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Comment by datr | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to undermine this piece too much as I think it is an important issue and what I'm about to say doesn't address all of the details. But I also believe it's an issue that will be partially solved by automated cars. As soon as it becomes palatable to live further from the city and commute; and, to a lesser extent, free up space from car parks, this problem will be dramatically reduced.

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How is this any different from the endless and dehumanizing suburban sprawl pioneered by America? Frankly, you're better off taking a train from the suburbs in London than you will be self-driving cars unless they can solve the congestion problem. The thing is, a lot of people want to live in the city, because they like to, you know, live in a city, not just work there.

I guarantee there a plenty of people living in cities who would be quite happy to live elsewhere if only there were jobs there. Many of those people live in the city to avoid a long commute, not because they enjoy living in a city.

Yes, and I guarantee you there are plenty of people in suburbs that would prefer to live inside the city if it were more affordable. What is your point?

Just that what drives people to live in cities is primarily jobs, not that they prefer living in cities. I am not arguing that is universal (plenty of people do prefer to live in a city) but the main factor.

Regardless of autonomous cars, proximity and density will always be a decisive feature of cities, which is what allows humanity to thrive and innovate. The fact that only the rich people can afford to live in the center of the city is a problem, because it becomes harder to aggregate human ingenuity and innovation.

In fact, I believe autonomous cars will increases a city's ability to network, because it increases people's ability to aggregate into a single place. It will also make the city an even more desirable place to live and work, because autonomous vehicles reduce the pain of moving around in the city.

> Regardless of autonomous cars, proximity and density will always be a decisive feature of cities, which is what allows humanity to thrive and innovate.

Population density is correlated with increased rates of mental illness.

You're suggesting that dense cities drive people crazy (sorry if you aren't), but it's not clear whether it's like that, or that crazy people tend to gravitate towards center with high population densities.

It's not, and that's a good point. But it sounds more logical to me. Could you give some reasons why people with 'mental illness' would gravitate towards centers?

(mind, I'm asking this with the assumption that mental illness is much broader than just homeless schizophrenics, so to speak. I can definitely see why they might gravitate towards heavily populate areas. But they usually don't pay rent.)

Yes, homeless moving to centers where it's easier to find shelter and people to give you money while begging were my first example; of course 'the homeless' includes many subgroups like the schizophrenics who don't have the mental ability to live a 'stable' life, over the alcoholics and drug addicts whose sanity is affected by chemicals, to people who are just down on their luck (usually combination of illness, no job, no family, etc.)

But other drivers might be that certain demographics are more prone to living in cities as well as developing mental problems: immigrants who are under a lot of stress because of having to adapt to a new language and environment; people in high-pressure jobs like lawyers and people in finance; criminals; etc. (being a criminal is very stressful and most non-psychopath criminals who have been living such a lifestyle for several years or more develop stress-related physical (ulcers, ...) and mental problems because of it, potentially on top of the mental problems they had before).

Or maybe people with mental problems find it easier to be anonymous in a city, where they don't have to (or at least less) deal with the social pressures that outsiders in small communities are under.

Furthermore, while statistically there are more people with mental problems in cities, some classes of problems (like depression) happen more in more rural areas.

I'm not saying one or the other; we don't know. Every now and then there is a study in the popular press with a populist headline like 'cities cause mental problems', and it's also an idea that fits nicely with people's preconceptions about cities=bad, country life=good. The papers those articles are based on are not conclusive though, and the literature shows a much more nuanced image. I work in academia and peripherally work with social scientists who study cities and people living in studies, and they are much more uncertain about the health implications of cities. There are sometimes unexpected feedbacks in complex systems that can cause very unintuitive dynamics.

Interesting that depression is more common in rural areas. Do you have a link (or links) to studies that support this? I expected much the opposite.

English-language ones I could easily find are e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17009190 and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-0361.1999.... (both first page Google results for 'depression in rural areas'). I was specifically thinking about a study in the Netherlands who showed the same, but there have been a lot of studies on this subject so it's quite easy to find literature.

I think much more than automated cars, what will help is the Internet and new technologies making it ever easier to work from home, instead of having to "go to your job" in the city.

You need to maintain the fiction of requiring face to face contact, otherwise someone in (insert 3rd world) will simply do the job even cheaper.

Higher residential density would be survivable IF "work at home every other day" was somehow legally enforced. That would maintain the face2face fiction while also increasing density without collapse due to congestion.

Automated cars? No. it's fantasy to think these will have a substantially different effect to railways.

Automated bulldozers and high-rise house-building machines, though ...

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