The early development of the Barcelona city

Architecture & Happiness. Gonzalo Delacámara. By Trinidad de los Ángeles Gómez Machuca  

• Why do people tend to believe that what is financially profitable (for developers) is not actually equivalent to economically feasible (positive impacts on social welfare)? How would you show that this does not necessarily have to be like this (but rather the opposite)?

  The level of consumption of a culture it’s visible from the perspective of their cities, it is a fact that the activities of the people is reflected in the development of the infrastructure, if there is a place where society is very involved with the internal combustion mobility, the result will be an urban design for vehicles, not for pedestrians; this will lead to an specify use of land instead of mixed use, which will be reflected in an non sustainable economy because all the benefits will be for only one portion of the entire system.    

 Los Angeles Highway

All the elements that conform a city, have to be equally between them, otherwise, the balanced in the system will be lost. The public space, buildings, streets, plazas, etc., have to re-invent its interaction in the side of city and society. It can be possible to solve the problems starting the things, cities of societies from zero; a thought of this kind would lead us to a consumption linear process, in which the main concepts are the program and perceived obsolescence. The cities should be recycled, always in development with the changes generated by society; besides, should be resilient to achieve the ability of humans to adapt to any adversity; after all, the cities were made by humans, imperfect and highly complex; this is why they have always been criticized because of their destructive relationship with the environment.

• Why do people tend to believe that what is financially profitable (for developers) is not actually equivalent to economically feasible (positive impacts on social welfare)? How would you show that this does not necessarily have to be like this (but rather the opposite)?

  The economics in the social level it tends to be delicate when people want to make a big investment and for make this decision a lot of thing we have to consider. But what is necessary for consider a place for the good development of the happiness? Good quality schools, parks, hospitals, pedestrian infrastructure, social security, etc. The problem is that these spaces are not usually profitable to the buyer and that’s when people first question is how much is the house? And not, how good it will be for my family to live in this environment ? Its hard to link happines in this terms because everything its about money. Can you imagine an economic system based on happiness? As would acquire assets? This idea may sound like a romantic utopia but can be true if today’s society trapped in consumerism (product of our economic system) believes that money is happiness in the happiness-based system would have nothing to lose. I’m not agree with everything must be related to money but that’s the way we move, if we as a society re-define the concept “Happiness” in the world and we put it in the first place we would not have the economic system that we handle today. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” Jiddu Krishnamurti      Trinidad A. Gómez Machuca