Santa Fe – A Happiness City
The Center for Emergent Diplomacy is working in partnership with the Happiness Initiative, a Seattle based organization that grew out of Sustainable Seattle. Together, they combine the power of applied complex systems thinking and the insights gained from using the Happiness Initiative Toolbox, with their unique understanding of individual and collective grassroots acti
on. The goals are to stimulate community participation, facilitate the emergence of new insights and policies that help Santa Fe establish more appropriate measures of progress, and help city decision makers determine policies that respond to the real needs of Santa Feans. At the heart of this process is a rigorous survey of community members. While a number of methods for measuring human well being are being developed, Sustainable Seattle created the recognized standard survey of local indicators of happiness and well being in 1991. This survey served as the basis for the Toolbox later developed by the Happiness Initiative. It measures the essential conditions that really matter to people and contribute to their sense of well being, how people feel about their lives and what is important to them, and it has been used in communities in the United States and around the world. The survey, which can be taken and scored online and in face-to-face interviews, contains questions in eleven domains: Satisfaction with Life, Positive Affect, Mental Well-Being, Health, Time Balance, Community Vitality, Social Support and Relationships, Access to Education, Arts and Culture, Neighborhood, Environment, and Governance. The survey results will be immensely useful to city planers and other decision makers who will better understand where people perceive themselves to be hurting and thriving. City officials can then use this information to make policy decisions and set priorities in resource and fiscal allocation, as happened in Seattle beginning in 2011. By gathering individuals and organizations throughout all segments of our community and encouraging people to take the survey, Santa Feans are likely to become more connected to and involved in community affairs. We can all share in the pride of being a visible member of the growing international movement that is creating a new development paradigm, a paradigm that includes happiness and well being in the determination of a country’s “wealth.”
