Urban stress and mental health

Do we need to prepare ourselves for a more urbanised and, therefore, more depressed world? With the following article I wish to stimulate a conversation between urban planning, architecture and neuroscience, in the hope of facilitating a more nuanced understanding of how urban and rural living conditions differentially impact upon our mental health. At a first glance, there are enormous methodological differences between the disciplines of urban planning and neuroscience. None the less, considering the neuroscientific approach to the topic of cities is essential, as from it we can start to understand how city living affects inhabitants’ brain biology and could therefore influence the risk for developing mental disorders. On the bright side, there are also indicators that show a protective aspect of large cities with regards to mental health. Cities, therefore, may lend themselves to facilitating new and appropriate health intervention strategies. Urban living is on the rise whereas rural living is becoming the exception – in all parts of the world and at an ever-increasing rate. The rapid pace of urbanisation is an important marker of the societal transition at large that has occurred over the past thirty years. Our world is shifting towards an urban, small-family or single household, and at the same time, an ageing society. In the next thirty years we will be faced with the growing challenges specific to our cities’ aged single urban populations. But urban living is not only about getting older, it is also about getting stressed. Stress is the unspecific physiological and psychological reaction to perceived threats to our physical, psychological or social integrity. And urban living can be threatening if you don’t have enough space of your own, if you experience insufficient security, or live under unstable economic conditions. Stress increases with the anticipation of adverse situations and the fear of not having the adequate resources to respond to them. From an evolutionary point of view, stress is the mechanism that prepares us for any ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction, and also causes us to evolve in order to better adapt to our environment. Although not harmful per se, stress may jeopardise our health when stress exposure is chronic or when complete recovery is not possible.