Book Tip No. 22 (2017): Stress and the City. Why cities make us sick. And why they are still good for us.

Munich 2017.

When a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, who works as head of the research area affective disorders at the Charité, turns to the topic “Stress and the City”, one may be curious. Rightly so. Cities are drivers of economic development and innovation, they are much more productive compared to rural regions, and they are also able to integrate millions of migrants worldwide. At the same time, we associate cities with noise, stress, traffic chaos, violence and crime, but also anonymity.

Mazda Adli draws a very detailed and multifaceted picture of the city and its problem areas. And he shows why many people love cities so much and how cities can be designed to offer even more quality of life. Adli combines the psychological perspective with personal observations and experiences, which makes the book very readable. For the second edition, it is to be hoped that Adli will also deal with the findings of Alex Pentland on the subject of Social Physics. In the future, neuro-urbanism should also use digital data streams for its analyses.