Life in a metropolis considers being weary and taxing (Kwon, 2016). The residences are on numerous occasion experience cases of high crimes, pollution, and environmental stressors which are different from those living in rural area. Today, 54 percent of the world population resides within an urban center in 2014, but there is the possibility it will rise to 66 percent by the year 2050 (Kwon, 2016). Recent research suggests that the risk of getting schizophrenia is high within the urban environment based on the association in living in an urban setting. The analysis is broad which means that there are more epidemiological studies that link the livelihood in an urban environment and the association with contacting a mental illness like schizophrenia or depression. However, the association with urban life and the health of its residences is psychological. Social stress seems to play the most crucial role in the effects to human mental health even though there are more infrastructure socio-economic conditions and health care than in rural area (Adli, 2011).
Georg Simmel’s ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ discusses many different aspects of urban social life during the 19th century which still has a great impact on the understanding of mental health to date. Georg discusses his issues based on an individual’s perspective while living in an urban center and the psychological coping within the form of existence. Simmel believes that any metropolis dominates objectivism rather than subjectivism which in turn may lead to degradation of the person’s personality (Simmel, 2012). The lifestyle has an ever-increasing concern with accomplishment contributes to the decline in culture. For example, becoming one sided or one dimensional and ignore any form of extra curriculum activities that have a social advantage. Simmel uses the division of labor to explain the situation, where the characteristic of the mental phenomenon reduces from an elaborate system to a single entity, making the position in the society as objective. Therefore the psychological life of the individual is intellectual and not emotional (Simmel, 2012). The struggle is evident when the individuals have a specific set of objectives as life in an urban center as opposed to having the freedom to choose subjectively any personal integrity achieved through an inward vision of the person (Simmel, 2012).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
A city will always be an engine of intellectual life. Georg Simmel’s book confirms that the urban center is the force that necessitates the individual to remain protective. There is the intensification of the stimuli; the individual must safeguard against the changing dynamics experienced in an urban center. It causes by the fact that the environment has restricted timeline and working under the clock (Simmel, 2012). The city characterizes many forms of measurable stimuli and quantitative yield contributing towards the indifference in the personality. The kind of manifestation causes the individual to be more logical and intellect, thereby; life becomes a matter-of-fact with no consideration of personal emotions or relationships (Simmel, 2012). Simmel discusses this by stating that the reaction by an individual in the city is rational, which is less sensitive and removed from the depths of personality.
The barrier has the profound impact on the individual who lives in the urban center. For example, other behaviors like reservation and freedom. The attitude of the individual makes it possible for the individual to display forms of reluctance as a result of being objective than subjective since there are little human interactions. In small urban setting, people are likely to greet each other while in an urban environment the individual’s encounter as significantly not worth the investment of time or emotion, thus the cold and unfriendly stereotype displayed by individuals in an urban center that is true (Simmel, 2012). There is also a significant degree of personal freedom of an urban residence since the individual has freedom from any forms of prejudice and boundaries felt by members of a social or religious group which is found mostly in a rural area.
Reference
Adli, M. (2011, November). Urban stress and mental health: LSE Cities . Retrieved from https://lsecities.net/media/objects/articles/urban-stress-and-mental-health/en-gb/
Kwon, D. (2016, May 20 th ). Does City Life Pose a Risk to Mental Health? Scientific America . Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-city-life-pose-a-risk-to-mental-health/
Simmel, G. (2012). The metropolis and mental life In The urban sociology reader (pp. 37-45): Routledge.
