Boring Cities Are Bad for Your Health (wired.com) 117
Studies using new brain-mapping and wearable devices have shown that unstimulating urban architecture can harm residents' health, leading to increased rates of depression, cancer and diabetes. Research projects across Europe and North America, including the EU-funded eMOTIONAL Cities project and studies at the University of Waterloo's Urban Realities Laboratory, are measuring people's physiological responses to their surroundings. The findings are pushing architects and city planners to prioritize human wellbeing in design, with some cities like London's Newham borough now including happiness metrics in economic planning.
Good thing we didn't... (Score:1, Troll)
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Such as Penn Station [allthatsinteresting.com]? That place [rarehistoricalphotos.com] which now has tons of privately owned cars [nytimes.com].
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Of course, it wouldn't have been an issue if we didn't listen to commie losers of the Bauhaus school of architecture in the first place.
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Yes... because prior to the Bauhaus movement the American architectural schools were going all in on Nazi architecture... wait... no, you're just a retard.
Retitled (Score:2, Insightful)
The the word "Boring" out of the title, and it's much more accurate.
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Re:Retitled (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, they didn't control for wealth or diet?
Not having done so it would seem the concrete is even worse than I imagined given the small ~2yr difference.
Sometimes we see effect sizes close to 7 yrs on just those two (which have bidirectional causation).
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"Wow, they didn't control for wealth or diet?"
Wealth and diet are independent factors? LOL
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Retitled - "Agenda based news article claims" (Score:1)
Wired used to be better than just agenda based 'news' articles.
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False. You can't lump all cities together and expect a consistent result. There are absolutely cities which are bad for your health. There are also cities which are good for your health. Around the world cities vary greatly in air quality, noise level, walkability, all which negatively affect health. But on the flip side cities also allow great access to other benefits, such as easier access to a wider variety of nutrition, better access to healthcare, and often feature more recent and up to date developmen
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Stockholm (Score:2)
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Dodging hobo with scissors: keeps you sharp (Score:1)
So does having to be hyperaware on subway platforms.
And don't forget the mental calisthenics that is remembering how to open up your absurdly complex bike lock.
Urban environments are nice but for one crucial factor: they are inhabited by humans. Humans aren't meant to live in such close proximity. We are meant to spread out to distant treetops or caves or whatever. If we'd come up from ants or bees instead of apes, cities perhaps wouldn't bring out our worst aspects the way the do with us upright monkeys.
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So does having to be hyperaware on subway platforms.
And don't forget the mental calisthenics that is remembering how to open up your absurdly complex bike lock.
Urban environments are nice but for one crucial factor: they are inhabited by humans. Humans aren't meant to live in such close proximity. We are meant to spread out to distant treetops or caves or whatever. If we'd come up from ants or bees instead of apes, cities perhaps wouldn't bring out our worst aspects the way the do with us upright monkeys.
To your point, country village living is a more normal situation for humans. And our "tribal limits" are pretty much hardwired into us.
In my wooded village, and especially on my street, we look at each other eye to eye, we say hello and have impromptu conversations, we know each other's names. There is more than just my street, but the streets and woods are constructed to segment everyone. When I'm in a large city, I do as the people there do, I don't look people in the eye, and acknowledge or converse a
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In my wooded village
Papa Smurf, is that you?
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In my wooded village
Papa Smurf, is that you?
Did ya ever wonder how tired Smurfette had to be as the only woman in a world of blue dudes? But no doubt quite popular. But she's mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Ackchyually (Score:2)
Gargamel introduced the concept of two genders to the Smurfs. He created Smurfette in an attempt to throw their society into chaos.
(Sassette is the other female Smurf)
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Naturally. According to science, white men created the idea of women so they could have someone to oppress.
Humanity is so incredibly fortunate that there is a built in guilty party, and the cause of all problems. Pale skin? Getting close. Penis? Guilty!
One of my favorite questions to ask inclusive people is "As a white male, am I responsible for slavery in the USA? The answer is always "yes".
I follow up with "My ancestors escaped Eastern Europe in the 1920's, but you have made your judgement on 100 percent racist and sexist bigotry on your part."
Much reeee erupts.
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One of my favorite questions to ask inclusive people is "As a white male, am I responsible for slavery in the USA? The answer is always "yes".
I follow up with "My ancestors escaped Eastern Europe in the 1920's, but you have made your judgement on 100 percent racist and sexist bigotry on your part."
And then everybody clapped? Come on bro we all know that only happened in your head.
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I am fairly progressive and can tell you directly that you are not personally responsible for historic slavery in the United States. Your skin colour is irrelevant.
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What if he was a time traveler and used to be a general in the Confederacy or perhaps a sugar cane plantation owner in the Caribbean?
Because it would be awfully convenient if we could hold someone responsible for the centuries of racial problems we never bothered to fully address in this country.
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I'd settle for just offering the descendents of black people who were e.g. redlined the same deal, adjusted for inflation, that the ancestors of white folk got. No need to even assign blame, and totally fair.
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What if he was a time traveler and used to be a general in the Confederacy or perhaps a sugar cane plantation owner in the Caribbean? Because it would be awfully convenient if we could hold someone responsible for the centuries of racial problems we never bothered to fully address in this country.
I'm trying to parse that as possible sarcasm? How do you wish to assign accountability to the dark skinned africans who performed the "service" that supplied the slaves to the people sailing across the ocean? https://www.historynewsnetwork... [historynewsnetwork.org]
Do you hold them as accountable as pale skinned Europeans?
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I'd settle for just offering the descendents of black people who were e.g. redlined the same deal, adjusted for inflation, that the ancestors of white folk got. No need to even assign blame, and totally fair.
How about 50 percent "white" Americans, and the other 50 percent from the Africans who kidnapped the future slaves and sold them to the Europeans?
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... and anyone who is Portuguese for piloting the ships.
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... and anyone who is Portuguese for piloting the ships.
True dat. Let's take a different example. Should modern Germans be criminally punished for the little Oopsies they had in the 1930's and 1940s?
And India for their treatment of the Dalit (the lowest caste group - horribly treated, especially if the Dalit happens to be a woman. Ironic that they are called untouchables, as rape is essentially normalized. But yes they are fortunate the real oppressors are present day Americans. 8^/ https://equalitynow.org/news_a... [equalitynow.org]
But back to punishing people that had n
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I am fairly progressive and can tell you directly that you are not personally responsible for historic slavery in the United States. Your skin colour is irrelevant.
That's certainly a big plus.
I personally like the line from Dr. Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
I've been judged by some people who would say they are inclusive, yet utterly ignore that - even if they like to point to MLK as one of their touchstones. When one looks at race as minor physical characteristic differences sha
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White male or not, all Americans are responsible for and benefit from slavery.
That's really strange, Americans are quite a melting pot of different cultures from many geographical locations. Hear me out.
Your statement that I as a fair skinned mix of Eastern European and Italian whose grandparents all came over to avoid what was happening in Europe right after WW1, are responsible for US slavery, is kind of problematic.
Your logic of "All Americans are responsible" makes Dark skinned African origin Americans Responsible for slavery. Or did you forget that 'Murrica is not all "wh
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he way to eliminate the curse of racism is to stop being racist.
You are confusing the institution of slavery and racism. If you are talking about direct responsibility for American slavery, no one alive today is responsible. But we all get benefits from it and that inheritance does not depend on when our ancestors came over here. The difference for people who are descendants of slaves is that many of them are also still paying the price of slavery. Whether racism is one of those depends on how much it is a product of slavery and how much it was its creator. Either way,
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he way to eliminate the curse of racism is to stop being racist.
You are confusing the institution of slavery and racism.
My friend, explin You most specifically wrote "White male or not, all Americans are responsible for and benefit from slavery."
The set of all Americans correct me if I am wrong confused, includes people of just about every "race" on earth.
African origin, Chines origin, Inuit origin, Native American origin, Indian origin Russian origin, All east asian origin, every country in the entire world, all live here.
Those who are citizens are the very same people you claim are all responsible for American s
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our challenge is to write a dissertation on how African people are responsible
Because it was Africans who captured, enslaved people and sold them to slave traders. That is a short dissertation.
Why don't you write a dissertation on why any modern American is responsible for slavery or the slaughter of native Americans. Or any other historical event for that matter. We are responsible because we claim the benefits and have to live with the consequences.
What is most interesting is you appear to believe that no one on earth is racist other than Americans
Actually no. Which is why I specifically referred to American racism.
Kinda seems to be a common narrative among people who would claim to be concerned about such things.
Perhaps that's because they are Americans who recognize they are
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our challenge is to write a dissertation on how African people are responsible
Because it was Africans who captured, enslaved people and sold them to slave traders.
Thank you! That's the response I wanted.
You see, why should Africans who had nothing to do with thd slave trade be held. responsible?
Tell me that all humans that live on the African continent responsible for the group who was actively responsible. Since it is in your declaration all Americans, and Just like Martin Luther King is responsible as he is an American - unless you are going to do a real tapdance. Nelson Mandela, as an African, is just as responsible.
Don't you just hate thinking your stat
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Don't you just hate thinking your statements through to find they come up with weird contradictions
What contradiction?
You asked how "Africans" were responsible. I told you. If you asked how much responsibility the typical current resident of Africa has I think the answer would be very, very, very little.
Your argument seems to be that no one alive today is responsible for slavery. But the reality is that there are still consequences of slavery that we need to deal with and benefits that we derive from past slavery. That makes us "responsible" for it. You seem to confuse responsibility and blame.
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Don't you just hate thinking your statements through to find they come up with weird contradictions
What contradiction?
You asked how "Africans" were responsible. I told you.
You wrote that all Americans are responsible for slavery. Every single American.
Therefore, all Africans are responsible for slavery.
So as an American, Dr Martin Luther King is responsible for slavery, as is Mandela Nelson.
There are certain groups of people in Africa, those who kidnapped other Africans, and sold them to slave traders, who took them to the new world by boat, and sold them to other people. Those are the people who are responsible.
Your argument seems to be that no one alive today is responsible for slavery. But the reality is that there are still consequences of slavery that we need to deal with and benefits that we derive from past slavery. That makes us "responsible" for it. You seem to confuse responsibility and blame.
1. Look up the synonyms of responsibility. https://w [thesaurus.com]
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noun as in accountability, blame noun as in maturity, trustworthiness
The purpose of a thesaurus is to find a similar words that can be used in to represent the same meanings. So you chose a particular use of the word, blame, and it gave you synonyms for that same use. Dictionary's define the meaning(s) of the actual word
responsibility /r-spns-bl-t/
noun
The state, quality, or fact of being responsible.
Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden
The state of being responsible, accountable, or answerable, as for a trust, debt, or obligation..
That for which anyone is responsible or accountable. "the responsibilities of power"
Ability to answer in payment; means of paying.
The state of being responsible, accountable, or answerable. .
A duty, obligation or liability for which someone is held accountable.
The obligation to carry forward an assigned task to a successful conclusion. With responsibility goes authority to direct and take the necessary action to ensure success.
(JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms).
Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden.
The obligation for the proper custody, care, and safekeeping of property or funds entrusted to the possession or supervision of an individual. (JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
So yes, you can use responsible as a synonym for guilt for some purposes, "responsible for a crime", but that isn't its only or even primary meaning.
If you look at those other meanings, you can easily assign responsibility for slavery and its conseq
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And also, we can't all be spread out in the utopian manner. There are too many people on the planet. I don't like cities that much, but I really am getting tired of the city haters constantly pulling up stupid stereotypes and then claiming that by living 100 miles from the closest doctor and having to wrestle bears for their food that they're healthier. Oh wait, I'm making up stereotypes just like they are!
Honestly, I'm likely to retire in a small town, and it makes me nervous because it's likely to be w
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Didn't we try that in the USA in the projects?
No, we didn't. Housing projects were designed, built and maintained to house poor people in one spot. And often the least attractive spot. If the spot became attractive, they tore down the project and kicked the poor people out to build more attractive housing.
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Didn't we try that in the USA in the projects?
No, we didn't. Housing projects were designed, built and maintained to house poor people in one spot. And often the least attractive spot. If the spot became attractive, they tore down the project and kicked the poor people out to build more attractive housing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Hey - cool story bro! Read on Subsidized housing.
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"And don't forget the mental calisthenics that is remembering how to open up your absurdly complex bike lock."
Come on, we know you've never ridden a bike.
"Urban environments are nice but for one crucial factor: they are inhabited by humans."
Same with rural environments, only in urban environments people don't shoot your pets.
"Humans aren't meant to live in such close proximity. We are meant to spread out to distant treetops or caves or whatever. If we'd come up from ants or bees instead of apes, cities perh
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And don't forget the mental calisthenics that is remembering how to open up your absurdly complex bike lock.
Bragging about finding bike locks too complicated is a weird flex, but you do you.
Re: Dodging hobo with scissors: keeps you sharp (Score:1)
No, bragging about living in a place where anything that isn't bolted down grows legs in 30 minutes or less is the weird flex.
I lock my doors, but I don't expect that my lawn chairs would get jacked if I leave them outside.
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No, bragging about living
No, you really were bragging about how hard you find bike locks. Maybe I'm just naturally smart but I've never found my bike lock required "mental calisthenics".
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And yet, in the country there is crime. Murder even. Highest murder rates happen in small rural towns (because the small population means a spree of 5 murders a year gives a huge per-capita rate). Cars and trucks get stolen from farms. Heck, cattle rustling still happens! People will be people no matter where they live.
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I live in a city and leave my lawn chairs outside. Have for years and never had one "jacked". I've also never had to dodge a hobo with scissors; worst a hobo has ever done to me is ask for change. How often has these things happened to you? I'm going to guess never. You just have a wild imagination about what goes on in cities. (Maybe that's why you find bike locks complex - you have a creative mind rather than a logical one.)
And by the way, study after study shows that being around others is good for your health while being isolated is bad for your health. If you truly didn't want to be around others, you wouldn't feel the need to attempt some form of social interaction by posting here.
An anecdote for an anecdote: I used to live out in rural Texas, my parents live in the rural midwest. Left our cars unlocked 90% of the time, didn't even lock our house at night, never had anyone shoot any pets, never got robbed or had things stolen. I have also lived on Long Island in New York and Newport News in Virginia. My three year old son's tricycle was stolen off the porch the first night it was outside. I have been robbed at gunpoint once. Have been hassled and bothered by random people on the stre
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From my body plan, it is clear that my ancestors have adapted to using elevators not to climbing trees.
Re: Dodging hobo with scissors: keeps you sharp (Score:1)
And we're better because we wage wars measured in miles instead of millimeters?
New meme curse dropping (Score:2)
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May you live in interesting times, but in a boring city
Awesome sig!
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Next time my HOA accuses me of paining my house in purple paisley, I'll say that I'm only doing it to raise the health of my neighbors, who'd otherwise be stuck looking at the same boring aproved rancid salmon color all day.
Because architects build for architects not people (Score:2)
They call building that fit in "pastiche" and hate it, while people want that because IT LOOKS NICE.
They don't get famous for building nice stuff that fits in - they build to show off to other shitty architects and hate building WHAT PEOPLE LIKE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfron_Tower#/media/File:Balfron_tower.jpg
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Yep, that's all architects, not an absurd generalization at all. If only there was a school that could teach architects how to design things that people wanted and could use.
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Mies Van Der Rohe, is that you?
Ridiculous article (Score:2)
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Something you see daily that doesn't change in any way is not stimulating
So, Vegas?
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Yeah, just like nature. You see nature every day, it cannot be stimulating.
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Happiness metrics?! Just stop architects' shit! (Score:1)
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A street in Newham:
https://imgur.com/a/oRXaPfm
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Replying to your own posts to make it look like there's a single person that agrees with your bias? LOL
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Now tell us how much you love the planning and architecture in that image and which fucked-up schools teach architects that that is what people want.
Bias?!
Yes, I'm biased!
And that "bias" is the bias of normal, decent people for nice towns and against the anti-social architects and planners who have fucked up Newham and everywhere like it, building stuff to further their own careers, but doing nothing for the people who have to live in that ugly shit.
And those shit
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I don't know if you realize this... your userID is really big so you are kind of new to slashdot, but this website doesn't have a way to edit your post after you submit, so if you get some inspiration later and want to make an addendum, the only way is to reply to yourself.
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That looks like a victim of building for car dependence. Bring on LTNs and an end to the default dominance of cars.
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Car dependence is just a symptom of much bigger problems. The UK, for example, literally can't build anything that isn't shit. It's illegal, nobody would insure it, nobody would buy it. Shit is mandatory and universal.
You cannot polish a turd. Well, Myth Busters proved that you can, but not *this* turd.
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Car dependence is just a symptom of much bigger problems.
I disagree: there are a large number of different factors all centered around the supremacy of cars over all else. Regulatory, legislative and societal, cars are treated as a special case where the all the usual rules don't apply. It seeps in at all levels.
Here's a fun example. Cambridge has a rather unusual mass transit system, first of its kind in the UK, and rare worldwide: a guided bus. It's actually kind of neat, but I digress. Anyway there have
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Those are all symptoms of not being able to build good towns, and not even being able to imagine what those would look like.
Take a look at road safety stats for Japan. Most roads don't even have a separate pavement, bikes are everywhere, and somehow it's safer and a much nicer place to live.
It's completely alien to most Brits and they can't comprehend how it works so well. Can't even understand it really, they always try to frame it in British terms, which would make it shit.
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Those are all symptoms of not being able to build good towns,
How is a concerted press and political campaign against cyclists a symptom of not being able to build good towns? It's culture war nonsense from the right aiming to divide and especially against people who cannot drive (who skew poorer).
Second, the guided bus is between St Ives and Cambridge. To build better towns in that regard you'd have to start a thousand years ago. Though Cambridge is pretty nice to bike around. I live there for a while and i
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It's a bit like the "migrant problem", which is really a much bigger problem with low wages and underfunded public services.
I agree that many towns would need some substantial demolition to fix them. We should consider that.
Japan has many secrets to successful and safe towns and cities. Parking is one, but only a minor thing.
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It's a bit like the "migrant problem", which is really a much bigger problem with low wages and underfunded public services.
I think it's the other way around: the problems stem from the attitudes which are fuelled by a small number of moneyed interests. It's the Tory party and right wing press do it partly to sow division and partly because they believe (completely incorrectly as it happens, but I did not accuse them of being smart) it is narrowly in their own self interest.
Even disregarding the amount of f
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On street parking is just a symptom of crap towns. Terrace houses were a huge mistake.
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On street parking is just a symptom of crap towns. Terrace houses were a huge mistake.
It is not and they are not, and you are making very car centric assumptions. I am a Londoner and I like living here, it is not by any means a crap town. I like my terrace house. The higher density means I can actually afford to live here (the semi and detached houses are way out of my price range), and I get to have a garden with a shibunkin goldfish pond which I also like a great deal. What makes it not crap is there are
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This is what I'm talking about. Tokyo has high population density, almost all detached houses or apartments, terraces are almost non existent. The prices are much much better than London too.
It's beyond most British people's ability to comprehend because they can only see everything in terms of the British model. The crap is necessary, essential, the only way houses and towns can be built. I'm sure your bit of London is nice by UK standards, but it's still shit compared to 90% of Tokyo.
Another example is th
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This is what I'm talking about. Tokyo has high population density, almost all detached houses or apartments, terraces are almost non existent.
Yes? You haven't said what's uniquely bad about terraces. They offer a density between semi-detached and low rise apartments. You are arguing that something is extremely bad about that level of density compared to higher and lower. I'm not going to take that at face value without some kind of elaboration other than "it's in Japan".
The prices are much much better than
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Sorry, I'm getting a bit frustrated and I'm ill.
Terraces are too dense, UK houses are too small in general. They lead to rows of identical houses too, extremely ugly and a very hostile, bland, depressing landscape. It also forces certain garden shapes, a lack of privacy, and leads to noise issues.
You can't easily demolish a single house in a terrace, and replace it with something more suitable. You can't even easily convert what is there to say retail or a small factory. Small office maybe.
Terraces also rui
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On the back end of a bout of COVID here...
Too dense? We also have flats here of substantially higher density as well.
Really this depends on where you are, doesn't it? The density is highest in city centres and drops on average as you move out. Anyway I certainly couldn't afford a semi or detached house where I live, the land prices are too high! So from that point of view, I e. My supply of money and where I live I wouldn't say terraces are too dense. It's 180m^2 so not tiny or anything.
I'd rather not live
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This is what I'm getting at. You choices are driven by obscene house prices, no what is good. The extent of our government's ambition is to build more overpriced crap, just microscopic and low quality enough to only be 10x average salary instead of 12x, while maintaining builder profits.
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This is what I'm getting at. You choices are driven by obscene house prices, no what is good.
OK, we've veered way off terraces and styles of planning rules. Yes house prices here are insane, I don't disagree, though even without that purchases are driven by funds, because good city centers are always going to be more expensive.
The extent of our government's ambition is to build more overpriced crap, just microscopic and low quality enough to only be 10x average salary instead of 12x, while maintaining build
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Terrances are part of the reason for high prices. We have the oldest housing stock in Europe and it is basically immortal. Can't replace it, can hardly build anything new, can only poorly renovate.
It takes years to build up local house building teams at councils. If we don't we will be stuck reliant on commercial builders.
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As someone who now lives in America but was brought up in Britain, I can confirm this is a bug, not a feature. Having parking lots around stores occupying 2-3x as much space as the store severely destroys walkability, making it hostile to all forms of transport except cars.
It's also ugly and depressing, FWIW.
And terraced housing is great. Even 19th Century UK homes are pretty nice despite their age. You should see
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I somewhat disagree with your conclusions. You said earlier terraces are too dense: I don't see how losing the density of housing will help prices.
Second you absolutely can knock down mid terrace houses. It's not often done but it's more than possible. If you come on a walking tour of my area I reckon I could point to a few knocked down by the Germans in a bit of a hurry. It's certainly more expensive than a detached house, but the British on the whole like period houses: even detached ones are often left
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High density housing with low density services. High prices result as everyone tries to cram in.
A typical British Lidl is a large supermarket here. Here they have them that are much more than a Tesco Metro, but also not giant everything shops, or all run by a small number of companies. Other things like pharmacies are often larger.
Everything is the wrong size in the UK, and it creates high prices.
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It must be the way you guys are doing it. Here the site remains perfectly walkable, but with space for the rush hour through traffic on the truck road when needed. The spaces are extra large to allow doors to be opened, despite cars being overall smaller. It's like it's designed for human beings and their needs or something.
Re:Happiness metrics?! Just stop architects' shit! (Score:5, Interesting)
Low traffic is shit. It does not give the space back to the human beings.
LTNs, not just low traffic. In my area one of the LTN modal filters was upgraded by re-paving it so it's a large paved area with a cycle path. I'm pretty virulently anti-car and even I was surprised at just how much space has been given back to people from just a couple of lanes of traffic.
Car *free* is what we, city residents, need.
I would be happy with a massive reduction in cars. I did drive recently (hire car) and got completely rinsed for parking, something like 17 quid for 5 hours. I did reflect at the time that it's (a) painfully expensive and (b) that's a good thing because it's near a very large train station and there are better options on almost any other day. I mostly go by train, rarely by bike, but no trains on xmas day.
I would be very happy blocking way more junctions and even whole roads and turning the space into plazas, and slashing the number of parking spaces, and returning that space to people. It's pretty absurd that to rent a car-sized plot of land would cost tens of thousands a year, but the space is given entirely for free to car owners.
There is pretty much no car reduction method I'd say no to.
only approve buildings that the residents want.
You'd never get anything done that way. Residents didn't want the Eiffel tower either and now it's arguably the preeminent symbol of the entire country, and people would riot if you tried to day it down. It's the same for removing cars. People object strongly, then within a few years they'd object strongly to reintroducing cars.
What people really do is object to change.
"Car Culture" creates soul-crushing architecture (Score:5, Interesting)
If you build a place to prioritize cars, that place will eventually resemble a parking lot.
I want you to visualize a parking lot in your mind. Visualize yourself standing there. Sitting there. Setting up a dining table and eating a meal there. Going to bed there. Driving to work in another parking-lot-city, where you sit at a desk in the parking lot trying to work. And then on the weekends, put the fam in the car and drive to tour a distant parking lot.
That summarizes 90% of the experience of living in a US metro area.
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100% this. It's similar in Canada which is why I like to escape periodically to a place with great urban design like The Netherlands. Cities and towns there are fantastic places that put people first.
Doesn't have to look good (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it has much to do with how "interesting" or "pretty" a building is but more to do with how hard your brain has to work to tell the difference between one location and the next. If everything is exactly the same and "fits in" nicely, then you have to work really hard to figure out where you are. If you are in an area where every building is unique, then you will have a much easier time building a mental map. Subdivisions where every house has one of 5 building templates are a worst case scenario and you have to rely on street signs or navigation apps.
These little tiny extra loads on the brain are small individually but would add up to a lot of wasted mental energy.
true (Score:2)
When I first started working full time I lived in the suburbs and worked in an industrial part of a city. I would get depressed driving into work when the trees would disappear and everything looked dirty/rundown. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
Isolation, actually (Score:2)
In the scheme of things, nothing contributes to depression like isolation. Run-down cities tend to be places where people live an isolated life.
By contrast, people who live in "boring" rural areas, tend to socialize much more, and experience depression less. https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com].
I've read TFA. Not a well-written article. (Score:2)
Important topic, for sure, but the article itself is thinly written, simplistic and borders on incoherence.
From the article: "...the second half of the 20th century, pioneering thinkers such as American author and activist Jane Jacobs and Danish architect Jan Gehl began highlighting the inhuman way our cities were being shaped, with boring constructions, barren spaces and brutal expressways... It was an inconvenient truth that seemed to contradict mainstream architectural thinking."
Just, no. Everything in