The new orientation burst into the public sphere after the 2008 financial crisis, when French president Nicolas Sarkozy, German chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders declared that purely economic indices such as GDP were not enough to gauge a society’s well-being. In the United States, for example, happiness surveys showed that Americans were happier in 1946 than they were in 1990, although GDP had soared during that period.
The scope of government action, however, is often limited by the built environment, and by factors beyond its control. A 2015 Statistics Canada happiness ranking placed small communities such as Saguenay, Quebec, and St. John’s, Nfld., at the top of the scale, with Toronto and Vancouver at the very bottom. People in those big cities are more prone to loneliness, anxiety about housing costs, and frustrating commute times, which can’t easily be relieved by the state.
Advertising has been promising happiness to customers for decades, but happiness studies have produced a new commercial vector Garutti calls “emotional capitalism.” The market for mattresses and sleep aids has benefited from the notion that well-rested people are happier and more successful. New housing developments include and promote green spaces not just because they’re good for the planet, but because we’ve been told that daily contact with nature boosts our well-being.