Urban Life is Bad for Brains

Some cities are better than other cities. I've lived in small towns, suburbs, medium sized cities, NYC, Toronto, and Chicago as well. I'm particularly fond of NYC, but admit it can be tough on every part of you. Small things happen in small places, so if you want to actually do some big things, big cities are recommended. At any rate it is important to learn how to live wherever you are. As far as living in a city, one key is to be able, or caused in the course of your work, to get out of town. Conversely I have been living now in a small town, and am as much stressed by being a bit stuck here, as I would be if I was living in NYC, and couldn't get out of town. From my experience I have reasons to take the findings of the "scientists" with a grain of salt.

Is it not possible that the scientists doing this study have confused cause and effect? Maybe people appear more "mentally challenged" in the city because only the "mentally challenged" chose to live in cities? Whoops. I live in a city....Never mind.

An other truth: Life is a sexually transferred lethal illness...

Crowd too many rats (or monkeys) into a cage without stimuli and they get stressed out. So we should be that different?

Actually I read a Scientific American Article some years ago about an experiment with Chimpanzees. Two sets were crowded, but one set was supplied more food than the other. The set with plenty of food was generally more peaceful, and the Chimps did a lot of grooming of each other. The set with more limited food was not so peaceful. Chimpanzees were chosen for the experiment because they are closer than either monkeys or rats to humans. A guy I knew who had been in Attica for awhile once said, "Civilization is about three meals thick." Though I actually prefer Manhattan between 96th Street to Battery Park over Toronto, Toronto is actually more generally peaceful. There are reasons for that having to do with culture, and laws, and population, but really the more I think about it, the more I am in disagreement with the postulation that Cities per se, are bad for your brains. Not having shelter, food, or loving social contacts is bad for your brains regardless of where you live is more likely the bottom line.

-Toronto can be bitterly cold.

He was right about that thin veneer of civilization! I don't do "bitterly cold" any more - the Mason-Dixon line is too far north for me these days! And while I have lived in cities and hamlets, I actually prefer to be somewhere in between. Out in the boondocks, but close enough to a 50K+ population center to be there in under an hour. Well, maybe in a couple of hours...