Boston Globe: How the City Hurts Your Brain

[Rosemary]

A fascinating article. Where to post? public policy, because we need livable cities that don't impact mental health? environment? health? Going with the latter.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/how_the_city_hurts_your_brain/?page=full

[try2bfrugal]

Great article, Rosemary. Thanks for posting. We are looking for a new house and have noticed the common theme with what we are finding we like is how many trees are in the backyard.

[rosarugosa]

I think I read this article when it came out, and it really rang true to me.

[bae]

... because we need ... cities ....

I'm not so sure about that :-)

[Rosemary]

When we looked for a house in Tucson, the initial test was that I would go into the back yard and listen. If I heard traffic, we didn't bother to look at the interior.

I really need solitary time and space, from people, noise, and buildings. I like going to a city and walking - but I'm always happy to return home. I love the small, walkable towns of Germany, where you can easily walk to the town center to do your marketing, and walk home, and the town is surrounded by space before the next town - farmland or vineyard or forest. When we lived in the city in Tucson, I really had to plan weekend outings in the national forests around the city. Now that we live in a suburb and have lots of trees and wetland around, i don't feel the need to escape as often.

[iris lilies]

Well, I agree that greenery and nautre are important. That's why I don't live in the desert, been there, done that. I get more nature in my city than I got in my town in the desert.

AAaaaaaaaanyway, not all cities are the same. My city, for instance, if lightly populated. There is no crowding or hustle or bustle on the streets,t aht is unless you purposely go to a festival or event. NOrmal day to day traffic isn't much and certainly there is little on the sidewalks.

The cities get a bum rap for green stuff, yet I have found this city to be fabulously supportive in having gardens: free compost (delivered to my site!!) fee mulch )ditto) and fixed water costs, unmetered. I can water to my heart's content should I choose to do that.

[Tammy]

I love living in an apartment in downtown phoenix. Never been so happy. I guess toeach his own ...

[Jilly]

I love my medium-sized city. It is close enough to two metropolitan areas that I could go to either for something special. I mean, I would not, but I could. If I wanted. Which I do not.

I finished a week of training in one of those much larger cities today, and when I started driving near my street, the air off of the lake was so wonderful, there were gulls loopily looping above and people strolling around. People sitting on their porches, or walking their dogs, and I was swept up with the joy of living here. I spent the past 38 years living in the country, and even though I loved it and even though driving for stuff was not a huge problem, I am so in love with my little lower flat in a charming old Victorian, on a street with more of the same.

I have plenty of quiet and solitary time and can wander downtown if I feel like being around more people. I can walk to work, or the pharmacy, but not a market. I came to live here because I felt that I had no other reasonable choices and quickly knew that I was glad to be here.

I have had both extremes and think that there is not only one way to live, and most likely more than one way or place to live during our lives.

[gimmethesimplelife]

Though I had a less than stellar childhood, the setting was ideal - a small town in Southern New Hampshire before it became a suburb of Boston. I lived there for the first ten years of my life and never really got over it - I crave life somewhere smaller and more human in scale. Right now I live in the I think it's sixth largest city in the country, Phoenix, and in a metro area of over four million that sprawls and sprawls and sprawls. Not my ideal setting BUT while I am here - there are resources I can use that could help me get to a smaller place and make a living there somehow online. Before I can do that, I need to learn web design and computer usage in general much better. So right now I am here.....making the best of it. I love being so close to the few border areas in Mexico that are still fairly safe - Los Algodones and Mexicali. And I love being a ten to fifteen minute bus ride away from a great museum downtown. So it's not all bad but still there is a part of me that pines for the small town. Rob

[sweetana3]

I live in the downtown of a city with 1M population. However, even with traffic noise, our area is like a nice little neighborhood.

Would not raise kids here due to invisible pollution from traffic but, as we are retired, it is almost perfect for us. I can walk to the National Insitute of Fitness and Sports, all my necessary services including a terrific library.

For kids, I would move just 50 blocks north to one of our oldest neighborhoods. Sidewalks, library, canal, etc.

There is no way I personally would move out to an income segregated suburban home or out into the country where a car is required 100% of the time.

Like someone said, there is room for everyone. Right now, apartments in our downtown are the hottest property and rented before the building is even finished.

[creaker]

Funny - I live in Boston and I just walked down there yesterday. End of the work week, I was heading to the place I volunteer every week, and strolling past the farmers markets and people in Copley Square, down Boylston Steet (one block over from Newbury Street mentioned in the article), down past the gardens.

After volunteering a group of us walked to the Hatch Shell (amphitheater down by the Charles River), sat on the grass, watched the sunset paint the clouds, and watched a free movie with hundreds of other people (the movie was Despicable Me :-), there were many families and kids there). Very pleasant, relaxing evening.

Personally, although like anywhere there is plenty of room for improvement, I'd hold Boston up more as what a city should be.



I've done the walk around Walden Pond this year, too. Quiet, beautiful - and cold. It was spring. In the summer it's crowded and noisy and it's hard to find a place to park and although fun, not what I would consider "relaxing" at all and have avoided.

The article paints too much a picture of one side - and the other - without balancing out the good and not so good in both. Balance is really important.

[pinkytoe]

I feel rattled every time I have to leave our leafy enclave in the middle of this huge hot bustling city. The constant sound of the highway nearby I now imagine to be the ocean so that it doesn't drive me crazy.I truly believe there is a connection between attention deficit in children and their lack of connection with nature.

[Spartana]

I love living in an apartment in downtown phoenix. Never been so happy. I guess toeach his own ... This would be me too! I would love to live in a tiny apt (no yard work, no home maintenance!!!!!) right smack downtown in a small city (although not PHX as it's too hot and dry for me - gotta have green, cool, wet places with lots of trees and city parks). Love everything so close, walk, bike, public transit, etc... I've lived in many cities, as well as the country and suburbs, and would choose the city everytime - well, at least a smallish compact city rather than NYC or LA or Chicago type places. But then I'm deaf so city noise doesn't bother me at all :-)!

[Spartana]

Funny - I live in Boston and I just walked down there yesterday. End of the work week, I was heading to the place I volunteer every week, and strolling past the farmers markets and people in Copley Square, down Boylston Steet (one block over from Newbury Street mentioned in the article), down past the gardens.

After volunteering a group of us walked to the Hatch Shell (amphitheater down by the Charles River), sat on the grass, watched the sunset paint the clouds, and watched a free movie with hundreds of other people (the movie was Despicable Me :-), there were many families and kids there). Very pleasant, relaxing evening.

Personally, although like anywhere there is plenty of room for improvement, I'd hold Boston up more as what a city should be.



I've done the walk around Walden Pond this year, too. Quiet, beautiful - and cold. It was spring. In the summer it's crowded and noisy and it's hard to find a place to park and although fun, not what I would consider "relaxing" at all and have avoided.

The article paints too much a picture of one side - and the other - without balancing out the good and not so good in both. Balance is really important. I lived in Melrose - a Boston suburb - and loved it but loved living in Boston itself much better (at the Coast Guard station on a ship in the North End). So easy to get around without a car to points near and far - as well as to places like Lynn Woods, breakheart, Walden, etc.. Love the whole Emerald Necklace idea www.emeraldnecklace.org And such a beautiful interesting city with tons of resources - all reached without a car! Boston is in my top ten of great cities to live in the USA. I have also lived in New Orleans, Honolulu. Anchorage, AK, San Francisco (another top ten city but too expensive) and several smaller cities like Portland, Maine (number one!). Would love to live downtown in Portland, Maine!!

[bae]

I just spent six hours walking through these sort of crowds:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ferEDp3e7r0/UeHXUPugehI/AAAAAAAAIF4/wz4dpO4KGA4/s720/Awesomized.jpg

[Rosemary]

bae, that's my kind of place!

[jp1]

When I was looking at NYC apartments 20 years ago I can remember very specifically how much better I liked the apartments on blocks with lots of trees, as opposed to streets with no plants anywhere to be seen. I ended up picking an apartment with a giant tree outside my windows and past that a park across the street. Being 5 blocks from Times Square it was obviously an extremely urban area but having that view out my window was wonderful. Maybe the researchers in that article are onto something.

[Spartana]

One of the great things about lving in a place like Seattle is that you are just little ways away from the beauty of places likebBae's island - and can get three by ferry! While I personally would prefer a city to the county, I would want to live in a city very close to lots of nature.

[HappyHiker]

That article rang true to me. After 30 years in the San Francisco area, we de-camped to a small coastal town across the continent.

for me, the City meant the constant hum of the freeways, the scent of gasoline in the air, the crime copters circling overhead, the screech of power tools involved in the endless remodeling, the leaf blowers, the car alarms, sirens...finally, my jangled nerves said enough...it was like living inside a giant, never asleep machine.

What kept me there so long was the grandeur of the Sierra, the silent strength of the Redwoods and Sequoias, points North in Oregon and Washington and Canada... but it became a battle with traffic to access them, so relief was transitory and my nerves were newly jangled upon arriving home.

I'll miss the beauty of the Pacific Northwest till the day I die, but I'm so much more at peace in my small and quiet coastal village. Today I went for a bike ride down some leafy lanes and never once encountered a car. Nirvana.

[Rogar]

I could see this taking two approaches. One is that cities are unhealthy. The other that a lack of some sort of solitude and a connection to nature is unhealthy. Though they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I live in what is probably a big city or at least a suburb of one. Many years ago the county passed a tax of .5% of all purchases in the county dedicated to acquiring and managing open spaces for hiking, biking, picnics, walking and the like. We now have over 40,000 acres of well managed open space that abounds with wildlife, flowers, and where one can get a little quiet and solitude without being some sort of athlete.

I volunteer for a few projects with our open space and have met people and heard stories of appreciation. One fellow actually got tears in his eyes when explained one of the open spaces basically saved his life as a place to think and excersize after by-pass surgery. A lady told me how her daily walks in a pretty area saved her mental health after loosing her job and a long period of unemployment. Some people seem perfectly suited to city life, but I'd maintain that some sort of connection to the natural world is necessary for the human spirit. It can happen near the city or in smaller places.

[Spartana]

I could see this taking two approaches. One is that cities are unhealthy. The other that a lack of some sort of solitude and a connection to nature is unhealthy. Though they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I live in what is probably a big city or at least a suburb of one. Many years ago the county passed a tax of .5% of all purchases in the county dedicated to acquiring and managing open spaces for hiking, biking, picnics, walking and the like. We now have over 40,000 acres of well managed open space that abounds with wildlife, flowers, and where one can get a little quiet and solitude without being some sort of athlete.

I volunteer for a few projects with our open space and have met people and heard stories of appreciation. One fellow actually got tears in his eyes when explained one of the open spaces basically saved his life as a place to think and excersize after by-pass surgery. A lady told me how her daily walks in a pretty area saved her mental health after loosing her job and a long period of unemployment. Some people seem perfectly suited to city life, but I'd maintain that some sort of connection to the natural world is necessary for the human spirit. It can happen near the city or in smaller places.
I agree. I find that cities who are proactive in keeping large green spaces, or wilderness areas sparsely populated with little or no build up, to be the best of both worlds. One reason I love cities like Boston, Anchorage, Seattle, Portland etc... and hate places like LA with it,s endless urban sprawl. I also think that for single people like me, who don't have kids, that living in a city - especially a small city - provides much more opportunities to be engaged with others and in more activities.

[Gardenarian]

Nature is good.