...And what you can do about it

 

By Jonah Lehrer

January 2, 2009

 

THE CITY HAS always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century coffeehouses of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art. Without the metropolis, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare or James Joyce; even Einstein was inspired by commuter trains.

 

And yet, city life isn't easy. The same London cafes that stimulated Ben Franklin also helped spread cholera; Picasso eventually bought an estate in quiet Provence. While the modern city might be a haven for playwrights, poets, and physicists, it's also a deeply unnatural and overwhelming place.

 

Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so...

 

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/how_the_city_hurts_your_brain/

 

Well, this certainly explains a lot about myself!

I wonder if "natural scenes" lead to mental relaxation and replenishment when they include lions or bears?  I think we over idealize nature sometimes.  Walden Pond was essentially a nature park, not the wilderness.  It'd be as if Emerson was living in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

 

Anyway, I actually like this article overall, and think that cognitive psychology is one discipline that offers us a lot of guidance for architecture and urban design.  It offers us the possibility of an objective basis for saying what constitutes a building that is psychologically engaging, comforting, or sheltering.

Honestly, as much as I enjoy urban living, I personally don't believe that we were "meant" to live in areas surrounded by concrete and bricks all the time .. especially in cities like New York, where everyone seems so focused on their careers and things that, at the end of the day, don't really matter. I think it's important to find that oasis and refresh one's self with a more natural environment. While parks like Central Park aren't real natural environments (Central Park is, after all "man-made"), they're certainly better than nothing, and I think New York would be wholly different without it, psychologically and physically.

Unfortunately (for cities) this kind of research (to varying degrees of rigor) has been around almost as long as cities. It was a really big part of the Progressive era. The Germans especially were absolutely obsessed with the negative consequences of urban living. The New Deal spent a lot of energy trying to 'save' urban youths by sending them out into the countryside (the CCC).

 

Also, this kind of research in an earlier form was used as a rationale from sprawling suburbanization.

I'd argue from my own experience that living in the suburbs and seeing house after house on a nice winding street, all built by the same home builder, and all inhabited by the same socio-economic residents, dulls my mind infinitely more than the city.

 

I do my best thinking when I'm around the hustle and bustle of everyday life that the city brings out.

 

It's this kind of witch-doctor psychology that makes it OK for people to neglect inner cities and buy their own half acre of paradise in suburb-heaven.

It's this kind of witch-doctor psychology that makes it OK for people to neglect inner cities and buy their own half acre of paradise in suburb-heaven.

 

I personally don't think it's witch-doctor psychology. I think there are some very valid points made in the above article. Environments that are highly urban (densely populated, heavier traffic) create more stress, and while I would certainly consider myself more of a city person than anything, there are definitely times where I need to get away from the city and clear my brain from all of the hustle and bustle. I won't speak for other people, but it certainly has a huge psychological impact on me. Because everyone is so on-the-go, I can't help but feel the same way: it's difficult to relax.

 

But I think that, at the end of the day, it just depends more on what appeals to you as a person. If you like that hustle and bustle more than the countryside, then cities are for you. But not everyone does like that.

Since this article will do nothing to curb the migration of humans to urbanized areas, let the conclusion be...

 

BETTER PARKS NOW!

Since this article will do nothing to curb the migration of humans to urbanized areas, let the conclusion be...

 

BETTER PARKS NOW!

 

Well, who in their right mind would want suburbs?? At least choose one or the other: countryside or urban areas. Don't go for a wishy-washy, bland middle ground. :)

People building cities is natural and has occurred among societies all over the world. It's humans being humans. Article is moot.

Since this article will do nothing to curb the migration of humans to urbanized areas, let the conclusion be...

 

BETTER PARKS NOW!

 

Well, who in their right mind would want suburbs?? At least choose one or the other: countryside or urban areas. Don't go for a wishy-washy, bland middle ground. :)

 

Suburbs are a vain attempt at attaining the restorative effects of nature. The reality, though, points to that old one-liner "Nobody goes to Coney Island anymore: it's too crowded."

Most city dwellers do leave their city at least once a month and head for real country while trying to hold back vomit through the suburbs/exurbs.

I'm a full on urbanist, but pretty much the day after humans started developing cities, somebody starting whining about the miseries of city life - by the same token, rural life has pretty much only been romanticized by city dwellers. I think parks and small towns are probably are best answer.

This article is a bunch of nonsense. I haven't seen the study itself, but what's represented in the article absolutely does not make the case that cities dull the senses. So we're assaulted by stimuli in cities? Duh! Is that bad? Compared to what? The stultifying sameness of so many suburbs? The constant driving for things that are easily available at a whim on Newbury Street? The intellectual stimulation from the guys shooting pool in a rural town bar? The thousands of acres of monoculture soybeans on a former Indiana prairie?

 

Nothing in this article compares city life to suburban life or small-town life or rural farm life. All the examples seem to be within a given city (apartments on different sides of the long-demolished Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago; Newbury Street vs. an urban conservatory in Boston), rather than between city life and ... and ... and ... whatever alternative the article writer or the researchers might have had in mind. It seems to be based on a false dichotomy. It compares only the more-stressful aspects of city life with the serene aspects of city life.

 

Only in the penultimate paragraph, in a mention of contradictory research, does the article discuss a key aspect of cities: the bringing together of people who talk to and learn from each other (in great universities and at great taverns) and foster the creativity that keeps us all going.

 

Which brings to mind an interesting question: If urban life impairs the mental process, why do so many of the greatest minds in rural towns move to cities to do their work?

 

I grew up in a small Ohio town (not that I was one of the great minds to come out of Dover), so I am able to compare the large and small. I agree with KOOW -- this should be a call for more urban parks. It should be a call for better cities.

 

My one complaint about many of the mainstream discussions about urban life is that they seem to be controlled by the suburban perspective.  This is particularly obvious in the Plain Dealer where all of the columnists life in the suburbs.  Obviously, if you love suburban life (and that is most people I know) you will not love urban living in the same way that I do.  We could have thousands of article about how suburban life creates racial prejudices and stunts the growth of young minds in terms of understanding the world. But that never seems to be the topic.  Instead the discussion is always about downtown what???? you name it.

^^But with all the hours sitting in traffic, suburbanites have plenty of time to calm their minds. Or succumb to road rage.

I work as a packer doing mind numbing routine. After a shift, I crave anything that hurts my brain. I'd take that over an aching back and shoulders any day lol.

 

I suppose it's all about balance. The brain shouldn't have sensory overload but at the same time it shouldn't be boring. That's probably why cities like D.C. and Portland are considered ideal.

My wife, who grew up in an older suburb north of Chicago but has been urban since then, normally just tolerates my rantings about urban-suburban issues. But she was intrigued by the article above, and enjoyed my take on it. She pointed out another odd thing in the article:

 

"There's the confusing urban grid, which forces people to think continually about where they're going and how to get there."

 

How, she wondered, is a grid -- which is by definition orderly -- more confusing than the random curvilinear streets and culs de sac and thoroughfare suicide lanes and other confounding barriers of suburbia?

I suppose it's all about balance. The brain shouldn't have sensory overload but at the same time it shouldn't be boring. That's probably why cities like D.C. and Portland are considered ideal.

 

I agree. At least, for me, it is.

My wife, who grew up in an older suburb north of Chicago but has been urban since then, normally just tolerates my rantings about urban-suburban issues. But she was intrigued by the article above, and enjoyed my take on it. She pointed out another odd thing in the article:

 

"There's the confusing urban grid, which forces people to think continually about where they're going and how to get there."

 

How, she wondered, is a grid -- which is by definition orderly -- more confusing than the random curvilinear streets and culs de sac and thoroughfare suicide lanes and other confounding barriers of suburbia?

 

Because the cues - the landmarks that tell you where you are, are much more subtle than they are in the city. You have the same building materials, trees, buffers, road widths, building heights, building styles, signs, etc. all throughout. Subdivisions are still much more predictable than the city - the winding streets are really the only challenge and after a while you get used to taking the same streets. There's also a lack of chaos. There isn't much traffic in the residential areas. There isn't very many people outside.

 

The suburbs were popular after WW2, The Cold War (nuclear scare), 9/11, etc.

Subdivisions are still much more predictable than the city - the winding streets are really the only challenge and after a while you get used to taking the same streets.

 

I disagree. I think a city on a grid is infinitely more predictable than a suburb where each subdivision is separate from the next and nothing connects. You say you get used to the winding streets after a while. I say you can get used to a predictable grid with predictable addresses much, much more quickly. I see nothing distracting or disorienting about blocks and straight lines.

I would argue the grid is more friendly for walkers, but not so much for folks in cars, especially with one way streets. True curvilinear, cul-de-sac suburbia is maze like and frustrating. I would add that in cities where your line of vision is very limited (Manhattan) it can be frustrating, but in places where you can basically get the lay of the land pretty quickly, the city is vastly preferable to wayfinding in faux-countryside. A big caveat here is that flat cities and hilly cities have a very different vibe. Cincinnati is far easier to wayfind and not feel constrained due to the vistas compared to a place like Chicago or Toledo that are just a never-ending grid.