Robert Foster

I was watching news this afternoon and this caught my eye. Coming from some of the same sources that we use to talk about global warming, now called climate change, scientists and now telling us Urban living may be changing us in ways we didn't expect.

I got a kick out of it but then you had to know I would. I always thought big city living effected your brain.

https://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...vin.html?rss=1

gerv 

Schizophrenia is a topic that interests me quite a bit, as I have a son so diagnosed. The studies I read put the outcomes of Western societies, whether rural or urban, at a much greater disadvantage outcome-wise than schizophrenics living in rural third world countries (Africa and India).

I suppose some of this has to do with rural communities being more accepting of mental illnesses and possibly tending to treat the mentally ill with more respect.

The surprising fact is that most third world, rural schizophrenics do not take neuroleptic medications (ie, wonder drugs) while most western schizophrenics remain well medicated. It's kind of odd that, in progressive societies, the mentally ill are likely to remain mentally ill throughout their lifetimes, whereas in the third world, the outcomes are much better.

bragi

I'm not quite sure I agree with these findings. It could just be that city dwellers are more likely to be competitive to begin with, and when they're told they're not measuring up, they naturally tend to get more irritated.

Nathanial Hawthorn had a different take: he claimed that country life makes people more stupid. He made an attempt to "get back to the land" in a communal setting, and noticed that both he and his compatriots simply had fewer interesting things to think about and discuss after months of doing nothing more than toiling in the fields. Eventually, mostly out of sheer boredom, they all fell into indulging in vicious gossip and intrigue, and their whole country-living experiment pretty much imploded.

Personally, I like living in the city, especially a city like Seattle. It's very easy to navigate by bike, but it's an interesting place to live even without bikes. In addition, even if you live in the heart of the city, you can put yourself in the middle of nowhere in a matter of hours, even if you don't own a car.

Robert Foster

It was the site that interested me. we take scientific studies and use them to prove we would be better off living in high density cities. We will even quote the same source that reported this new study. But when they say something we don't expect we say we disagree. But if someone were to disagree with their other "studies"? I just find it funny.

akohekohe

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/

cycleobsidian

Don't tell my brother in law. He grew up in a rural area, in a home built in the middle of a woodlot. His parents pride themselves on their self-sufficiency. My brother-in-law has severe schizophrenia. and remains heavily medicated as a result.

I guess country living can affect your brain too.

Robert Foster

I wouldn't. But for this fprum there was a chain and I noticed it so it was pulled.

Thank goodness I wasn't drinking hot coffee when it was announced on NBC news. That hurts the nose.

Roody

Good link. I think many of the brain function studies will be refuted soon. This is a "hot" topic and is attracting a lot of research dollars, even though the fundamentals are poorly understood. People are trying to draw a lot of subtle distinctions about activity in specific areas of the brain with little basic research supporting the relationship between brain activity and real world behavior. Also, see Corollary 6 in your link, which I think applies to the study being discussed here:

wahoonc

I wonder just how diversified that group was and if they made a conscious effort to do anything other than survive? My grandparents were dairy farmers from around 1930 until they retired in 1974. My grandfather's formal education ended around the 9th grade, however he was extremely well read and was always reading and investigating new farming techniques and equipment. He was contour farming 5 years before it became common place. And if you look up Wadena, Iowa on Google maps you can see just how far out in the sticks he lived. They lived 3 miles north of town.

Aaron

cycleobsidian

Yes, living in a rural area could likely cause less stress, thereby reducing come forms of mental illness.

A rural lifestyle could also be shown to cause more boredom, less creativity, more closed mindedness, and less desire for higher education.

just sayin'.

Robert Foster

Yes that could be said as well. Or if they tend to have more mental problems could it be the reason for a higher per capita crime rate? People can be very creative when ripping off a neighbor and running from the cops sure isn't boring. his study on national news? True or not I laughed and posted as soon as I could get the tears out of my eyes.

Face it how could someone not think of this site after hearing the national news use this as a lead story?

cycleobsidian

Yes, I run from cops every day after I've ripped off my neighbour, because of course that's what city people do.

At least it is more interesting than watching the grass grow, or intermingling with my first cousins.

(Don't take me too seriously; I grew up on a farm and loved it as a child. Got bored stiff living in a rural area as a teenager and an adult and now I LOVE living in a small city. Best move I ever made.)

Robert Foster

Don't worry I take almost nothing seriously when it comes to city verses suburb or rural living. People live where they live for their own reasons. I have my reasons for not living in high density city and without this new study. I just got a big kick out of it because it didn't come from some abscure news source but from someone we get to see every night on a major network.

Dean7

Interesting. Any linkage? (I don't doubt you... just interested)

wahoonc

They run from the cops in the country too...just have more open space to run in. I still contend the best place to live is a small town with the necessary amenities. I think something around 10-15k population works well, and if it is an older town laid out on a grid that is a huge plus.

Aaron

I-Like-To-Bike

It is especially useful if the small town has within walking or riding distance, the necessary amenity of employment opportunities to provide a living wage for a family.

wahoonc

Yes it is and there are a few of them still left out there.

Aaron

cooker

This is an area of intense psychiatric research and there are two main competing hypotheses on why higher rates of mental illness are found in cities: the "drift hypotheses" and the "breeder hypothesis". The drift hypothesis posits that people at risk of or experiencing mental health problems gravitate to the city seeking health care, subsidized housing, social assistance etc., in which case the city is viewed as a positive. The breeder hypothesis (ugly name) posits that the city breeds mental illness through unknown mechanisms eg. stress, viruses, pollution or whatever, and thus is a negative. Neither theory has won out.

There are variations among countries - Canada, Norway and Belgium, for example, show little rural/urban differences in depression rates, while the USA, the Netherlands and Ireland show larger differences. Apropos of our interest in car-free living or urban density, clearly you can't see a pattern linking density or lack of it, or car-centricity, to the mental health findings.

Most of the excess urban mental health cases are found in "inner-city", disadvantaged, impoverished neighbourhoods, as you would expect, in keeping with Plato's 2300 year old observation that the city of the rich is distinct from the city of the poor.