Beyond livability: What makes a city ‘lovable’
What drives people’s pride, passion and joy—in other words, love for a city?
The qualities that inspire love may be viewed as intangible and unquantifiable. But there are identifiable attributes that make a city lovable, and city planners and local governments can shape those attributes to help cities and their citizens form an emotional bond.
That emotional bond, in turn, can deliver benefits to individuals and institutions alike, chief among them happiness. After all, more and more of us are living in cities every year, and the more we can relate to our cities, the more vibrant our lives can be.
Livability and lovability
Most urban planners, as well as the general public, evaluate cities based on livability —a city’s ability to satisfy its citizens’ physical, social, and economic needs.
Livability is measured on factors like safety, mobility options, employment and educational opportunities, public space as well as political stability.
Livability is fundamental to lovability. Basic infrastructure and services should be in place, and going about one’s daily life should be reasonably easy and pleasant.
Human connection
However, lovability also relies on another attribute that’s often overlooked: Human connection, the city’s ability to foster community and evoke a sense of belonging.
Though it may be less concrete than livability, human connection is no less important because that’s where the social and emotional components of lovability—those feelings of pride, passion and joy—spring from.
Separating being human from being livable is somewhat artificial, since the two concepts overlap and positively reinforce each other.
Research led by the Singapore Design Council has identified six key attributes that contribute to what makes a city human: Inclusion, connection, attachment, stimulation, freedom and agency. While individuals may experience these attributes differently, they are all interrelated and interact to create different levels and types of human experience.
Inclusion. Residents need to feel included in the city. This is true on both a social level, meaning acceptance by other residents, and a legal level, meaning the universal extension of social rights and the provision of basic services.
Connection. This embodies how well a city facilitates the creation of social bonds, which can lead to a feeling of closeness to and affection for others in the city. Urban planners do a great deal to facilitate connection through design such as open spaces that encourage social interaction.
Attachment. This refers to the affinity that people feel for the city rather than for each other. It is strongly related to the unique aspects of a city’s identity, arising out of what a city does differently. It’s a city’s ability to cultivate a sense of familiarity and rootedness with the city.
Stimulation. A stimulating city keeps its residents excited about what each new day brings, providing widely accessible opportunities for exploration, leisure, socializing, and learning. To ensure that cities are stimulating, local governments need the support of creative industries, nightlife and entertainment.
Freedom. For a city to be lovable, residents should feel free to express themselves. Nowadays, the concept of freedom has progressed towards acceptance and hence overlaps with inclusion. Authorities should focus on cultivating acceptance across the community through education to allow residents, including minorities, to feel free to be themselves.
Agency. This is a measure of empowerment, the extent to which people believe they’re able to influence change within their cities. This perception is greatly influenced by how inclusive a city is in its governance and decision-making processes.
Many of the experiences that go into a city’s lovability can be planned and intentional. Many are also inherently emergent as the scaffolding of the city’s design is filled in by its occupants.
It’s up to city planners and local governments to plan what can be planned, and influence what can’t be planned, to move their cities towards being lovable.
We shouldn’t stop at making our cities livable. We should strive to make them lovable.
The author is the principal urban planner of CONCEP Inc., and a Fellow Emeritus of both the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) and the Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners (PIEP)
