Happiness and the City, by Eliza Veretilo
People who live in cities either love or loathe them. The advantages and disadvantages are countless and living in one creates habits that can change you as a person. Originally, cities were planned around a place of gathering, like a market or a church. Thus we have their social nature; but they were also designed for protection, which is why old cities have walls around them. These walls would not only protect people from enemy attacks but also from the chaos of nature. So far, cities seem like a good place to live, products and services are accessible and you are provided protection, but are cities really that good for us? Are they the epitome of civilization? Why did people abandon the fields and move to the flats? Are people happier there? Does art, culture and technology develop faster in cities and if so, why?
Living in London, which is a modern day mega-city (of around 10 million inhabitants) and one of the most important art cradles of the past century, I have always wondered whether and why people become so productive here. The city demands a lot of you. It can drain you both financially and energetically. So why choose the city? To explore these questions I am going to sit on the edge of Freud’s essay ‘Happiness and Civilization’. We agreed that in theory, cities are good places to live and that art develops at an amazing speed; but art doesn’t always spring from happiness. Anger, sadness, wrath and loneliness have inspired some of the most beautiful art pieces.
Cites isolate people within an incredibly populated space, pretty paradoxical. Parting from the notion that human beings are sociable creatures, this contradiction of ‘belonging’ to a city but ‘not’ to the community at the same time (for instance people don’t know who lives next door) may cause a sort of frustration and deep loneliness which perpetuates the accelerated life style of the city and perhaps gives birth to angry art.
So, surely the biggest exodus that has occurred in human history, when millions moved from the country side to the city in China in 2009, has to be viewed as a good thing, as progress? Here I am going to have to argue a big: NO. People are getting charmed by the glow of the city lights and are starting to forget where things (food for example) really come from. This can especially be seen in the mega-cities and across the urbanised ‘developed world’. The accessible resources and seeming big opportunities are a dangerous lullaby. Contact with nature and a sense of community have become obsolete, though not in reality, only as propaganda for the metropolises. I am in favour of individuality and think that everyone should be entitled to do as they feel, but the mega-city may not be the best place to bloom, it does not give you independence, high rents and long working hours are not my idea of freedom.
The average person in a modern city interacts with at least three hundred people a day depending on their job (by interact I mean being in the same bus, cafe, at the till of a shop, etc). As this happens daily, we start creating habits that we may not even be fully aware of; maybe our brains are trying to cope with the sea of faces and storm of activities we see around us City people are quicker to pick trends and new technology, why? Maybe because their ‘copy-cat’ survival instinct is constantly working at high speed. There are exceptions, of course, such as tramps, but that’s a different story about people who were perhaps pushed to disillusionment by the city itself. Coming back to your average office or shop worker at the city, where trends spread like fire in a paper house, these people will be quicker to get all the codes in appearance of urban tribes, different social statuses and jobs. They are over-exposed, and that makes them over-aware. If you think of the geography of the planet, we have so many vast open spaces, and staring at these landscapes does nothing but good to us. The National Geographic says we can fit all 7 billion human beings in the city of Los Angeles so why do we insist on cramming up? Are factories and businesses in need of workers accumulating human labour in cities and have complete disregard for actual human needs besides the basics? I think yes.
City people live under constant pressure from all angles and almost no release; there is a layer of individuals who are almost expected to be more cultured, to have money, to have a position, that’s what people want when they move to the city, right? Cities do have a dense accumulation of: universities, libraries, museums and galleries as well as bars, casinos and night clubs. The choice is there, the city engulfs you. I do believe that the incredible amount of ‘choice’ and lack of ‘air’ (literally and figuratively) can cause frustration in individuals and this relatively new phenomenon: stress, is a consequence of urban living; and poverty.
City people are also almost forced to maintain a serious facial expression and a tougher attitude in order to keep their place in a cue, for instance, but it could also be because of a fear of crime, which is a hard reality of the city. This surely will have consequences in your real mood, if you have to pretend to be moody all day. Maybe it has been this constant interaction with people which at the same time hides an infinite solitude and the pressure to appear tougher in order to survive, that has made cities the default hatching point of development, not of happiness or contentment but of stuff yes, material things. Also, rooted in non-conformism, cities are hatching places for art and culture, crude, rude and true, street art reflects our dissatisfied state.
To Freud, there were three main sources of unhappiness: our own bodies, the environment (the rain for example) and our relations to others. If we address each one with regards to the city, we can see how the city can be a candy coated paradise, till it cracks. Our body causes us much distress, with its many needs, lust and tiredness. It gets in the way of plans and projects. In the city, we can find easy solutions for our bodily needs, we have food from all over the world, ready-made and sometimes very cheap, we have brothels, we have night clubs, we have hotels, we have drugs. Cities offer a lot of easy escapes which the country side doesn’t, in the country side you need a more planned life, you need to stock up your fridge, and its harder to find a partner, but maybe, maybe the end results are more substantial. The environment in the city is almost an artificial one, we put sand over rivers to build roads and build canals in valleys to give way to boats. Human beings manipulate the land of cities over and over again as if they stopped being part of nature and became permanent construction grounds. In the country side, on the other hand, people have to dwell a bit more with the environments, a snow storm will block the road, but, at the same time, people at the country side, especially the ones that do like to get their hands dirty, can get into a harmonious rhythm with the environment, the seasons, nature, the pace of growth of plants can tell us a lot about ourselves and can be great shapers of character. How else do you think human beings can survive in the Sahara desert and the Himalayas? Because we can work with nature.
City people get consumed by their work, they can become automatons that only want to sleep and eat. Meeting friends becomes harder; a few lucky ones have families, which is a great source of happiness according to Freud. Many, many city people feel isolated, perhaps consumed with the idea that work is home and home is a place to sleep. Some think they should be more ambitious and chase the rabbit’s tail of the city dream: a better job, a better flat, nicer clothes, be more powerful, be respected; but most of the time they end up in the same job, trying to cover the same bills, saving up for the never coming holiday, its sad but statistically true. Country side people have a choice, they can be isolated or be part of their community. A smaller town means that the chances of meeting its inhabitants are higher and a more relaxed, less competitive environment means people are more likely to stop, talk and share. This is not intended to be a 'City versus Country side article; I am just suggesting that we could live differently.
Still, the city feels unnatural, with its millions of inhabitants, most of which are lonely hearts. Perhaps it is that feeling of emptiness that creates art, an art that tries to create an impression, to exist and to shock, to change. It is also the sense of comfort which the city claims to provide which makes city people so innovative and always in the search for a new thing, a search for more comfort perhaps, something easier, stronger, better, shinier, faster; as if the city was an invisible personal trainer that was always saying: keep pushing. With this statement I am not saying that art is not created in the country side, or that people from more rural environments are less creative, the only thing I am comparing here is the speed rate, the incredible velocity of development that occurs in the city. It is perhaps, the social pressure of the city what has increased the speed so incredibly.
But why do we still move into the cities? Maybe to look for better jobs, we could work the land but we don’t, why? In Freud’s words: humans don’t search for happiness, humans avoid pain. Our herd instinct is perhaps stronger than we like to admit. In 20 years at least 80% of us will be living in cities, either because old cities will expand or because mass migration to the cities will continue. Perhaps we need to reconsider this; perhaps we need to restore a balance. More attention to the softer, more patient side of our characters, the one that is able to look after a plant, a field, a horse, can teach the city rat a few things about well being, as patience is a limited resource in the city. We need it back. Perhaps if we weren’t so consumed with the idea that we need to impress to exist in the city, we would move slower, even create slower but deliver quality, the quality that comes from dedicated, enjoyed, non-pressured work. Perhaps if people didn’t loose themselves to the concrete streets, or if there was something other than just concrete in our streets, our city tales would be less about anger and more about sharing and the result would be, happiness and the city.
