The Concepts Of Happiness: The Definition Of Urban Happiness

What happiness is? “Are you happy?” is the question I used to ask my friends and colleges What announced me is that no matter what answer people gave at last, almost all of them looked puzzling and been offended at first time. It seems that for most people do not know what happiness is, or they cannot express what they feel the happiness is.

Urban happiness is a concept which can be defined through the observation both of many tangible and intangible aspects of a place and the activities carried out by the people who live and use it. As Lynch (1960, p.1) affirms, “at every instant, there is more than the eye can see, more than the ear can hear, a setting or a view waiting to be explored. Nothing is experience by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings, the sequences of events leading up to it, the memory of past experiences".

Indeed, if happiness is a general concept investigated by philosophers, economists, sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists in different periods, often achieving results only depending by the state – financial, psychological, etc.. of people, the definition of urban happiness – although takes in account elements by different disciplines, assumes its base from the observation of the relationship between people, places and activities.

The intangible qualities of a place consist of all the elements that can be perceived by the senses - smell and noise, but also sensations of touch, sight and taste, of its memory, cultural tradition,