How the city hurts your brain (or Why Cities are Mostly Democrat)

Boston Globe ^ | 2 Jan 09 | By Jonah Lehrer

[helpfulresearcher]

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. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

[helpfulresearcher]

This may explain why so many cities are Democrat. Cities automatically make people stupid, lacking in forethought, and hedonistic.

[Tarpon]

Because the cities are for pigeons and Democrats have brains the size of a pigeon’s brain.

[Just another Joe]

Seems I remember a study done one time that suggested this, and other things.

Seems they put some type of rodent into a closed container one at a time.
The acted like any normal rodent until they hit a tipping point.
After the tipping point they became aggressive, to the point of cannabilism.

Is it any wonder that our urban areas have become a site for gang shootings, terror in the streets, home invasions, etc?

[xcamel]

Search first...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2160004/posts

[helpfulresearcher]

I remember a similar one where they increased the rat density to a certain point and those things happened, plus homosexuality.

[MHGinTN]

No, it’s because pigeons need training and shufflin’ democraps are the preferred aim because declaring as democrats they’ve proven they’re pigeons.

[blam]

"Is it any wonder that our urban areas have become a site for gang shootings, terror in the streets, home invasions, etc? "

That's it. The taxpayers should fund a program to move all the ghetto folks to rural areas. Would they go to work then?

[Just another Joe]

That's it. The taxpayers should fund a program to move all the ghetto folks to rural areas. Would they go to work then?

Too late for the ones already affected.

[Vigilanteman]

Pigeons also know where to find a hand-out and sh*t on the very people who feed them. But unlike Lieberal Democrats, they can be cute.

[Tarpon]

Pigeons are easy kills and taste just like chicken, really.

[Tarpon]

and good to eat. At least the country pigeons are. Taste like chicken.

[Bitsy]

This may explain why so many cities are Democrat. Cities automatically make people stupid, lacking in forethought, and hedonistic.

Dumber than stumps!

[MHGinTN]

Never eaten pigeon. I’d guess they’re a lot like doves though, and I’ve eaten lots of those, some of which I took away from my old killer cat to cook when I was a kid!

[theFIRMbss]

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

(Subdivisions)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
(Subdivisions)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out

Any escape might help to smooth
the unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms
to soothe the restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory
of lighted streets on quiet nights...

(Subdivisions)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
(Subdivisions)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out

Any escape might help to smooth
the unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms
to soothe the restless dreams of youth

[Vigilanteman]

Dumber than stumps? Hey, let's not get personal.

[MrB]

For a species that evolved to live in small, primate tribes on the African savannah

Ah... the inherent acceptance of ubiquitous atheism...

God did tell Abraham to stay out of the cities. And his nephew Lot sure found out that it wasn't all that great a place to be.

How about "People were created to enjoy God's creation and not live in a hive"?

[Right Wing Assault]

But they hide this at the end of the article:

the very same urban features that trigger lapses in attention and memory -- the crowded streets, the crushing density of people -- also correlate with measures of innovation, as strangers interact with one another in unpredictable ways. It is the "concentration of social interactions" that is largely responsible for urban creativity, according to the scientists. The density of 18th-century London may have triggered outbreaks of disease, but it also led to intellectual breakthroughs

[RipSawyer]

Cities automatically make people stupid, lacking in forethought, and hedonistic.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

My upbringing was almost backwoods, a mile off the nearest paved road, two hours from the nearest thing that could really be called a city. When first exposed to the big city I found it exciting but I have never wanted to live in the city. Between 1972 and 1982 I went to the Chicago suburbs three times for schools that totaled thirteen weeks. I literally could not comprehend why anyone wants to live there if they have a choice.
I have often wondered what most lifelong city dwellers would do if they had to live as my parents did. People used to have to plan ahead and do things of their own initiative or suffer the consequences, when the Earth started warming in spring they had to have plans made to plant what they would need to harvest in the fall. When fall came they had to cut firewood as well as harvest the crops. I see a lot of people now who seem to have no concept of planning ahead for anything.

[Repeal The 17th]

Large metropolitan areas do two things:
-The city attracts people who have a need or a desire to be “taken care of”.
Whether that need or desire is for convenience, security, mass transit,
universities, or a multitude of other “government provided services”.
-The city then also breeds that dependency into all the other people
who may happen to live there for jobs, etc.