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I am very aware of the benefits to urban living, but i do wonder if humans are inherently happier living in high density environments. I feel like the benefits

I am very aware of the benefits to urban living, but i do wonder if humans are inherently happier living in high density environments. I feel like the benefits of urban living are less crucial if the human population was prevented from growing or even reduced with time.

reustle 10y ago
I've spent a considerable amount of time living in Tokyo and New York City. In NY, most weekends I would take the bus to my tiny hometown in Pennsylvania where I was surrounded by nature. I find that the things I get mentally from the city is extreme amounts of social interaction, and from the countryside I get the deep connection with nature. I think it is near impossible to find the social interaction I'm looking for in small towns, as I want a high concentration of smart, open minded people.
- sjg007 10y ago
  Woah woah.. it's not very open minded of you to say that small town folks are dumb and closed minded!
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    It's a bit of a different point - no matter how nice small folks are, for any given type of person there isn't a high concentration of them. Niche activities cannot flourish or even exist if there isn't a sufficient "critical mass" of people interested in that niche, so a small town simply can not have as much diversity in such niches as a large city.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    It's true, dumb is the opposite of smart, but nothing there implies that small town folk are dumb. Small town folk are of average intelligence, with a lower concentration of significantly smarter people simply due to the fact that high paying jobs are concentrated in urban areas. If you were to concentrate high paying jobs in small towns, you'd see the reverse happening. As for being closed minded---I'd find that people from urban areas are more close minded if they happen to live in their enclave without much interaction outside of it. Many people in cities are highly mobile, but many people in cities just treat their neighborhood as a walled garden, and are highly defensive against other types of people.
    - matheweis 10y ago
      That still makes the assumption that the smartest people must necessarily be taking on the highest paying jobs. That may or may not be true.
      - ZeroFries 10y ago
        No, it assumes smarter people take higher paying jobs on average, which is most likely true. https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/02/11/the-incredible-correlation-between-iq-income/ https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/02/11/the-incredible-correlat...
    - RUG3Y 10y ago
      I've lived in city and rural environments. In my experience, people in the city are far more judgmental of rural people than the opposite. Rural people are too busy with manual labor jobs to worry about what's happening in the city.

reustle 10y ago

I've spent a considerable amount of time living in Tokyo and New York City. In NY, most weekends I would take the bus to my tiny hometown in Pennsylvania where I was surrounded by nature. I find that the things I get mentally from the city is extreme amounts of social interaction, and from the countryside I get the deep connection with nature. I think it is near impossible to find the social interaction I'm looking for in small towns, as I want a high concentration of smart, open minded people.

sjg007 10y ago
Woah woah.. it's not very open minded of you to say that small town folks are dumb and closed minded!
- PeterisP 10y ago
  It's a bit of a different point - no matter how nice small folks are, for any given type of person there isn't a high concentration of them. Niche activities cannot flourish or even exist if there isn't a sufficient "critical mass" of people interested in that niche, so a small town simply can not have as much diversity in such niches as a large city.
- true_religion 10y ago
  It's true, dumb is the opposite of smart, but nothing there implies that small town folk are dumb. Small town folk are of average intelligence, with a lower concentration of significantly smarter people simply due to the fact that high paying jobs are concentrated in urban areas. If you were to concentrate high paying jobs in small towns, you'd see the reverse happening. As for being closed minded---I'd find that people from urban areas are more close minded if they happen to live in their enclave without much interaction outside of it. Many people in cities are highly mobile, but many people in cities just treat their neighborhood as a walled garden, and are highly defensive against other types of people.
  - matheweis 10y ago
    That still makes the assumption that the smartest people must necessarily be taking on the highest paying jobs. That may or may not be true.
    - ZeroFries 10y ago
      No, it assumes smarter people take higher paying jobs on average, which is most likely true. https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/02/11/the-incredible-correlation-between-iq-income/ https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/02/11/the-incredible-correlat...
  - RUG3Y 10y ago
    I've lived in city and rural environments. In my experience, people in the city are far more judgmental of rural people than the opposite. Rural people are too busy with manual labor jobs to worry about what's happening in the city.