Preferring or Needing Cities? (Evolutionary) psychology, utility and life satisfaction of urban living

Abstract

What does city life do to us? We start this discussion introducing the sociologists Tönnies, Durkheim, Simmel, Park, Weber, Wirth, Fisher, Foucault, Gans, Gieryn, Hägerstrand, Stokols, Lowry and Harvey; the philosophers Aristotle, Aristippus, Epicurus, Augustine, Aquinas, Epictetus, Kant, Mandeville, Bentham; the economists, among many, Mill, Stigler, Glaeser, Frey, Easterlin; the psychologists Kahneman, Diener and many others; and evolutionary psychology hints. Empirical evidence suggests a causal link between mental health and urbanicity level. Idem for life satisfaction and stated preferences, both resulting higher at lower urbanicity levels. Despite this, more and more people are deciding to spend their lives in cities (85–90% by 2100). Why? Urban life pros and cons pose individuals subjective spatial dis-equilibrium to face life-time and daily-life decisions, rationally/irrationally balancing advantages and disadvantages in short (current utility) and long term (lifetime utility) perspectives. People trade-off antagonistic arguments of their lifetime/current utility functions when deciding where to live, and some of them end up having to sacrifice a preferred environment to enjoy other types of benefits. Future technological advances (robots, artificial intelligence, hologram communication, telework, teleservices, hyperloops …) and urban-territorial design will radically transform our socio-economic systems and free us up to live where we truly prefer, which might either be an electronic cottage in the wild, a picturesque rural settlement, a romantic town, a beautiful city, a sparkling megacity, or a combination of them.