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The Trust Experiments
  • Published: 19 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9780241633397
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384

The Trust Experiments

Rebuilding Community in a World Designed to Divide Us

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An acclaimed urbanist and social scientist argues that our societies are designed to push us apart—and can be redesigned to bring us together again

Social trust is the single most powerful predictor of human happiness. But we are living through a crisis of trust. As people lose faith in neighbours, in strangers and institutions, we are becoming more susceptible to loneliness, division, and extremism.

In The Trust Experiments, Charles Montgomery reveals how this crisis emerged from a collision between human psychology and countless bad design decisions: contemporary homes discourage neighbourly contact. Cities force us into solitary commutes. Social media algorithms widen schisms across society. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

From the baugruppen of Germany to the co-housing villages of Vancouver to the Utopias of Mexico, Montgomery takes us into intentional communities that have been designed to promote mutual care. He meets Taiwanese activists who are using AI to reverse the antisocial and polarising effects of social media. He shows how governments from Denmark to Costa Rica have boosted trust by making their societies fairer. And he shows how we can all use design in our own lives to rebuild the trusting relationships that keep us happy, healthy and strong.
  • Published: 19 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9780241633397
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384
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About the author

Charles Montgomery

Charles Montgomery is an urbanist and the award-winning author of Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. Montgomery works with cities, organizations, and citizens around the world to improve human well-being. His collaborators include the World Health Organization, the Guggenheim Museum, and local governments in Canada, the United States, Mexico, New Zealand, the UAE, and Poland. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
CM

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Praise for The Trust Experiments

Praise for Happy City

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In a word, wow . . . A fascinating and entertaining book

Jeff Speck, author of <i> Walkable City </i>

Not only readable but stimulating . . . Do we live in neighborhoods that make us happy? That is not a silly question. Montgomery encourages us to ask it without embarrassment, and to think intelligently about the answer

Alan Ehrenhalt, The New York Times Book Review

An eye-opening, pleasurable, utterly necessary tour through the best and worst neighborhoods of our urbanized world. Charles Montgomery shows us the way to a beautiful city

Andrew Blum, author of <i> Tubes </i>

Lively and accessible. . . . In Montgomery’s hands, urban design proves not only exciting, but integral to our future

Publishers Weekly