“While the modern city might be a haven for playwrights, poets, and physicists, it’s also a deeply unnatural and overwhelming place. Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control.”
