EFFECTS OF CITY LIFE ON OUR BRAIN

The city always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century coffeehouses of London, where citizens got together to discuss chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso introduced 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 encouraged Ben Franklin also helped cholera to be spread. Even Picasso eventually bought a house in a quiet village to escape the city. While the modern city might be a shelter for playwrights, poets, and physicists, it’s also a deeply unnatural and depressing place.

Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are instructive. They have found that just being in an urban environment affects 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 restrict our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

One of the main reasons is lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard.

This research arrives just as humans cross an important milestone: For the first time in history, the majority of people live in cities. Instead of inhabiting wide-open spaces, we’re crowded into concrete jungles, surrounded by taxis, traffic, and millions of strangers. In recent years, it’s become clear that such unnatural surroundings have important negative effects on our mental and physical health, and can powerfully change how we think.

This research is also leading some scientists to become interested in urban design, as they look for ways to make the metropolis less damaging to the brain. The good news is that even slight changes, such as planting more trees in the inner city or creating urban parks with a greater variety of plants, can significantly reduce the negative side effects of city life. The mind needs nature, and even a little bit can be a big help.