Depression, anxiety, drug use, suicides, crime, nihilistic violence such as mass shootings- to what extent can these symptoms of social pathology be blamed on our man-made environment?
Americans live in a nihilistic landscape of cartoon architecture, of looping superhighways and parking lot oceans, of strip malls and big-box stores, and an endless sprawl of tract neighborhoods full of plastic houses.
The schools look like insecticide factories, public buildings such as libraries, post offices, and courthouse are indistinguishable from bottling plants.
Our man-made made environment is entropy made visible. Entropy is the force in the visible universe that moves everything towards death and decay, and that’s what our built environment signifies- death, decay, dissolution.
We consume anti depressants and other psychotropic drugs at the highest rate in the world. People continue dropping dead like flies from drug overdose. Suicides and mass shootings-are becoming increasingly common. The amount of despair bring generated by our man-made environment cannot be overstated.
It matters. It has been/is being studied; FWIW, researchers in this field refer to it as the “built environment.”
I’m not aware of research into whether the aesthetics of the built environment have an effect on physical or mental health, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they do.
I work in a manufacturing environment on a daily basis. I don’t see any resemblance to schools or government administrative buildings at all.
Kind of odd to blame social ills on the urban sprawl environment. Plenty of the population is handling it just fine.
Give me reliable transportation and food source, a climate controlled environment with plumbing and lighting, all the things that protects me from the elements and predators that try to kill me. I’ll take it all over a cave and a fire existence, every single time.
Fair enough. But what if the choice is between a treeless concrete jungle that forces you to drive everywhere, and a walkable one with lots of greenspace, public gathering areas, and architecture that catches your eye and speaks to aesthetic sensibilities?
Jakarta, Indonesia is an interesting example. there are few public spaces and greenspaces, i.e. parks and such. But they have shitloads of shopping malls. Want to hang out somewhere? You don’t go to a park, you go to a mall and bask in a completely artificial environment.
When it comes to architecture, do you want to live in a world of bland utilitarian buildings, or architectural feats that inspire people to come and take pictures? Do you want North Dakota’s Capitol building, or do you want Wisconsin’s Capitol building?
It’s really not an either/or scenario. We can have both. Modern conveniences, including highways and personal transportation allow me access to nature. I work in a major city. I live in the suburbs which allows me access to state parks, etc. I sail regularly on the Chesapeake because it’s accessible due to modern roads and infrastructure.
As to the buildings you linked: I spent a year in Kansas City on business one week. It gave me a new appreciation for brutal style architecture. I like a variety of building architecture, tbh. I do HATE malls, tho.
It’s why I like living in Portland. All the jokes aside, it’s generally a pleasant place, with a lot of Craftsman style houses, and decorative facades on public structures like schools and libraries. Old buildings with beautiful architecture have been preserved and serve as modern businesses. New multi-story construction often requires that the ground floor be “pedestrian friendly”, meaning that it contains businesses instead of a concrete face. Neighborhoods are mostly walkable, with parks and extensive tree canopies.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have the problems described by the OP, of course, as they exist everywhere, but people here are generally pleasant and helpful to each other.
Well said. The solution to this problem is building environments that are 1). Worthy of our affection, and 2). Human scaled, both physically and psychologically.
“Brutalist architecture, or Brutalism, is an architectural style which emerged in the mid-20th century and gained popularity in the late 1950s and 1960s. It descended from the modernist architectural movement of the late 19th century and of the first half of 20th century.[1][2][3] It is characterized by simple, block-like structures that often feature bare building materials. Exposed concrete is favored in construction, however some examples are primarily made of brick.”
The environment definitely affects psychology, probably why there’s so many studies about wall colors.in psych wards. At the soul sucking end you have offices like the one in Joe vs the Volcano. But there are ways to mindfully improve the atmosphere too, even in small easy ways you can do.
Indonesia will get a do-over as it plans to move its capitol to Borneo. It will be interesting to see if they have learned anything from the mess that is Jakarta.
I’ll agree that stores that go in these days are pretty dull on the exterior, malls used to have a bit of style but not anymore, but why has nobody brought up the worst offerders of uglification, mega churches. Around here they are either complete dumps or converted factories. We have one that has a cross that looks like the “9/11” one. Two steel girders are embedded in the front of what looks otherwise like a high-cube warehouse. I’m not even going to go into the contents.
As someone from a more rural background, I find the description of “walkable with lots of greenspace” as a sort of oxymoron. If a place has lots of greenspace (like exurbs or rural communities), then everything is far apart and not walkable.
“Walkable” means you took away all the greenspace around everyone’s house, you stacked the houses on top of each other to make large buildings and then you sprinkle in small community gardens. Small community gardens are not “lots of greenspace.”
IANAPsy-anything, and don’t know how relevant this is, but Dr Stephen Ilardi of KU has some interesting observations on how our current environment has drastically outrun our ability to evolve to it. He claims we (humans) spent hundreds of thousands of years evolving to maximize wellbeing in a hunter/gatherer environment, and can’t change fast enough to “fit” well in our technological environment. His data and thoughts on the rapidly increasing rates of clinical depression is pretty frightening.
I thought his talk on the subject was fascinating.
Not really. I live in a mid-sized city (pop. 200 000), a 4 km distance from the city center. My backyard is connected to a kms-wide forest and my walks to the city center go past oat fields and pastures, alongside a river. Lots and lots of greenspace, and everything within walking distance, or biking distance for the walking-aversed.
You claim that depression, anxiety, drug use, suicides, crime, and nihilistic violence such as mass shootings are caused by our modern environment. Before we attempt to show how these are caused by our modern environment, show us that they are any more common than they have ever been. I’m talking about statistics, not anecdotes.
