Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people • Hacker News Board

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#221

Post by elevenoh » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #110

radu_floricica wrote: post #52

Funny thing is, making cities more green isn't even _that_ difficult. I see above conversations on living closer to nature, or mountains vs parks - but the vast majority of time spent is walking and driving in the cities. So it seems a no-brainer that before everything else, before thinking about taking a 2 hour drive to hike, or making the time for a weekly visit to the park, we should first make sure the places peo…

Europe does this much better. It's not so difficult to find yourself on a quieter, greener path just on your way to work. The countryside has a network of footpaths that connect everything. Wherever I am in Europe, I can count on a quiet evening walk. Berlin is outstanding for this. Wherever you are, it's easy to escape loud traffic and sit in a green, public space. Some have cafés and Biergarten in them. I find retu…

Downtown vancouver near stanley park might be for you :)

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#222

Post by giraffe_lady » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #152

Before people get too excited... I've examined a number of phds on this topic as a relative outsider to the field and have been pretty unimpressed by the claims of env-psych on green/bluespace. The methods used to unpack confounding by class/wealth are pretty minimal and, although lip service is occasionally paid to this in discussions sections after reviewers require it, nobody in the field seems to take it seriousl…

Aren't those substantially the same thing in modern cities? In my city the difference is clear and profound: wealthy white neighborhoods have grass and tree cover on all residential streets, and poor and minority neighborhoods are concrete and asphalt.

On any similar metric you map the city by you see the same effects. Air pollution, noise level, and heat in the summer vary hugely by neighborhood but always follow this pattern.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#223

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

madsbuch wrote: post #134

throwaway894345 wrote: post #6

This is the sort of thing I think about when the pro-urban/pro-density/anti-car people talk about their vision for the world. I live in a city now, and the lack of substantial nature is suffocating to the extent that I plan to move. The idea that we should all live this way to conserve space—a resource which is only scarce in these urban places—seems excessive to put it mildly. EDIT: A lot of urban folks are rebuttin…

> pro-urban/pro-density/anti-car people I would want to meet this person. I am a huge proponent of walkable cities, and I definitely see a city that is urban, high density and with a lot of nature. Heck Copenhagen, where I live, do it quite well -- within 20 minutes from the absolute center of the city (eg. Noerreport), I can be with grassing Alpacas ( https://goo.gl/maps/jcA6VFMPHC5qmYCp6 ) or I can be with large he…

I'm a big proponent of walkable cities too, but I diverge from these people in that I don't think it's desirable to make everyone live in a dense urban environment or else extend public transit to every corner of the US in the name of abolishing cars.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#224

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

joshgev wrote: post #197

madsbuch wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pro-urban/pro-density/anti-car people I would want to meet this person. I am a huge proponent of walkable cities, and I definitely see a city that is urban, high density and with a lot of nature. Heck Copenhagen, where I live, do it quite well -- within 20 minutes from the absolute center of the city (eg. Noerreport), I can be with grassing Alpacas ( https://goo.gl/maps/jcA6VFMPHC5qmYCp6 ) or I can be with large he…

Attitudes vary from person to person, but I don't really think being 20 minutes from nature really counts. I lived in Paris until recently and had a really rough time for a few reasons, but the biggest one is was the lack of green places to walk. Whenever I brought it up to anyone, people would say "oh, what about Bois de Boulogne or Bois de Vincennes?" Both were inaccessible by foot from where I lived due to distanc…

I love Paris and would love to hear about some good Paris-adjacent nature opportunities if you're up for sharing.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#225

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

neoromantique wrote: post #168

swah wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature is also against walkability when it puts frigging hills on my way! Also the weather is way too agressive near the equator... I can endure it with sports clothes but not before work. Seriously: walking/cycling on Amsterdam, Lisbon or Paris when the weather is 15 °C, mostly on flat ways, is a pleasure. You arrive at the office just a little heated up, I imagine.

That’s just excuses though, people cycle even in Norway where it’s below freezing most of the year

I'm okay with being the "weak person" who doesn't enjoy cycling in below-freezing weather.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#226

Post by alistairSH » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

pif wrote: post #146

QuikAccount wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with making cities green, like the problem with everything else, is terrible city design. There is quite a bit of greenery where I live and it is all anxiety inducing because it is planted near intersections and cutting off line of sight so you can't see pedestrians well or oncoming traffic. There are certain areas that have these wonderful bushes, too bad they opted for those bushes instead of sidewalks…

> it is planted near intersections and cutting off line of sight You've just described a wonderful and very intelligent form of traffic calming.

When done well, yes, it calms traffic. But random trees or bushes at an intersection on an otherwise wide open road isn’t a good idea.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#227

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #97

brailsafe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I feel like you're just failing to precisely represent what you're wanting. Here's what I think you're getting at, definitely tell me if I'm off. 1) Cities, whether they're sprawling or dense, or park-laden or not, can be suffocating. It just so happens that yours atm is less park-laden. Thus, your advice for exclusively urban people, is to actually put the effort in to get into real nature; into the mountai…

Sorry for the imprecision. My city is “park laden”. I live next to a 1200 acre park. City parks aren’t nature; however, and having seen the real deal there’s only so much one can do to convince one’s subconscious otherwise. But yes, I find daily life in an urban environment (however park laden!) to be depleting. Cities are still tons of fun to visit and explore, I’m glad they exist, etc. This might be different if I…

I should also note that I'm glad that there is a movement to make cities more walkable, but I duck out when that sentiment pours over into a sort of religious zeal against more nature-ful ways of life.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#228

Post by alistairSH » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #125

radu_floricica wrote: post #52

Funny thing is, making cities more green isn't even _that_ difficult. I see above conversations on living closer to nature, or mountains vs parks - but the vast majority of time spent is walking and driving in the cities. So it seems a no-brainer that before everything else, before thinking about taking a 2 hour drive to hike, or making the time for a weekly visit to the park, we should first make sure the places peo…

I think there's a lot that the people that actually live there can do. When I think of American housing, it's either big dense cities, or suburbs. The suburbs are all... bland, a concrete driveway and grass. All very low maintenance. If those were to do some gardening - plant a tree, some bushes, flower perks, longer grasses, etc - you already will get a much nicer place to live. And in the cities, people can do thin…

The crazy thing is grass lawns are HIGH maintenance. It’s effectively an economic signal - “look at me, I have time and money to maintain this useless patch of grass!”

It’s much easier to plant a mix of greens - clover, grasses, etc (effectively pasture seed blend). Requires less water, less mowing, and much less fertilizer.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#229

Post by n8cpdx » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #82

n8cpdx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Portland, OR.

That makes sense. As I understand it, Portland isn’t particularly dense. Someone yesterday was just likening it to suburbs and talking about the great access to nature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31241348 It certainly sounds appealing!

It’s true, Portland isn’t nearly as dense as it should be. The result is that (hundreds of) thousands of people who would like to live here can’t afford to.

But everything I shared about access to nature would be just as true if the urban core was made more dense. Replacing sfh lots with multi use buildings doesn’t affect the access to nature in any way. If anything, it would help the situation by providing more ridership and tax revenue to support transit to nature and investment in parks.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#230

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #215

Loughla wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not talking about actual agricultural industries that require that much space, I'm talking about people living in rural areas just because they like it better. Everyone depends on farms, we can subsidize those So what about the people who live there to provide education to the farmers' kids? What about the people who work at the local restaurants and grocery stores that serve farmers? What about the people who l…

Sure, you can’t completely disentangle those things. But providing services to far-out communities takes a disproportionate amount of resources; if we pretend that it doesn’t and make it seem just as cheap as living in urban areas, we’re just encouraging more people to move out there who don’t need to. We’ve already got a ton of crumbling infrastructure and that’s in part because we’ve built too much of it to possibl…

I'm not sure "we built too much of it" as much as we failed to anticipate or account for trends such as urbanization. Anyway, it's probably more productive and less prone to chauvinism to frame it as prioritizing high value/cost infrastructure rather than morally upright urbanites subsidizing lazy, freeloading rural people (I'm exaggerating here for effect, but that's often the tone that this framing conveys whether or not it's intended). That said, I fully support gradually decommissioning the lowest value/cost infrastructure.