FinalPodcast_MentalHealthAndTheCity_Anjali_Satheshkumar

HEALTH AND WELLBEING IN THE CITY

MENTAL HEALTH AND THE URBAN FABRIC

This podcast, created as a part of UP504- Urban History and Theory class at UIUC, aims to correlate the effect urban environment of a city has on the mental health of its residents with a focus on Bangalore, India. The focus on a city in India is due to a study published by WHO which estimates that between 2012-2030, India’s mental health emergency will cost the economy more than $1tn in lost productivity[1].  The central argument is that urban designers, planners, and architects can influence people’s mental health and the way people live.

When compared to rural areas, cities have a higher incidence of most mental health issues. Urban living can change brain biology in some people in areas of the brain where changes have previously been linked to early-life stressful experiences[2]. Cities also affect specialized cells in our brains that are adapted to the geometry and arrangement of the spaces we inhabit[3]. To sum up, cities can affect our mood and well-being[4]; yet urban architects have often paid scant attention to the potential cognitive effects of their creations on a city’s inhabitants. Research has repeatedly established the role of green spaces in improving the overall mental wellbeing of individuals. Increasing social isolation in cities is another potential cause for rising mental health concerns. For further analyses, a city called Bangalore in the Southern part of India is studied.

In the past 50 years, green space in Bangalore has declined from about 70% to around 2.2% as per research conducted by the Indian Institute of Science. Not everyone has equal access to these sparse amounts of urban greenery and their spatial distribution is inequitable. It’s observed that individuals of high socioeconomic status have access to a higher quantity of higher quality urban green space. The public urban parks are located far from low-income areas and slums. [5]

Bangalore has seen rapid urbanization and migration in the past few decades. This has changed the landscape of the city. The rapid and unplanned growth of the city has played a huge role in determining the psychological state of its residents. In the pandemic year 2020, Bangalore saw mental health experts facing burnout because of excessive work pressure and load. In addition, Bangalore saw the highest number of deaths by suicide in 11 years[6]. Growing mental health concerns among its residents is a serious issue here. The podcast further discusses ideas on how to solve these problems[7]  and some plans that the city is planning to implement in order to address these concerns.

Conclusion

City design has a very huge role to play in shaping the minds of its residents. The physical layout of the city impacts the travel behavior of its citizens which has a huge role in determining their physical and mental well-being. Paying close attention and giving importance to green/open spaces and transportation in the city would in turn help a city thrive. In addition to this action needs to be taken for equitable access to these green spaces. If addressed correctly, these could help residents lead a better life and save the nation from serious economic, social and cultural consequences.

References

[1]  Dhillon, K. (2019, December 20). “They travel hours to see a doctor for a minute”: India’s mental health crisis. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/20/they-travel-hours-to-see-a-doctor-for-a-m...

[2] Leila Haddad, Axel Schäfer, Fabian Streit, Florian Lederbogen, Oliver Grimm, Stefan Wüst, Michael Deuschle, Peter Kirsch, Heike Tost, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Brain Structure Correlates of Urban Upbringing, an Environmental Risk Factor for Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia Bulletin, Volume 41, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 115–122, https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbu072

[3] Roddy M. Grieves, Kate J. Jeffery,The representation of space in the brain, Behavioural Processes, Volume 135,2017, ISSN 0376-6357, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376635716302480

[4] Abbott, A. City living marks the brain. Nature 474, 429 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/474429a

[5] Kaur, Navjotpreet & Kaur, Mandeep & Padhi, Saumya & Singh, Kiran. (2021). Geospatial analysis of the distribution of urban green spaces: a study of four Indian cities. Cities & Health.

[6] Parashar, K. (2021, January 31). Bengaluru: Suicides touched 11-year high in 2020; experts blame Covid. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/suicides-touched-11-year-high-in-2020-experts-bla...

[7] William H. Whyte. (2010, January 3). Project for Public Spaces. Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://www.pps.org/article/wwhyte

 Mishra, M. (2020, January 30). Bangalore is Now Officially The World’s Most Traffic Congested City [Blog]. The GoMechanic Blog. https://gomechanic.in/blog/bangalore-is-the-worlds-most-traffic-congested-city/