You Don't Have to be Crazy to Live in a City . . .

But they certainly seem to attract more than their fair share of crazy people. This article originally from the Atlantic, explores why, The Mystery of Urban Psychosis "Why are paranoia and schizophrenia more common in cities?"

If you’re not used to the built-up environment of the inner city, the block can certainly feel unsettling. But here, urban alienation may run deeper than mere architecture. The area was found to have the highest rate of diagnosed schizophrenia in a large study of South London, even when compared with directly adjacent neighborhoods.

The research that found this striking variation was led by epidemiologist James Kirkbride, now at University College London. Kirkbride’s work is but one in more than a century of studies that have found higher rates of psychosis in cities and which have sparked an intense debate over whether—to put it in its original terms —‘cities cause madness’ or whether those affected by ‘madness’ just tend to end up in cities.

The link between psychosis and city living was first noticed by American psychiatrists in the early 1900s who found that asylum patients were more likely to come from built-up areas. This association was sporadically rediscovered throughout the following century until researchers verified the association from the 1990s onwards with systematic and statistically controlled studies that tested people in the community as well as in clinics.

One particularly extensive study using health records for almost the entire population of Denmark found that the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia increased in a small but proportional way as people spent more time spent living in urban environments. Many studies have since replicated this finding, with neighborhood levels of social deprivation seeming to amplify the association and levels of social integration seeming to reduce it.

To many, this provides evidence that cities are universally bad for our mental health—something that chimes with a strong cultural belief that associates the natural world with tranquillity. It might seem like common sense that living in a run-down, inner-city neighborhood would wear away at your psychological wellbeing. But here is where the cultural cliché breaks down, because the effect is surprisingly selective.

The data shows that urban environments reliably increase the chances of being diagnosed with schizophrenia or having related experiences like paranoia and hallucinations. This is not the case for other mental health problems primarily caused, for example, by depression or mood instability. If it was a general effect on wellbeing, you would expect the chance of being diagnosed with any mental health problem to increase at an equal rate, but this isn’t the case.

There are good reasons to think that city living might be the cause of some of these problems. The two big psychological negatives of city living, social isolation and social threat, are already well studied in mental health. They are risk factors for a range of psychological difficulties but have been particularly associated with misperceptions and paranoia. And for people who are already experiencing paranoid delusions, there is good evidence that urban environments amplify anxieties, increase the intensity of hallucinations, and weaken self-confidence.

But none of this conclusively proves that cities cause schizophrenia and some argue the causal arrow actually goes round the other way. People with psychosis, the alternative explanation goes, are just more likely to end up living in poor city neighborhoods—something first labeled the ‘social drift’ hypothesis.

Boiled down to remove excess verbiage, the question is whether living in the city causes some people to go crazy, or whether crazy people tend to wind up living in cities in excessive numbers because it's easier for them to live there.

As usual, when confronted with a biology, and a binary choice, I reject the binary and accept that both factors are likely true; cities do drive some people crazy and  crazy people find cities a more congenial place to live.

But of course, the story doesn't end there. There is a movement afoot to push all of us, or at least as many of us as possible, into cities. WUWT, Guardian Demands Higher Density Cities to Combat Climate Change

According to The Guardian, packing people into cities like sardines will help save the world from climate change. But even progressives are hesitating to support this latest climate initiative.

Denser cities could be a climate boon – but nimbyism stands in the way

Drawing people into cities could cut emissions and combat housing crises. But even progressives are hard to convince

In San Francisco’s Sunset District, rows and rows of pastel-colored, two-storey homes flow from the edge of Golden Gate park into the sand dunes of Ocean Beach. Many houses here have solar panels on their roofs and compost bins at their driveways, flanked by hybrid and electric cars.

Yet here – and all over this city – one major solution to both the housing crisis and the climate crisis has been met with fierce resistance: building more.

Climate scientists and urban planners increasingly suggest that one of the most impactful ways to slash greenhouse gas emissions is to make cities denser. This change, scientists have calculated, is even more impactful than installing solar panels on all new constructions or retrofitting old buildings with energy-saving technologies. Residents of cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Minneapolis already have much lower carbon footprints than in the surrounding suburban sprawl. City dwellers tend to have smaller apartments that require less energy to heat and cool.

But it also means a certain American way of life may have to end.
…
At a national level, Joe Biden has called for a “historic investment” in affordable housing, with his administration urging cities to change zoning laws to boost density and limit single-family housing developments, as well as rip up highways that have cleaved apart communities, typically communities of color, and added to air pollution.

…Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/22/cities-climate-change-dense-sprawl-yimby-nimby

Is it just me, or does anyone else think some climate activists act like they hate the idea of any personal contact with nature? At least with suburbs, houses with backyards, there is room for kids to play on grass lawns, maybe plant a few fruit trees between the houses, to share the space with the local wildlife. High density housing not so much.