We all strive for personal happiness in one way or another, but what about public happiness? What does public happiness mean and what role can governments and public policies play? The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the inadequacies of old governance paradigms and even before this pandemic, increasing inequalities and frustration with the old GDP-centric growth paradigm have fueled dissatisfaction with and distrust of governments. This book suggests a new path towards public happiness as a potential solution. The book builds a theory of public happiness as a distinct concept from individual happiness, borrowing especially from Eastern philosophy. It provides an overview of the efforts so far to go “beyond GDP” – including measurement and exploration of the determinants of happiness – and how these efforts have fallen short of expectation. Lastly, the book sketches out what a public happiness policy might look like and identifies the factors of a successful happiness policy.

Twenty reporters, architects, town planners travelled Europe looking for icons of public happiness; architecture and town planning to promote public happiness. The public domain as a medium embody promises for a beter future, that point towards ideal, or idealized, ways for people to live in a community. The book focuses on Europe after 1945 and the results from the town planners, historians and sociologists are presented in the form of a travel guide.

This book contains commentaries by Samuel Brittan and Melanie Powell. In Happiness, Economics and Public Policy, Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod analyse the economic research that underlies politicians' growing preoccupation with measures of 'well-being'. In a lucid and compelling analysis, written for economists and non-economists alike, the authors find that happiness research cannot be used to justify government intervention in the way its proponents suggest.Those who wish governments to take into account measures of well-being when setting policy often point to the fact that increases in income have not led to increases in measured happiness, and thus governments should concentrate on redistribution and improving the quality of life, rather than on allowing people to benefit from economic growth.