How urban design affects mental health

I’m also from edmonton and I found that the article... weirdly seemed totally irrelevant to edmonton, and seemed like it was written about a different city.

Almost every single home in the city is a short distance from a recreation centre or cafe. Edmonton is great for that. We might have a lot of food deserts, but we have no shortage of hockey rinks and tim Hortons!

The city also has tons of green space in the downtown... don’t we have the biggest urban park in North America?? If one were to write an article about downtowns full of high rises being depressing, Edmonton seems like basically the worst city to write about. Walk for 10 minutes from any part of downtown and you’re in a beautiful river valley...? Isn’t that better than almost any other downtown on the continent?

The REAL problem with Edmonton, in my humble opinion - our car culture, our weather (those long -30 C nights make watching TV on the couch a lot more appealing than going out and meeting people), and also just a general culture of introversion/not approaching strangers.

A typical Edmontonian 25-year-old’s Friday night, any month other than July or August:

-Drive straight home from work.

-Watch TV alone for an hour (you likely have no roommates because edmonton has a very high income:cost of living ratio and you can easily afford to live alone - possibly this also contributes to loneliness?)

-Drive to a bland chain sports bar/restaurant such as Boston Pizza or Hudson’s, where people sit in booths like at a diner and, much like diner customers, don’t interact with anyone outside of their own table.

-Sit at a table with 4 guys you’ve been friends with since elementary school (because you haven’t made any new friends since third grade)*. Chat with them all night and maybe watch the oilers game on the TV - You literally don’t talk to anyone else in the bar other than your server.

  • ~drive home drunk, like almost everyone I’ve met in this city, wtf is wrong with the people here~ I mean uh, safely drive home after a maximum of 1 beer like a good upstanding citizen.

-Watch TV alone for another hour then go to bed.

——

How are you supposed to meet people in a city like this? It’s definitely depressing

* this part was a bit of a bitter exaggeration but I’m basing it on a certain group of guys I’m friends with, lol. You’d think they’re allergic to meeting new people (though I’ve actually asked one of them about it and he just said “I have enough friends, why would I want more?” So, fair enough, I guess?)

/r/urbanplanning Thread Parent Link - cbc.ca