
How cities hurt your brain - iamelgringo
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/how_the_city_hurts_your_brain/
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iamelgringo
I lived in Chicago in my 20's and thrived for a number of years. While I was
living there, I couldn't imagine how anyone could be an intellectual and not
live in a city. I eventually had to move away, however. Living in a large city
took too much effort and the crime and violence was pretty overwhelming. (I
was working as an ER nurse).

Now, I'm in my 30's, living in the Valley and loving it. It seems to have hit
(for me) a sweet spot of livability and intellectual stimulation.

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herdrick
Where in the Valley?

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iamelgringo
San Jose, Santa Theresa neighborhood. I can look out of my back yard and see
the Santa Theresa foothills less than two blocks away. The greenspace in Santa
Clara county is really nice. <http://tinyurl.com/8w8fpo>

We also try to take day trips to the beach to muck about or to San Francisco
to hear jazz every week or two. Sometimes we need more nature. Sometimes we
need more culture. As I said, that balance is a lot more possible here than it
was in Chicago.

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gommm
Of course my experience is just anecdotical but I lived in a a small village
in the countryside (350 inhabitants if you count the cows) until I was 17. I
find that since living in big cities, I have more energy, I'm much more upbeat
and much less depressed. In the morning, I love walking or biking through busy
streets looking at everyone move around.. I feel that it's invigorating...
Right now I'm back in the countryside in malaysia and I clearly don't have as
much energy as I had before...

Now, the cities I've liked the most and for which this was the most true are
rennes and kyoto which are both cities with quite a bit of nature (and hardly
any sky scraper). And when I lived in shanghai (which I really liked), I lived
right at the back of Zhong Shang gong yuan so I could see the nature everyday
when I went to work...

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mtrichardson
I also grew up in an extremely small town (813) but went to college in
Portland, Oregon, an extremely green city. I've found the same thing - I find
myself very energized in Portland, much more so than where I'm from, but I get
stuck in low energy ruts whenever I visit, say, Dallas, or LA.

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peregrine
I have experienced this first hand. I grew up in the country and I've also
known that I've got issues with ADD but when I moved to the city to go to
school I started notice it more and more. I also noticed that I would be
exhausted after normal days and that I never really felt satisfied after
working a hard day(like I did in the country). I thought it was just that my
job was hard but when I went home I worked a full day(that would normally
exhaust me) but I wasn't. I could look outside, breath the fresh air, drink
clean water and feel good.

I need to convince my boss to let me work remotely 24/7 :)

I also wonder if they did tests of people within rooms with forest pictures
surrounding them. Furthermore I wonder if they tried doing the same with
forest noises going on.

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eru
Your boss should be glad to have you work 24/7. ;)

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h34t
"In a study published last month, Berman outfitted undergraduates at the
University of Michigan with GPS receivers. Some of the students took a stroll
in an arboretum, while others walked around the busy streets of downtown Ann
Arbor.

The subjects were then run through a battery of psychological tests. People
who had walked through the city were in a worse mood and scored significantly
lower on a test of attention and working memory, which involved repeating a
series of numbers backwards. In fact, just glancing at a photograph of urban
scenes led to measurable impairments, at least when compared with pictures of
nature."

I'm amazed by how the effects arise so quickly, but it makes intuitive sense
to me too based on my experiences.

Personally I like to go back and forth, spending extended periods of time in
quiet towns where I can focus, and then traveling somewhere exciting to
connect with people and be inspired by what's going on in the world around me.

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wallflower
Highly recommend Jane Jacobs' "The Death & Life of Great American Cities"

As someone who lives in the city but lived in the 'burbs prior, I think the
article was fair. There is no perfect place to live - on my way to the train
station I intentionally cross over a block to walk through a grassy courtyard.
The thing I enjoy most about the city is walking around - when I lived in the
suburbs I had to get in a car to go anywhere because you need a car to live in
the suburbs. As a side note, one of the reasons public transportation does not
work in the suburbs is you can't cut through people's yards to get to a stop
which means a bus stop that is 0.6 miles straight line from your location
might be 1 mile since there are houses (whereas in the city you have regular
block patterns and established pedestrian traffic)

I don't go out as much as my friends but I think drinking more, more often
might be more accepted here more because you don't have to worry about DUI.

I think it is ok to live in the suburbs; your priorities in life change. For
example, the city school system is scary (both educationally and safety wise).
Where you live is a big influence on you.

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robg
Seems like it could be as simple as the pollution. The pictures simulate the
same experience. For instance, if colleges students subliminally read words
about old people, they'll walk slower.

Breathing car exhaust can't be good. Carbon monoxide is known to slow actions.
Different urban environments are also more likely to have poor conditions
(e.g., lead exposure) that leads to brain damage (smaller frontal lobes) and
criminality (less rational decisions):

[http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-
docum...](http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-
document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050101&ct=1)

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whacked_new
In most cities I have lived in, when you feel like taking a walk, it doesn't
seem to make a difference which direction you walk in: you will be traveling
along the same buildings, built into the same mold. Come by a park, the park
will still be an accessory of this mold, like makeup on a woman without
charisma.

I can only recall a few instances when you could take a stroll into a modest
expanse of nature, and anticipate to find bugs and critters around your path.
Every walk, even when retracing the same route over and over, is different and
interesting.

Talk about Newbury, or 5th ave even. When I glance into the stores I am happy
to myself that I am not in the store being looked at by the passer by.

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elai
You can say the same about forests and what not. Woo, same old green tree
mold. Wow, another pine tree. Just endless, endless variations of the same
leafy green thing.

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whacked_new
This might sound lame as ever, but I honestly feel a spiritual connection with
the trees and the rocks. Not the ones in boxed-off parks though. Also, I never
get tired of waterfalls. Waterfalls are instantly peace-inducing.

Buildings in most cities have no aura, for me at least.

~~~
Goladus
Hungry black bears have a pretty neat aura as well.

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biohacker42
I'm going to have to point out the obvious here, that nobody lives in a city.
People lives in houses and then neighborhoods.

For example I lived in a very small town and my bedroom was directly above the
one and only biker bar in the town. Needless to say concentrating was hard.

But I was born and raised in quiet green island in the middle of an urban
jungle and it was quiet yet exciting and wonderful.

The bottom line is if you live in a hell hole your life will suck and it
doesn't matter if that hell hole is a tiny village or a huge city.

But any big city should contain tiny islands of heaven and hell within it.

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mattmaroon
The lack of nature is exactly why I'm not a city person. The constant stench,
noise, cracked concrete in every direction. I don't understand how people can
do it.

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anthonyrubin
Large cities do have many benefits. I'm from the Chicago suburbs and I've been
living in the city for about 18 months. I think my next move will be to a
rural area. Here are some things I enjoy about the city:

* museums and art

* ethnic food

* ability to live without a car (I save a lot of money this way and I never have to worry about a designated driver)

* large enough population to support special interest groups of all kinds

* availability of goods and services (I have multiple choices for cooking classes, I can find most unusual ingredients, we still have record stores)

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dustineichler
It's relative right, b/c unlike the rest of you I only find stimulation and
focus in cities. Everything pails in comparison... so does my attention. This
is very interesting read though, enjoyed this post.

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kirubakaran
In that case, Internet (especially social news websites) hurts your brain
more. At least I am one data point that they do.

The article also explains the headache I get when someone drags me to malls.

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mapleoin
"One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is
surprisingly beneficial for the brain."

Isn't it sad that we find our natural habitat _surprisingly_ beneficial?

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Goladus
I actually object to the word "natural" as they use it in the article. It
seems in context to mean "things that aren't man-made" which is only accurate
in a really broad sense.

Deer flies are natural, for example, but I'm pretty sure that's not what the
author means. How relaxing would that walk through the arboretum be if you had
to spend the whole time swatting insects?

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kajecounterhack
I live in suburban Holmdel, NJ, home to Vonage, AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent
Technologies, and other telecom companies. Parts of Holmdel are rural, though
the population has gone up in recent years. The trees and natural setting make
it a great place; I feel smarter just being here, haha.

The schools here rank high (local High Technology High school ranked #4 school
in the nation and Holmdel High ranks as a top New Jersey high school).

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alaithea
They didn't mention whether they controlled for individual city/country
preferences amongst the study subjects. As evidenced by the comments here,
people tend to have very different conscious feelings about cities. What if
they had conducted the study at NYU and not Ann Arbor? Likely the students at
NYU feel more favorably towards big city life than those in Michigan.

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Jebdm
I wonder what the root cause of these findings is. It seems to be a
combination of attention diversion and something else-- after all, trees and
buildings (presuming no extra stuff like birds, shouting neighbors, etc.) seem
about equally distracting. One thing that occurs to me would be to do studies
with subjects who are blind, deaf, both, and neither, as well as possibly
autistic vs. not, etc. Also, comparisons between different cities, especially
if you include small cities (still fairly urban feeling, but not a million
people either) would be interesting to see.

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ObieJazz
One of the main studies mentioned took place in Ann Arbor, population 114,024
as of the year 2000 census. Downtown is fairly urban feeling, but nothing like
a Chicago or a New York. I agree, seeing studies of different cities would be
interesting, especially when trying to figure out which urban planning
techniques are effective at avoiding overstimulation.

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lallysingh
Hmm, I'd like to see how people's use of iPods & other music players
correlates to being in the city. It really helps reduce the amount of
background data you have to process.

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nadim
Hypothesis: From a mental recharging standpoint, meditating about a passive
scene from nature is close to being in nature. Lets say for 20 minutes a day.

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ajkirwin
I'm one of those people who thrives in an urban environment. I have more
energy, I feel like doing more things and I get a lot more extroverted.

There's something about the hum of the traffic, the lights, the people.. it
just gets me going, in a big way. Viva La Urbana!

~~~
Goladus
It happens both ways for me. The city certainly gets me going, but it also
wears me out. I have a shorter temper, and it takes a lot more discipline to
maintain a productive routine.

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Ardit20
How does he know that the brain is limited?

