The Urban Brain

"For the first time in history, the majority of people reside in cities," Jonah Lehrer writes. Human evolution started with us swinging from trees and roaming the African savannah and now we're living in dense urban environments with fast-paced lifestyles and constant visual stimulation.

More research is now being done on how the mind is affected by urban environments. With more concrete than green space, cities are quite different from the natural environments we evolved from. According to a University of Michigan psychological test, participants who travelled through the city had a worse mood and had significantly lower scores on attention and working memory tests. Other researchers have stated that city environments can overwhelm the brain, leading to emotional control issues. This blog has talked about some of the problems associated with noise stress, an issue that residents of urban areas constantly experience. Jonah Lehrer made an interesting comment, "a tired brain, run down by the stimuli of city life, is more likely to lose its temper."

Other studies have shown the benefits of green space. Even people confined to indoor spaces, like in hospitals, benefit significantly by just having a view of trees from their window -- their moods tend to be better and they tend to recover more quickly from surgery or treatment.

This article stresses the importance of parks in urban areas so people can have an easy escape from the city. Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, was quoted, "It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan."