Mental Health in the City That Never Sleeps

William Martin ENGL 1102

New York City is the largest city by population in the United States, not to mention its large financial, commercial, and cultural hubs.  City life is often regarded as having a fast paced, hustle and bustle mentality aspect to it.  But what does this mean for its inhabitants?  How does City life, especially life in a place like New York City, affect its citizens in their daily lives, especially regarding their mental health?  I want to focus on college aged students and this effect on their mental health.  The average college student is 26 years old, while the average graduate student is around 33 years old.  New York City, being a large hub for anything from arts and fashion, to business and finance, has a lot of Colleges and Universities, as well as technical schools and fashion institutes.  There is a significant population in the city that is included in this demographic.

New York City at night, showing how easily one could feel lost and insignificant in a large city.

As we all know, college students are already under a lot of stress no matter where their college or University is located.  But is there a chance that college life in the big city is necessarily more harmful than say a school located in a rural setting?  Since New York City is home to a multitude of colleges, universities, and fashion and technological institutes, I figured the population size of part and full time students there was large enough to explore.  Another aspect of this that could be interesting is where these students were living prior to higher education.  Are students that grew up in a big city before unaffected by life in a city center?  Is the adjustment to the city harder on rural and suburban kids, or does it affect all students the same?  Maybe the more time spent in an urban center is actually worse for one’s mental health, whether they are only used to that kind of lifestyle or not.

In Big City Blues by Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, he argues that the social pressure in the big city, mostly in the form of competition and weaker community ties could be one of the largest factors of the difference between the mental health of someone in a city, and a suburban or rural area.  Different studies fall in line with this hypothesis, but none better than a study done by Meyer-Lindberg himself.  Meyer-Lindberg and his team said that by looking at one’s amygdala, a cherry sized region of the brain within the temporal lobe, they could tell exactly where they lived.  The closer to urban centers their addresses were, the more engaged and activated their amygdala was.  This is because the amygdala affects our flight or fight response, and is greatly affected by stress.  These researchers said in a group of 70 subjects, with brain scan alone the city-dwellers could be immediately identified with hyperactivity in this part of the brain, while those in rural areas had minimal to no constant activity here.  This showed one link between city life and mental health issues.  Those suffering with anxiety and depression are also known to be commonly observed with an amygdala with increased activity levels.  The chronic overstimulation of the amygdala is most likely putting individuals at a higher risk of these conditions.

From the street it’s easy to get lost in the city’s size.

Both of these factors I would argue are especially prevalent in college aged individuals, and on a college campus.  Competition, with academics and just social life in general are found on probably every college campus in the country.  New York is also known for many competitive and prestigious universities, fashion institutes, and colleges where students may have large amounts of competitive pressure put on them by other students, parents, and even staff.  Not to mention how outsiders, students coming from rural or suburban parts of the country, maybe even travelling all the way across the country, might feel in this new environment.  The transition to college is a large pivoting point in many student’s lives, where they are forced to find new friends, hobbies, passions, and really find out who they are, not who they have been told to be their whole lives.  With the pressure to make new friends and stay competitive in school, this could be a huge factor on many students’ mental health and well-being.

One large difference between cities and rural or suburban environments is obviously the environment.  Green space is one of the huge differences in the two, as well as the differences in architecture and color schemes.  Rural areas have a lot of nature  and fresh air.  While nature is more aesthetically pleasing to look at, cities are often mostly greys and blacks, with square and rigid architecture that’s highly repetitive in nature.  New York has one of the lowest amounts of green space per capita in the US, with only 146 square feet per resident, compared to Atlanta’s 1,023 square feet per resident.  A few studies have shown that green space could be a large factor in mental health, especially during childhood.  A study by Denmark’s University of Aarhus showed that childhood exposure to green space played a large role in mental health disorders later on.  Children who were exposed to the least amount of green space had a 55% higher risk of developing psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.  Researchers stated that this exposure to green space was comparable to family history as well as parental age when predicting mental health conditions.  While college aged students are not children, the brain does not finish developing until around 25 years old, so this could still play a part on the mental health of college students in a short term and long term aspect.  This could also mean those who have lived in a city with little exposure to green space prior to college may be at a higher risk of a negative effect on their mental health then those moving to the city for college.

A small park in New York City providing at least some greenery.

My first art piece is End of the Parade, by Charles Demuth, 1920.  I thought this was a good piece to represent the city environment, the dull greys and blacks, with the repetition of the smokestacks and overall dreary competition.  Much like how the smoke and smog pictured are negative for people’s physical health, the grey and blacks show the depressing environment and negative effects on their mental health.  I think it shows how modernists were still focusing on the poor and miserable living conditions many working class people were enduring for opportunities in the big city.  This is still very relevant, with how today people still migrate for work to large cities, even if the environment is less enjoyable than in the countryside or suburban areas of the country.  Many put their own mental health and well being aside while they try and focus on career goals, education, and work opportunities.

End of the Parade, Coatesville, Pa. Charles Demuth, 1920

My second piece comes from Picasso’s Blue Period, which started with the suicide of a dear friend.  I think the depressing colors of blue and grey, with the signs of despair and death in those pictured is a good representative of negative effects on mental health, and Picasso, dealing with depression himself portrays these feelings in a very real and raw tone.  Many of the other paintings during this period are very similar in nature, and it is said Picasso was influenced by his own poverty, and that of beggars and the old and frail that he encountered on his own journey.  The way he represents these people and these feelings shows an often avoided aspect of life especially in art, where it is supposed to be the happy and fortunate, the people a society can be proud of, not what it is actually made up of.  Just like how a society should focus on things that are causing negative effects on people’s mental health and work to fix these factors or lesson them, instead of shying away from the topic.

The Tragedy, Pablo Piccaso, 1903

My final modernist piece, The City, is very bleak, and shows the cramped conditions of city life.  I think the way the buildings are on top of each other, with no breaks between and how they sort of blend together is a good representation of how one might feel after living in the big city for too long.  It shows how cities put efficiency and allocation of space over their inhabitants, trying to fit the most amount of people on a small city block as possible.  There are curtains on the side of the painting, representing looking out of one’s house onto the bleak cityscape, where one can easily feel lost in and insignificant in such a large and confusing city.  I think this is a good representative of the social pressures and stressors that are heightened by life in the city.  If one had to look out at the landscape pictured here, there’s no doubt it would have a negative mental effect, because of the confusion and bleakness.

Robert Delaunay, The City, 1911

I think everyone should think about how their environment might be affecting them and their mental wellbeing, and think of ways to alleviate this added stress and social pressure they may be experiencing.  It could be anything from just reconnecting with an old friend, or getting to know your neighbor, to working to get more green space in your area.

Works Cited:

Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas. “Big City Blues.” Scientific American Mind, vol. 24, no. 1, 2013, pp. 58–61. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24942345. Accessed 1 Mar. 2021.

Rocchio, L. (n.d.). Green space is good for mental health. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145305/green-space-is-good-for-mental-health

Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period. (n.d.). Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://www.pablopicasso.org/blue-period.jsp