The Suburbs are Ruining Your Mental and Physical Health

I'm not a talkative person I was always the quiet one at school and among my friends and I'm just not the kind of person to strike up a conversation with someone especially strangers hey hey what's your name what's your name hey wait wait wait wait come back what's important to recognize that being social is crucial for our mental health and well-being no matter how quiet or introverted you are the number one factor in improving life satisfaction is not money nor is it friendship it's social connections well connected people can live on average 15 years longer that's why it's important that we design our cities to Foster social trust and bring people together Urban Design plays a huge role in how socially connected we are unfortunately most of the US and Canada are built in a way that isolates people thank you suburbs were originally designed to make us happy back in the day downtowns were smelly dirty old places full of poop and pollution so we decided hey why not just separate the places we live from the places we work and Shop made sense right well maybe I did that then but nowadays most people don't work in dirty factories anymore and we now have super toilets it's been several decades since suburbs were invented and we now know that this segregated style of living makes us less happier because they socially isolate people you live here work here and shop over there all while driving in a secluded vehicle in between but these places are too dangerous to be outside a vehicle anyways they lack pedestrian safety features bike infrastructure and public transit while filming this video I walked across this terrifying bridge that went over the busiest Highway in North America I was right beside six Lanes of high-speed traffic and cars were constantly driving into this highway ramp making it nearly impossible to cross it was loud windy and just a very uncomfortable place to be in I'm glad I made through it without ending up in the graveyard but it's sad to think that there are people who have no choice but to walk through this death sentence on a regular basis just to get to where they need to go this is a 12 Lane Highway that cuts the city in half and the only way to safely get across is to either drive or wait for this crappy bus that constantly gets delayed but who cares about poor people anyways from my own experience most people that I know who either live or grow up in suburbs are just really quiet or reserved people and look that includes me all right but when you look at this inhumane environment that makes up most of our cities is it really surprising that kids are not playing outside all day like they used to back in the day [Applause] at this point many people might say well it ain't that bad I talk to my friends at church every Sunday and see my neighbor Kimberly all the time and that's great it's totally possible to live a social life in the suburbs but these places are inherently designed to isolate you so if you're like me and you're not a social butterfly you have to go out of your way to make social connections rather than it coming naturally cities that are designed to me mixed use and watchable have a direct impact on social trust in a community a 2011 psychology study strap participants two bracelets that would detect it excitements and arousal they had the participants walk through several blots in lower Manhattan with various streetscapes and they found that in this block of messy rundown stores and restaurants the participants were happier and felt safer than here a new modern Street beside a building with pristine Windows now is it possible that all these participants just so happened to come across a very attractive men or women at this its application probably not this in New York we're talking about but this is just one of many other studies that came to the same conclusion Lively complex Urban environments make us feel happier safer and more compassionate towards other people in fact a follow-up study had volunteers at like lost tourists in Seattle and the results were basically the same people here were more likely to help than here in this book happy City Charles Montgomery wrote as suburban retailers begin to colonize Central cities la lock after block of brick and Brack in mom and pop steel buildings and shops are being replaced by blank cold spaces that effectively Bleach Street edges of conviviality corporate bit bot stores and malls with giant parking lots are detrimental for communities they destroy local businesses and sterilize the area of any substance land spaces like this with no complexity and liveliness makes us feel uneasy vulnerable and consequently less happy as Winston Churchill once said we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us speaking of being in shape most Americans are not the average adult needs at least 30 minutes of daily exercise and when you live in a city that encourages active Transportation such as walking cycling or pojo sticking everyone will get the benefits of daily exercise just by going about their business each day cities like Amsterdam where almost half of all trips are made by bicycle are among the most fiscally active places in the world just when walking and cycling are safe and convenient ways of getting around you're gonna get your daily allowance of exercise just by going to work nobody is getting any exercise in a place like this the U.S and Canada are among the least active countries in the world and have the highest obesity rates and lowest number of daily steps of course walkability is not the sole reason why so many Americans are obese but it certainly doesn't help when walking here sometimes feels like you're committing a crime it's just really sad how bad Urban Design hinders your ability to live a naturally active lifestyle nobody should have to commit to and purchase a gym membership or expensive equipment just to maintain a base level of Health as city planner Jeff Speck said the fact that we have a society where you drive to the parking lot to take the escalator to the treadmill shows that we're doing something wrong this forces many people who live in car-centric neighborhoods to have to drive somewhere just to take a walk then we get this absurd phenomenon known as Mall Walkers where people should literally just drive to the mall every morning to take a watch because the outside environment is so hostile I walk the shopping malls I start where I park my car I get out of the car and I close the door and I do some warm-ups being forced to drive everywhere because there are no viable Alternatives is also really bad for your mental health a survey done during the pandemic ask people whether or not they miss their commute to work and unsurprisingly most people who walked or cycled said they did While most drivers did not because suburbs are so car dependent and everything is so far apart commute times are really long and this is made worse by traffic which is usually bad because there's no other option than driving this study found that longer commute times and more time spent waiting in traffic are associated with a higher risk of depression than those who watch cycle or take transits this is not even mentioning the effects of noise and air pollution caused by excessive car traffic active transportation in general is better for your mood and stress but sitting in a metal box for hours while being stuck in traffic and waiting at red lights constantly just sucks even if you're a car Enthusiast and when everyone is forced to do this every day just to do basic tasks like grocery shopping you're gonna get a lot of angry and miserable people on the road over half of all fatal collisions in the US are caused by aggressive driving road rage is a huge issue in North America so much so that they even made a TV show based on it meanwhile in cities that make cycling or transits fast convenient and safe most people won't drive meaning the people who do are the ones that actually want to or need to this trades a better experience for everyone and even those that do Drive probably still want title or take transit from time to time making them more sympathetic and safer drivers because if all you do is drive your giant massive gas guzzling Ford F-150 as every day you're probably more likely to vote for Joe Biden than to care about some person walking the cities are places where people live and work places that we spend our entire lives in so it's crucial that we build healthy and enjoyable spaces to be in tar-centric cities are soul-crushing and miserable even for drivers having viable Alternatives benefits everyone not just the people who use them the detrimental impacts of these ugly places cannot be overlooked these are places no one wants to be in nor cares about at all and yet many are forced to put up with them and they have significant consequences on us all but it doesn't have to be this way cities can be designed to be attractive and welcoming and safe places for all they can be places that encourage being active and making social connections as long as we have the political will it is totally possible to make places that aren't depressing if we truly care about building a society that benefits the people people we can no longer be building cities that prioritize the automobile [Music]

Channel: flurfdesign

Views: 358,230

Keywords: urban planning, urban design, the general theory of walkability, suburbs are bad for your health, suburbs are isolating, driving is stressful, ugly cities make you unhappy

Id: tEEWqddlYQw

Length: 10min 14sec (614 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023