Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's On the Ground Kalamazoo series.

KALAMAZOO, MI — All the streets and roads, sidewalks and bike lanes, parks and parking lots, dense urban areas, and dispersed suburban sprawl, all of what's called our built environment, impact our emotional lives.

The environment we deal with every day can lead to depression, loneliness, stress, and anxiety. Sprawl contributes to separation from friends and loved ones. People develop a lack of trust in their fellow neighbors. They stop engaging in their communities, pay less attention to local happenings, and become cynical.

That's much of the thesis behind "Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design"  (2013, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Canadian author Charles Montgomery.

The City of Kalamazoo has been looking at Montgomery's theories. The Imagine Kalamazoo 2035 planning committee used his book for the first Imagine Kalamazoo Reads community read. 

Second Wave spoke with Montgomery before his talk on happy cities at the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre on Friday, Jan. 31.

Trust and oxytocin

At the start of his talk the Civic, Montgomery had audience members turn to people they didn't know and greet them as if they were old friends who hadn't seen each other since the beginning of the pandemic.

A friendly hubbub broke out in the theatre as people shook hands, learned names, and asked each other what they'd been up to these days.

The exercise is so jovial, it takes a while for Montgomery to regain control. 

He then asks how people felt after — worse, the same, or better than before. Most in the audience say they felt better.

Neil Conway, City of KalamazooA packed audience attended the City of Kalamazoo event featuring "Happy Cities" author Charles Montgomery.This is an experiment that's been repeated and usually gets the same result, he says. "Most people... report feeling better after having that experience of connection with a stranger, a trust-building experience. And what's going on there?"

When we have positive interactions with strangers, our brain sends us a reward, he says — oxytocin.

"You love this molecule because it is what creates that warm and loving feeling between mother and child, even when the kid is screaming and you wish you were alone. All of us get little hits of oxytocin every time we have a trust-building encounter."

It's "an evolutionary response to social connection," Montgomery says. 

Mark WedelCharles Montgomery, author of "Happy Cities," outside the Kalamazoo Civic TheatreThroughout his talk, Montgomery showed that much of the built environment breaks those social connections, deprives us of that little reward, and leads to stress and anxiety. But there are ways to encourage connection, that have been working, intentional or not, in cities around the world.

In working on "Happy City," he delved into studies on neuroscience and environmental psychology, to "see where these sciences intersect with city planning and place-making."

Montgomery showed a slide of the oxytocin molecule, a massively sprawling thing that he says is tattooed somewhere on his body.

Social connection helps us live longer

He then showed a slide of his then 88-year-old mother at a big party with townhouse neighbors.

"They held a tea party for her — as you can see, they were not drinking tea." Numerous wine glasses were visible.

Neil Conway, City of KalamazooCharles Montgomery, author of "Happy Cities," speaks to a Kalamazoo audience on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025.His mother grew up on a farm and wasn't used to crowded areas. "We begged her not to move (to the townhouse) when we all left home. She insisted."

In the townhouse complex, "they're in each other's business," bake loads of food for each other, "it's just a stack of crap at the door that you've got to eat to get through."

It seemed like "an endless cycle of obligation" to keep up with neighbors' kindness, "which strikes me as very exhausting."

His mother just passed in January, he says. But thanks to connections with others, "we think that's how she actually made it to 95."

"People with strong, positive social connections, they live longer, up to 15 years longer than people who are socially disconnected," he says.

Neil Conway, City of KalamazooA packed audience attended the City of Kalamazoo event featuring "Happy Cities" author Charles Montgomery.Positive connections with strangers also count. Montgomery says those interactions build trust in the community.

"Social scientists ask people around the world, thousands of people around the world, 'If you dropped your wallet or your purse on the street in your community today, what are the chances you'd get it back?'"

Montgomery says their answers seemed to be tied to reported life satisfaction — the greater the life satisfaction in a city, the greater the trust in getting one's wallet back.

"What are the chances you would get your wallet back if you dropped it somewhere out in Kalamazoo?" he asks the audience.

"Depends on where in Kalamazoo," someone in my part of the audience says loudly as if some neighborhoods are more trustworthy than others.

Is Kalamazoo a Happy City?

Before the Civic talk, I got a chance to sit down with Montgomery.

Montgomery had been in town for 72 hours at that point, "So I'm not an expert on Kalamazoo." But he had spent that time walking the sidewalks and visiting businesses, sometimes accompanied by Assistant City Manager Rebekah Kik and City Planner Christina Anderson.

Obvious question: Is Kalamazoo a happy city, or not?

"Look, there's a little bit of Happy City in every place, and what's been exciting for me is to see how rapidly the city seems to be changing," he says.

Fran DwightA view of downtown Kalamazoo"Happy City" came out of ten years of research "looking at how the design of a city can influence our behavior, our feelings, our health, and how we treat other people.

"What I've noticed in Kalamazoo is, the city has been taking action to make some changes that in the short term some people might find uncomfortable, but in the long term are going to set the city on course for more vitality, more health, more equity, and I would say more happiness for the people who choose to live here."

Happy or cranky? Depends on your goal

The changes seem to be for people who live in the city, we point out. But the people who don't live here, who just want to drive through downtown quickly, as commuters, seem less happy, more cranky. 

The City seems to be emphasizing making this a community where people can live, work, and shop in the city. Is this a fair assessment? 

Courtesy, City of Kalamazoo"Happy City" author Charles Montgomery takes a look at Downtown Kalamazoo with Assistant City Manager Rebekah Kik."I mean if we're looking for one element that's the most powerful ingredient of human happiness, it's the social aspect," Montgomery says.

He emphasized that we need positive connections, from family to strangers. Big-to-small towns are "city systems" that can "either bring people together or keep them apart," he says. 

"The evidence is really clear that if you build your infrastructure so that people can just move through a city quickly rather than stopping, well, guess what? People will move through quickly, they won't stop, and that has a way of punishing local businesses. But it also hurts the well-being of just about everybody in the city."

Montgomery continues, "If you're stuck in your car all day long, you don't get the benefit of face-to-face contact. You're also going to die three to five years younger than somebody who has opportunities to walk or bike for part of their day.

Courtesy, City of Kalamazoo"Happy City" author Charles Montgomery takes a look at Downtown Kalamazoo with Assistant City Manager Rebekah Kik."Also, the remarkable thing about American cities is the way they've stolen people's freedom."

Much of the country's infrastructure and sprawl demands that citizens rely on a personal motor vehicle to go anywhere, Montgomery contends in "Happy Cities" and in the interview.

"In most American cities, I believe in fact in this county, forgive me if I'm wrong here, something like 94% of daily journeys are made by car," he says. "If you look at surveys of how Americans would like to move around, something like 60-something percent of Americans would like to try hopping on a bike every now and then, but counties like this have made it hard for decades to travel that way," he says.

"So I'm appreciating the way the city of Kalamazoo is moving to offer people the freedom to move in different ways. Walking, biking, and yes, driving, and — well, you've got a ways to go on transit, still."

Promise and challenges for Kalamazoo

During his Civic talk, Montgomery went over the points of his book:

1. That cityscapes can either seem alive or dead. He showed photos he took in Kalamazoo, of the imposing and "angry" AT&T building that looms over Lovell and Rose like a big wall of brutalist architecture, compared with the old-fashioned storefronts of the Studio Grill and the Michigan News Agency. People were chatting in his latter photo because the open diner and book/magazine store make the space inviting. But no one was lingering or having a stroll by the AT&T.

2. That single-family housing — one family in one house on one plot of land, with a long commute to work, shopping, or leisure — can lead to isolation. But at the other extreme, huge apartment towers, also cause isolation. Montgomery argues for the middle, such as townhouses or smaller apartment buildings, designed to encourage social interaction.

3. That when developing grand plans for changes like those he argues for, cities should actively seek the input of the people who'll be living with the change. He gave an example of a plan to build a pedestrian bridge/park meant to connect Washington, D.C. with Anacostia, a lower-income, majority African-American neighborhood across the Potomac. Intentions were good, but the people of Anacostia protested. They feared gentrification and had had a bad history with developers overall. Developers met and worked with residents to address community development issues beyond the bridge, Montgomery says, turning it into a different kind of plan to benefit all the residents.

4. That "certain elements are crucial" for a city to be happy, and that is "walkability.... Safe streets. Good transit and bike infrastructure. Smaller blocks, more connected streets, mixed uses everywhere. Enough human density to fuel the amenities of the transit and shops. And good friendly building design." All of that is key to attracting investment and new residents. "We know that the Gen Zs and Millennials, that's where they want to live. We know that when companies are moving to attract those younger generations, they are going to want (cities that are) more walkable, more connected, better reachable by transit."

Kalamazoo has a lot of opportunities, and challenges, in these areas, he told us during our interview.

"I think this is a great place to be. If I was American, I would be buying houses here and developing myself," says Montgomery, who is Canadian.

But for some, downtown living is not feasible, he's heard.

Montgomery had been walking around Kalamazoo and chatting with people, and had "met several people, young and old, who are living in apartments, but miles and miles from the city center."

Neil Conway, City of KalamazooCharles Montgomery, author of "Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design"He asked them, "'Why don't you live downtown?' And I thought they would mention their fear of crime or other people. What I heard from all of them was, 'It's too expensive.'"

But he met a developer behind the 400 Rose building, the new mixed-use 101-unit apartment building, who told him, "We make a building and it fills up immediately."

The building stood out to him, with its corner Factory Coffee shop encouraging interaction at the corner of Rose and Lovell, townhouse-style entrances that place residents right on the sidewalk, "using the street edge almost as a front yard."

City residents might not be able to hold barbecues on front lawns there, but there are other ways to make the streets and sidewalks where they live into friendly spaces, is his point.

Mark WedelCharles Montgomery, author of "Happy Cities," outside of the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre where he spoke on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025."So it's an example of how, in some cities, some Americans are seeing the value of their streets, seeing the value of walkable places," he tells us. "And this is a remarkable change after half a century of a culture of not just being afraid of other people, but of designing that fear into our cities through sheer distance," i.e., the sprawl of suburbia. 

The mention of a culture where we're "afraid of other people" leads to the question, isn't there a difference between U.S. and Canadian attitudes of race and class? Doesn't that go into issues of trust between neighbors? 

"Generally speaking, the more inequity you see in a society, the less trust there is," he replies. "This is true around the world. More-equitable societies are more trusting."

A more trusting city needs to be a more fair and inclusive city, he says. 

"You know, it's easy to pick on American cities, but we have these problems in Canada, as well," he says. "We pride ourselves in not being racist," he says, but "Canadians treat Indigenous people very poorly and have for generations. It's those communities who are typically being left out and left without the infrastructure, including clean water. So we're not perfect at the border."

Neil Conway, City of KalamazooA packed audience attended the City of Kalamazoo event featuring "Happy Cities" author Charles Montgomery.This side of the border, "American cities, including Kalamazoo, you have this, I think it's fair to say, shameful history of redlining and then disinvestment in primarily black communities on the Northside of Kalamazoo."

He continues, "It's amazing for me. I come from a city (Vancouver, BC) where land is worth a lot of money. And when you zoom in on Google Earth in Kalamazoo, in the Northside, and elsewhere, you see all these fields where houses used to be. And so, my friends in property development see a tremendous opportunity there."

There's a need for more people living in the city, both in downtown and the core neighborhoods, but developers and city planners need to tread with care when it comes to the people who've been living there for generations, he says.

"I think the question is, how do you ensure that people who are living in those communities, and may have lived there and suffered generations of disinvestment, that they have a say in what happens in those neighborhoods in the future, and then (see that) they're sure to benefit from them?"

He continues, "The answer to me comes down to the way you engage, the way the city engages with people, the way the city has conversations with people. And that doesn't just mean asking people to show up at council meetings to say their piece when somebody wants to develop next door. It means reaching out and meeting people where they are in the community."

Happy future?

We asked what Montgomery thinks of the City's plans, Imagine Kalamazoo 2025, 2035?

He focused on the most visible changes happening now, with the remake of Downtown’s streets.

Neil Conway, City of KalamazooCharles Montgomery, author of "Happy Cities," speaks to a Kalamazoo audience on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025."I would encourage people who live here to take the long view because when a city makes infrastructure changes, it's always painful at the beginning as we get used to changes. Our habits change, but until the (traffic) networks are complete, it's hard for people to change their behavior," he says.

"For example, I'm a cyclist, but I'm over 50 now, and I get scared biking on the main street. So I won't do it unless I have a protected bike lane, especially if I have my son with me, for the entirety of my route.

"So currently, you've got the beginnings of a safe, protected (bike) network here, and people might complain that they're not seeing a cyclist."

Montgomery says that other cities have shown that more complete networks of bike routes lead to more biking.

"And second of all, acknowledge that you're already getting benefits even if you're never going to get on a bike because your streets are getting safer. There've been 25% fewer crashes in the city over the last couple of years since the changes have been taking place, and that means you're saving money on emergency services. 

"You're saving money at your hospitals and in other aspects. So these changes benefit people. Even the people who complain about them are benefiting already, and they may see lower taxes as a result."

Back to trust

Montgomery tells us of his time in Kalamazoo, "I just felt people here to be tremendously warm and welcoming, and I enjoyed my time here."

Sure, we're nice when greeting a stranger. But if he dropped a wallet here...?

At the end of his talk at the Civic, he went back to the wallet experiment.

Mark WedelAuthor Charles Montgomery speaks to a Kalamazoo audience on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025.Researchers have performed the experiment in more controlled settings, with divided groups, where one side hugged and shook hands with strangers, and the other half did not.

Both groups had to then answer the lost wallet question. "And what happened was remarkable," he says.

People who had just had positive contact with strangers thought they'd have a good chance to get their wallets back. Those who were told to ignore strangers did not.

"People who had that brief moment of connection with a stranger, they didn't just trust the stranger more. They trusted everybody else in their communities more," Montgomery tells the audience.

This is "the kind of shift you need as a community, as a nation, in your ability to overcome some of your tremendous challenges around community development, around poverty, around climate change, coming across your deep, deep divides, when there are good people on all sides," he says.

"Now, I'm not saying we all need to go and start hugging strangers... But I am saying that the systems you build, the kinds of cities and public spaces you build, these can draw people together in ways that create these magic moments."