler, 2012). In short, attending to a multilevel positive social psychology may be crucial to the future of an applied positive psychology (Lomas, 2015).
Happy City set out in 2009 to develop, as its original outline document stated, “a uniquely practical, sustainable and accessible process enabling cities, towns or communities to directly increase happiness through participation, collaboration and celebration.” This chapter aims to share the personal journeys of its founders, Mike and Liz Zeidler. It is a first person case study offering a practical example of positive psychology in action, and an outline of the role that positive psychology and other related disciplines have played in the work that has led to Happy City being hailed as a leading global example of city-scale action for wellbeing.
For the past 60 years, the world has chased the holy grail of GDP growth to bring about “prosperity” and “happiness” in our societies. We have succeeded in growing global economic output by over five times in that period, and have now had over 30 years of almost continual economic growth in the “developed” world. Yet “wellbeing” and “happiness” indices have remained largely flat (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009), inequality has soared, and an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystem services – the natural resources that we rely on to keep the planet working, such as clean air, water, and forests – have been degraded or overused. Our societal focus on GDP growth as a route to happiness simply hasn’t worked in delivering the happiness and wellbeing every human being seeks. We set up the Happy City Initiative to bring together the best of what we had seen and learned from over 40 combined years of community engagement processes, campaigning strategies, the best of design and communication ideas, leadership know-how, and sustainable enterprise models. We wanted to set in motion a bottom up re-focusing towards a shared goal of directly increasing happiness in communities and cities around the world.
As the first decade of the twenty-first century progressed, and with issues of planetary survival and economic meltdown hitting the headlines, talk of increasing “happiness” sounded to many like a pleasant and rather fluffy distraction. What were two professionals, with a long-held commitment to environmental and social justice, doing setting up something about “happiness”? By 2009, however, a growing number of people across all sectors of society were talking about happiness as if it really mattered. Academics, politicians, thought and business leaders, and even economists were starting to talk about the role of a different model, different metrics, and different goals in challenging the system that was leading to the outcomes we were starting to experience all too visibly.
Yet, a lot of this “talk” was at an international or national “top-table” level, with the pace and agenda being dictated by government, academia, or business. To most ordinary citizens, “happiness” is a very personal and local affair. So we wanted to take some of these new, different ideas, and translate them for people who had no interest at all in climate change, new economics, social development models, or politics at large, and to demonstrate that, far from being a distraction, a focus on happiness might be the key to unlocking a new form of sustainable prosperity for all.
It always seems to surprise people when we tell them that we’ve had 60 years of nearly constant economic growth, but that happiness and wellbeing measures have hardly improved at all in that time. Yet, these two observations are far from being unrelated. Constant growth (as opposed to steady prosperity) requires each of us to be constantly a little bit unhappy – to be just sufficiently dissatisfied with what we have, to think we always need more to be happy. Not just that we need things, but that we need more things this year than last, more next year than this, and so on (in essence, this is what perpetual GDP growth means). But there is a contradiction at the heart of this model. If more stuff makes us happy, when we have that more stuff, we should be happier, more satisfied, and so desire less additional “stuff.” But that doesn’t produce constant growth in consumption (i.e., GDP growth), so something needs to be added to the system to stimulate this “want.” Our whole system, therefore, is designed around stimulating this unnatural desire. Advertising, competition, hierarchical organizational models, confrontational politics, lifestyle TV, consumer electronics and other “toys,” unachievable lives portrayed in every media outlet. The list could go on. We are “hooked on unhappiness” – we need to be artificially drip-fed enough dissatisfaction to keep us on course as ever more keen consumers. Happiness must always appear to be just over the horizon, and more “stuff” must be the pathway to it. That’s the deal; it’s no coincidence, but the prerequisite for continual economic growth. This is almost perfect “negative psychology,” right at the heart of our social system.
Fortunately, though, whilst there is no correlation between increasing happiness and perpetual economic growth, there is a strong correlation between happiness and improvements in health, education, and the environment, and reductions in crime and inequality. Plus, rather usefully, that correlation corresponds to a two-way causal relationship – happier people and populations consume less natural resources, learn better, work more productively, creatively, and collaboratively; they are healthier, less likely to be violent or act criminally, less dependent on welfare (Lyubomirsky, 2008) … and we could go on. Improving society and solving major social problems makes people happy, and making people happy improves society, substantially reducing many social problems. This isn’t fluffy stuff. Happiness isn’t just a pleasant outcome, or even “just” the ultimate goal for society (though it is both of those) – it is also the route to solving most of our most critical challenges – locally, nationally, and globally. If we’re to solve global poverty, or global warming, we in the “developed” world simply need to consume less.
When we reject the assumption that the route to happiness is via increased wealth and greater consumption, and focus instead on the real pathways to happiness, we necessarily and naturally (and happily) consume less. You can ask (and we have) someone in inner-city Glasgow, rural Botswana, Palestine, Poland, or Bristol what they think are the ingredients for happiness, and the answers they’ll share are remarkably similar. You’ll hear talk of family, friends, and community. A sense of belonging, purpose, and value will be high on the list. Getting outside, living in a clean environment, having opportunities to interact and get involved, being active, learning, using your strengths and growing, helping others and being helped; all of these support happiness. Readers will recognise this list from their personal as well as academic experiences. It forms the backbone of almost all theories of wellbeing, positive psychology included. And yet, none of these things needs much “stuff.” A long-term, happiness-inducing lifestyle is both low-carbon and relatively low-cost.
The pathways, these fields of interest, and the growing challenges of society, were all beginning to merge. Could it be that this simplistic measure, GDP, which had been placed almost accidentally at the heart of our economic and social system in the first half of the last century, had skewed the system to such a degree that our happiness, wellbeing, equality, justice, and even long-term survival were being put at risk? As more and more people seemed to be coming to this conclusion in their different ways, we felt inspired to act. But instead of using the not insignificant networks we already had, locally, nationally, and globally, to create a top-down, policy-led change, we decided to start where we were: here, in our home town of Bristol, with a people-led “public inquiry into what works.” What helps to build happier people, happier places, and, ultimately, a happier planet? What if we were to find out, right here, that we had a model that others could learn from, adapt, develop, and run with elsewhere?
And so began the Happy City journey.
Happy City set out to develop an engaged, real-world, bottom-up approach. At an early event we attended, a leading positive psychologist, hearing our plans, suggested that we were offering positive psychology coaching at a community scale. Yet, in many ways our approach has been a response to the abstract, reductionist approach of traditional positive psychology, which often takes laboratory psychology studies of wellbeing and happiness and conflates their applicability into complex human systems without proper “real-time” feedback and learning.
The problem with a laboratory approach is that it doesn’t take into account that the real world is messy. For positive psychology to be applicable to the real-life challenges we saw in communities, we needed to add other principles, including systems thinking, solutions focus, diversity, and inquiry. Happy City takes an action research approach and attempts to continuously test positive psychology principles in the real world and with real communities. This is a shift from the scholarly pursuit of knowledge to be later tested in practice towards a practical, experiential approach that seeks to comprehend situations and share learning, rather than to create knowledge. Knowledge as a construct most often seeks to represents “truth” or “fact,” and can actually obstruct progress because it becomes static and needs to be defended by its proponents. Conversely, comprehension – a word derived from the Latin, comprehensionem, which means “a seizing” – is an ongoing, inclusive, and embracing process that recognises that the context within which we understand multiple worldviews and experiences is constantly evolving. Attempts to create universal truths are necessarily limited and can even misguide. What is needed, we would argue, are practically useful – even if imperfect – models that can help us navigate the practical pursuit of building a better world for all, including at city-wide levels.
The imperfect Happy City model, rather aptly, is often described as a three-legged stool. It combines campaigns and projects to inspire and communicate the shift; training, research, and consultancy to embed the skills and the capacity across organisations and communities; and new measures of success for cities everywhere to reset the dial and guide a different form of policy- and decision-making. It sets out to offer these elements within an interwoven systemic solution, each feeding into and developing the other, and supporting a shift of thinking and action at all levels: individual, community, and city.
It was clear that after we had been “hooked on unhappiness” for well over 60 years, it was going to take quite a bit of effort to quit our addiction. Everywhere we look, every magazine and billboard, every doom and gloom headline, every point scoring political jibe, is telling us we’ll be happy when we have a new hairstyle, or a new car, or a new government … We are drip-fed fear, blame, and a sense of lack. We needed to start to change that lens, change the narrative, and change the question. We were, and still are, inviting people to redefine prosperity. If prosperity means to flourish and to thrive, then people of all economic levels can demonstrate prosperity (and, for that matter, people of all economic levels can demonstrate poverty). But we needed to use some of the very same mechanisms that have been used so successfully to make us all exceptionally good consumers, to help us seek out for ourselves, not more “stuff,” but more of the stuff that brings us real, lasting, and shared happiness.
Such a shift in focus needed to engage people at a deeply personal level, and yet also needed to create a momentum of its own, to support a collective sense of the possible. Our very first campaign invited people to “Live More, Share More, Enjoy Life, For Less.” It was, as one local politician said at the time, a “radically simple plan to grow happiness one city at a time.” From the outset, we engaged with leading designers and branding and communication experts. Many stepped forward to offer their support pro bono, having, as one put it, become disillusioned with “designing for landfill.” We wondered: How could their skills help us experiment in communities? How could we encourage people to play with and share the ideas at the heart of positive psychology, Appreciative Inquiry, systems thinking, and sustainable development? And so we set out experimenting in partnership with individuals, organisations, and communities across a city. This involved social media campaigns, pop-up events, week-long roadshows, and other projects using film, music, food, faith, poetry, and art.
We weaved ideas about a strengths-based approach into the language we used. We held events that encouraged people to explore for themselves what they already knew and practised that supported resilience and connection. Working with schools, businesses, prisons, politicians, refugees, and citizens, we explored gratitude, savouring, mindfulness, and emotional agility. Some things worked, while others simply didn’t spread. Lots of learning emerged. We discovered that in order to take root and ripple out into communities of every age, background, and experience, projects needed to be adaptable, accessible, and contextual, yet with a universal human “draw” at their core. Our own processes needed to be easily “got” by the many, whilst prompting thinking and pause. The best ideas could be owned by anyone and replicable by all. Questions were, and remain, at the heart of all our communications. What brings lasting happiness? What matters? What works?
So, what have we found whilst talking, working, playing, listening, growing, learning, writing … with real people in real communities, who have no interest in policy, papers, and measurements? We found that every community is like a stone you find in a corner of a garden – it can seem lifeless and still from the outside, but when you invite local people to lift the lid, you see a huge ecosystem of life, and quickly start uncovering what’s working, what local inspirations and activities are already growing happiness, improving health, supporting learning, connecting people, supporting the vulnerable…. When people are encouraged to take pride in this and to shout about it – cross-pollinating ideas and resources, helping people to make more connections – then great things happen. Our inventions simply tap into the passion and energy of people across the city, to light the touch paper on projects involving art, music, faith, business, sport, food, schools, walking, history … with happiness.
You can ask people on the street if they are passionate about green issues, about social justice, about local development, or about football, food, or fashion. For every yes, you’ll get a dozen noes. All topics divide as much as they connect, yet happiness is something common to everyone. People in every corner of the globe want happiness: for themselves, their families, and their community. Happiness is an umbrella that encompasses so much positive human activity. It is a shared purpose and goal for people of all backgrounds, outlooks, beliefs, ages, and passions. Our happiness is inter-connected and inter-dependent with each other and the planet – locally, nationally, and globally. When it comes to happiness, we really are – to quote former UK Prime Minister David Cameron – “all in this together.”
With awareness comes hunger. As we have raised interest and curiosity about the role of happiness and wellbeing, so have we seen a growing appetite for practical skills and capacity building in organisations and communities. Indeed, by 2011 it was clear there was a strong role for training across the full spectrum of the city system. In partnership with a range of experts in community development and experiential learning, we developed a number of training programmes which we have since delivered in schools, community buildings, health centres, businesses, banks, prisons, and universities.
First, we developed an introductory workshop called Five Ways to Wellbeing, which we have delivered in places as diverse as the BBC, a bank, a housing association, a prison, community centres, health authorities, refugee centres, and school staff rooms. It has proved exceptionally popular as a means to open up to people the mere possibility that their happiness and resilience might lie, at least in part, in their hands. Using simple experiential learning methods, the workshop has inspired individuals and whole organisations to change long-held patterns and set up new processes and projects. Workshop attendees have set off determined to change their own life patterns and to help friends, family, and colleagues to do the same. The materials we developed, in partnership with the local Public Health team, were packaged up into something called The Little Book of WoW (Ways of Wellbeing; Happy City Initiative, 2013), which has become one of the most popular publications ever produced by Bristol City Council.
More recently, we have been invited to develop 5 Ways to Wellbeing programmes and materials for the city’s 140+ walking groups, and developed a set of materials to share the ideas within the 5 Ways to Wellbeing in Prisons. The latter resulted in the “Plan B” programme, which was co-created with prisoners to offer a broad range of wellbeing and resilience tools that are achievable even within the confines of a prison cell, and this work is now attracting nationwide attention. We are currently following a similar co-creation process to develop materials and training programmes for use within older communities. Work on the ‘Little Book of AWE’ (Ageing Well Everyday), was completed in late 2016.
Our longer programmes, Happy Schools and Happiness Habits – the latter in partnership with leading positive psychologist Miriam Akhtar (2012) – were piloted between 2011 and 2015, and have had impressive initial results. We were perhaps most proud that they successfully provided a really accessible yet impactful learning experience for people from diverse communities and of varied educational and mental health backgrounds. We worked with participants from 19 to 62 having nine different first languages, and were successful at embedding the 10 “habits” we were introducing: savouring, gratitude, using strengths, meaning and purpose, nurturing relationships, optimism, building resilience, movement and mindfulness, goals, and kindness. These programmes were powerful, but also resource-intensive to deliver, and we struggled to find a way to scale them up without either diluting their quality, or focusing only on those who could most afford them, but were not always the most in need. We had to find another way to deliver the real city-scale “capacity building” we sought.
So, we have come to see our role going forward as that of “door openers.” We are focussing on reaching those communities where people would not naturally seek out wellbeing training, sign up to a mindfulness class, or attend a positive psychology talk. Rather than supporting individuals, person-by-person, to gain a deep understanding of wellbeing, we are aiming to support the development of nurturing environments, which could potentially accelerate progress in promoting wellbeing and reducing mental ill health (Biglan, 2015). We have distilled the learning from all of our training work into something we can seed into the very fabric of a city, to support the “rippling-out” of these skills that can support the conditions for communities to thrive together. Our new approach seeks to help individuals and groups to take their first tentative steps towards embracing their own capacity to develop happiness, wellbeing, and resilience.
This work is now coming to fruition through a simple but powerful “Wellbeing Champions” programme that can be delivered on a substantial scale around the UK, and, most importantly, can be seeded into every sector of a city “system.” What would be different if every business, health centre, school, and charity had an accredited Wellbeing Champion, able to deliver introductory wellbeing and resilience training to their staff, students, patients, and service users? What would be different if our small team of Happy City Trainers supported these champions with top quality materials, coaching, and on- and offline support and connection?
All our front-line experience tells us that the simplest messages that are embedded in the best of positive psychology are best shared by those already trusted in communities – by work colleagues, health workers, housing support workers, and community group leaders. By making Wellbeing Champions out of those who already have the ear of those most in need of wellbeing and resilience, we open the door to curiosity to grow, and others to step in and fulfil this growing appetite for further learning.
We now see our capacity building role as that of enablers. We help individuals and groups to see that proactive wellbeing development is both possible and highly achievable, and seed the idea that there is much more to be learned by exploring the worlds of positive psychology and wellbeing literature and practice. We will switch on the lights across cities and point the way for those who can keep them burning brightly.
We recognised from the outset that we couldn’t talk about the destructive impact of having GDP growth as a driver of city decision-making without offering a powerful and practical alternative. So we began work, very early on, with a range of local, national, and international experts in the fields of wellbeing and new measures of prosperity. The Happy City Index project emerged from that work, in partnership with the New Economics Foundation, as well as a range of universities, leading thinkers and policymakers from around the world. It is the world’s first city-wide, comprehensive measure of happiness and wellbeing. We hope it will help play a part in revolutionising how cities develop across the world.
Given that our campaigns, projects, events, training, and development work have all worked to support individuals, organisations, and communities to understand better what they could do to develop lasting happiness, wellbeing, and resilience, perhaps it is time to focus cities on the things that they do to help create the conditions for people to thrive. It is becoming increasingly clear that local governments, and cities in particular, are the front line for wellbeing work. By 2050 it is expected that 75% of the world’s populations will live in cities, and whilst national policies can help (or hinder) the conditions for wellbeing, it is local government that will be in the driving seat of actions to support its development. Yet, local government can’t do this alone. All stakeholders – in the public, private, and voluntary sectors, as well as individual citizens – need to be enabled to better understand their role in improving their own wellbeing and that of their communities. It was clear throughout our work that these parties typically do not have the information at a local scale to help them do that.
As with all our projects, we were determined from the outset that the Happy City Index would be as useful to the most marginalised person in the city as it was to the mayor. So we set about working with communities to explore what really mattered to them, what the ingredients are for lasting wellbeing, and what helped support the conditions in communities to enable them to develop it. We then took that learning, gathered both from global “experts” and local communities, and have developed a set of tools which together help individuals, communities, and policymakers across a city to evaluate and improve wellbeing.
This “toolbox” combines a number of different elements. First among these is the Happy City Index, a basket of pre-existing big data on the drivers of wellbeing (such as employment, education, health, environment, culture, security, etc.). The Index seeks to answer the question, “Are the ‘conditions’ right in a city for people and communities to thrive?” It helps focus policymakers’ minds on whether we have the basics right. What sort of health service delivers proactive wellbeing over and above reactive illness support? What sort of education system develops independent, socially aware, confident, and caring young people? What is the role of business in creating meaningful jobs that provide a living wage and purposeful products and services? How do we value green space and culture and the role they play in supporting the wellbeing of people in a city? And the list goes on. The Happy City Index “basket” of wellbeing drivers brings together a vast swathe of research into what supports the happiness of people, place, and planet, and helps city leaders see how each community is doing in creating the right conditions for its inhabitants to flourish. Importantly for long-term wellbeing, it balances these determinants of wellbeing with concern for (in)equality and environmental sustainability. It aims to ensure that overall wellbeing gains are not made at the cost of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid, nor at the cost of the capacity for wellbeing of future generations. The Happy City Index is therefore a measure of the conditions for sustainable wellbeing for all. The first set of results for England’s Core Cities was published in 2016.
The second element, which sits alongside the first, is the Happiness Pulse, a fully validated, interactive survey to measure how citizens are feeling and functioning in their lives and communities. Unlike many traditional forms of evaluation or measurement, which are often “done to people” in a very extractive process, the Happiness Pulse allows people to explore for themselves, through a range of questions, elements of positive psychology and wellbeing research. It is divided into three main domains – covering Be, Do, and Connect. These domains emerged from both the academic validation work carried out by Bristol University into the survey framework, and the feedback of citizens on the most intuitive way of clustering the different elements of wellbeing being measured. These domains equate, loosely, to mental and emotional wellbeing (Be), behavioural wellbeing (Do), and social or relational wellbeing (Connect). This framework helps people explore both how they feel about their own wellbeing, their sense of purpose, belonging, resilience, optimism, and so on; what sorts of actions they take that support their wellbeing – their physical vitality, their opportunities to learn and be involved; and their connections – to friends and family, and to their wider community. As they complete the survey, participants get their own results in an accessible and dynamic format, and are then invited to explore accessible ways to develop their wellbeing.
Importantly though, the Happiness Pulse isn’t just an individual wellbeing tool. It is attracting interest from businesses, government health and education bodies, and community associations as a means to understand the wellbeing needs of their staff, patients, participants, and other stakeholders, but also their own impact, as organisations, on people’s lives. As these organisations use the Pulse to either map the wellbeing strengths and needs of their constituents, or to measure the before and after social impact of their work, they are better able to focus their resources on the things that most benefit the fundamental elements of society. In this way, not only do we believe the Happiness Pulse tool will help individuals understand, track, and improve their wellbeing, but it will also help all sectors of society to start valuing wellbeing, and focusing time and resources on it as a goal of their work. Now that really does start sounding like positive psychology for whole cities.
Finally, of course, by combining these elements of rigorous representative data on the conditions needed at a city and neighbourhood level for people to thrive with the reality of wellbeing and resilience across a city, there emerges a powerful picture to drive policy improvements at every level. The evidence from our first pilot of the Index in 2015, and a larger scale one in 2016, shows real grounds to hope that the project can provide a tangible alternative to traditional narrow economic measures as the primary “goal” of policy at all levels of our lives.
As interest in the Happy City measurement and policy work grows, we are beginning to get support to develop it further. We have already produced and trialled a Happy University Index, with a bespoke Pulse to allow academic institutions to better understand the wellbeing of their students. We have received interest in similar tailored versions for housing, culture, positive ageing, and other sectors. We are also working on using social media and gaming techniques to help people co-create an interactive and live “map” of the city through the lens of happiness.
Finally, to ensure that the vast and detailed datasets that emerge from the Index start to offer real and viable alternative goals for city policymakers, we have developed a Wellbeing Policy Tool, called WellWorth. This helps “translate” wellbeing data into outcomes in all other areas of local government. What impact does a rise in belonging have on levels of crime? How can worthwhile work or a sense of greater purpose improve the economic output of an area? How much money is saved by mental health services following a 2% increase in life satisfaction in a local neighbourhood? These are the sorts of questions that can begin to unlock the potential for wellbeing measures, and thus wellbeing work, to become mainstream enough to start influencing policy in every part of our society.
After nearly seven years of experimentation, learning, and inquiry, we believe that Happy City is in an exciting position. The political, social, and environmental stars are aligning. Calls for new measures of progress, and tools to drive deeper social change, are becoming louder and louder, and are starting to come, not just from the “visionaries,” but also from disillusioned establishment figures and those on the front line who just wish to make a difference. The social need for a wellbeing approach to policy and practice is growing increasingly apparent as mental illness, social unrest, social division, inequality, isolation, and distrust grow inexorably each year.
Happy City, in collaboration with an extraordinary array of individual and organizational partners, is emerging from its chrysalis stage, ready to share its approaches with communities and cities, not just in the UK but increasingly around the world. The humble three-legged stool is emerging as a powerful three-engined, system-changing process. The journey to this point, though, has not been linear. It has been built on research and practice in the real world; a messy space where people and places are unpredictable, contradictory, and intriguing. So the steps outlined above were often two forward and one back. Or, perhaps more realistically, three to the side, two forward, a pause for breath, a quick scamper onwards, and the occasional retreat. We look forward, not to “revealing the final answer,” but to sharing our learning, creating some guidebooks and reviews for those who would like to follow this path, and continuing the adventure of finding practical, inspiring, accessible, useful, and shareable ways to spread the habits for a happier life as far and wide as our imaginations and capacities will allow.
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