SANITY AND URBANITY BLOG
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Mental health can be seen as a sliding scale with disease on one end, optimal condition on the other. Most of us sit somewhere in between, hopefully closer to the optimal side. Things happen in life that tip that scale towards one end or the other, many of those things being in our environment. An urban environment has the possibility of pushing us in either direction. The stigma commonly associated with mental illness may stem from the idea that it is an internal problem that the person can change themselves. Yet the impact that the natural and built environment has on our mental health is palpable and often out of our control. Everyone has symptoms of poor mental health at times. Here are some examples of ways that cities can cause common mental health symptoms:
These are all symptoms of an unhealthy mental state which can be caused or exacerbated by urban conditions. Yet this is no reason to truck out to the burbs. Cities offer extensive benefits for our wellbeing, which we can experience all the time:
Improving the urban environment by integrating nature, social connection and stress-relieving elements can both relieve the negative symptoms and increase the positive interactions we have in the urban environment. Both the negative symptoms and positive benefits of urbanism are things every one of us can experience. Those of us who have the means to get away or change our environment can usually prevent the negative symptoms from going from a few bad days into a disorder, by putting ourselves in more frequent contact with the positive experiences. But many urban residents don’t have the ability to change their environment. By advocating for urban designers, planners and architects to collaborate with health professionals to design urban environments that promote our mental wellbeing, we can improve the effect the urban environment has on everyone.
Where are you originally from, and where do you now live and work?
I grew up outside of Austin, Texas, and moved to DC for graduate school; I have been here since – I live in the city and work in the city and walk to and from. Which is your favorite city in the world, and why? I really haven’t travelled enough; but of my travels, I most frequently find myself in my Aunt’s small town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, north of Boston. We visit the neighbors, pick vegetables straight from her garden and sip tea on the sun porch; it is always a pleasurable break from a downtown life. What sort of work do you do around the intersection of urban design and mental health? I have a Master’s Degree in Interior Design where I focus on infusing the built environment with health using research and principles of Evidence-Based Design. My focus area is the healthcare environment, both physical healthcare and mental healthcare. I have recently begun to engage with our Urban Planning group to take the elements we use on the interior scale, and expand those to the building and city scale. How did you end up working at this intersection? One of my first projects out of school was an adolescent behavioral health residential facility. And it was built like a jail. We take oaths as designers to protect the “health, safety and welfare of the public”. And to me that meant I had an obligation to protect everyone who needed safe and healthy spaces – especially those most vulnerable and in need of healing. What particularly interests you about the link between urban design and mental health? Simply the fact that designing our cities to support mental health is missing – and there is so much potential and so much need. Mental healthcare in general is still not at the preventative stage that physical healthcare is moving towards. Designing surroundings that help foster positive mental health for the millions who living in and moving to cities could create a positive mental revolution. Can you describe an example of good urban design that positively impacts mental health? Choice and control in the urban environment has the most potential in my mind. Individuals move to urban centers for opportunity. And that should not be restricted to job opportunity. City dwellers should have options of how to get to and from places, safe and healthy opportunities of commuting. Giving the person a right to choose their path creates a great foundation for positive mental health because it provides control; when individuals feel as though they have no control over their situation – big or small - their mental state deteriorates. What sort of challenges do you see in urban design for mental health? The challenge will be breaking the stigmas of talking about mental health issues; regardless that a quarter of our adult population suffers from poor mental health. I believe many urban planners are already on the verge of creating healthier cities, through physically active cities; mixed use cities; sustainable cities; but we need to embrace open conversation on what those achievements in urban planning can do for a citizen’s mental health and explore further opportunities. Why do you think people don't focus enough on the link between urban design and mental health? Because mental health is “easier” to discuss when it can be isolated to an individual (i.e. “well, he was crazy”) and not at a larger, societal scale. Violent tragedies go back to gun laws and race issues and not so much how we are shaping our citizens, mentally. What would you like to see the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health achieve? Draw attention to the issues; bring people together to find solutions. Talk, talk, talk! It has been a very exciting week for UD/MH. Tuesday was our grand launch and very first interdisciplinary dialogue. We were delighted with the turn out at the British Embassy - architects, urban planners, physicians, policymakers, epidemiologists, artists, mental health advocates, and many others turned out to drink wine, eat cheese, and engage in vigorous interdisciplinary debate: how can we design better mental health into our cities? Read all about it (and see some photos) here. We are hoping to get the video up next week. Plus, Layla McCay was interviewed for Cities Today, and wrote about mHealth, urban design and mental health for TechChange , while active transport guru Chris Hamilton published a version of his UD/MH launch presentation on Mobility Lab. 
Where are you originally from, and where do you now live and work?
Originally from Michigan, now live and work in DC by way of Austin, Texas and San Francisco Which is your favorite city in the world, and why? San Francisco – the parks, the ocean, the architecture, the proximity to amazing wine, the walkability, the plethora and bars and restaurants, and even the fog! What sort of work do you do around the intersection of urban design and mental health? My work involves research at the intersection of urban design and health overall – physical, mental, and social. Currently, I’m working to inform and educate the real estate and land use professions on the importance of designing buildings and communities that promote all of these facets of health. How did you end up working at this intersection? As a trained urban planner, I learned about connections between health and the built environment during classes I took for my doctorate. I became very interested in the role that planners, and others outside of the health profession, can play in ensuring that our cities are planned and designed in ways that allow all people to live healthy lifestyles. What particularly interests you about the link between urban design and mental health? Designing cities in ways that make living much less stressful. As someone who used to commute by car for nearly 2 hours per day in Texas, being able to live in a place with transportation options was so important to me, from a stress and mental health standpoint. Not having to rely on a car for a commute over the past couple of years and improved both my mental and physical health – I walk more and have much less road rage! Five years ago I couldn’t imagine a day without getting in my car, and now I forget I even have access to one. Can you describe an example of good urban design that positively impacts mental health? Parks and green spaces are critically important for mental health, especially in bigger cities. Being able to integrate smaller park spaces throughout cities that allow some respite from all the concrete – Paley Park in New York is one example I like, a very small pocket park in the middle of midtown Manhattan with trees and a water feature that drowns out city noises. You don’t even feel like you’re in New York City! What sort of challenges do you see in urban design for mental health? There is still a lot that is unknown about the role of the built environment on mental health, and also there are many indirect factors of the built environment that can impact mental health that may be difficult to address. Because health, and especially mental health, is such a personal construct, it could be a challenge to conduct meaningful research into this area to really get a handle on all of the different aspects of the built environment that impact mental health. Why do you think people don't focus enough on the link between urban design and mental health? Mental health is trickier to “solve” than physical health issues, because there are so many different facets of mental health that have different solutions, ranging from stress to serious mental illnesses. It appears more intuitive to focus on how to design cities to get people to be more active, or give them access to healthy food, but we also need to be thinking about the differing needs of all types of urban dwellers. What would you like to see the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health achieve? First and foremost, raising awareness of the links between the design of cities and neighborhoods and mental health. There has been so much research on improving cities for physical health, we now need more attention paid to this other critical area of health, especially in terms of making cities—typically noisy, crowded, and stressful—more therapeutic for those who live in them. |
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