I wonder how much of that association is precisely because of this pressure/requirement in a lot of communities to maintain grassy lawns, rather than anything innate about grassy landscapes themselves.
I think you are on to something. I grew up in west Texas and while there was no canopy there were/are vast untouched lands of native grasses. I still get the benefits described when I go out there.
I am a borderline lawn nut. After spending a lot of time getting the lawn well established, healthy, and vibrant, the on-going maintenance to keep it looking very nice is not particularly onerous. I doubt it's even 25 hours of total labor across the year, all told (for a 6500 ft^2 of lawn city lot).
I'm the opposite. I don't like lawns, not just for the looks but mainly because as far as biodiversity goes a trimmed lawn is almost dead. So I converted the lawns which came with the house into meadows. Nature thrives, and as far as maintainance goes it is also beneficial: depending on conditions I'm mowing twice or ideally just once a year. Even with a scythe it takes less time than standard lanw maintainance.
If you follow with some of the "ancestral genetic memory" theories, this makes sense. Our species came about in a grassland punctuated by rocky outcroppings and trees. Trees and rocks often meant safety from the predators below. Open grass meant exposure on all sides. We don't really think of ourselves this way anymore, but not that long ago, humans sat more in the center of the food chain that we currently do.
Around 800 square meters of lawn. Every week, or every second week, depending on season and rainfall, I plug in a mower and mow it, a bit of exercise and fresh air thrown in for free. If for some reason I skip a turn, grass and weeds grow a little taller.
Where's the stress?
Not surprising. As someone who grew up in rural and suburban environments, big cities feel intensely depressing. I go there and nothing I look at makes me feel happy. I'm sure people who grew up there feel differently and see things I don't see, but for me Manhattan feels as dead as the surface of Mars.
I'm with you, having grown up rural I can't stand being in the city. Makes me feel boxed in and anxious. But I've got friends who are the exact opposite, one who grew up in NYC and now lives outside of Boston who has to get back to NYC at least once every two weeks or she gets depressed. But I've also got a son who grew up here rural with me and can't ever seem to get enough of NYC. So... takes all kinds, I guess.
It's because a lack of variation in people gets depressing. I live in the mountains with a population that's smaller than the small town I was raised in, in the LA metro. I need to get back to a major city at least once a month; I need to feel that enveloping feeling of wonder and possibility since things get to feeling so stagnant in the mountains after a bit; I need to see people driving at their ambitions with their mom and pop shops that have these creative gimmicks that you can tell they spent late nights thinking of as opposed to people on mountain time who don't really give a damn about their work and know that by simply existing they can scrape by.
What are you taking about? On Mars at least you can be left in peace (and in the darkness at night) to contemplate the wonders of the universe, for as long as your oxygen lasts.
Try that in Manhattan.
Manhattan has Central Park, which is a forest. Compare vs the suburban sprawl of modern design where it's an ocean of tract housing with stunted little fresh-planted trees and I'd say the reverse is generally true. I can see the argument for rural living, but not for modern suburbia.
Manhattan feels like really one of the best cases for trees outside of rural areas. A large percentage of the residential neighborhoods are in walking distance of a big forest... even other boroughs of NYC are mostly worse for that. Some other cities have better weekend access to forests, e.g. in L.A. you can drive to the mountains, but there aren't many with better large forests actually in the city. Maybe DC with Rock Creek Park.
DC and the surrounding metro area both have a surprising amount of trees. I work in Tyson's Corner, not far from DC at all, and the view from the office is trees as far as the eyes can see with occasional outcroppings of towers. Rock Creek Park basically bisects the entire city as well.
Ah that's a good point! I even used to live in the LA area years ago, but I lived far enough east of there that the Angeles National Forest was much closer, so I forgot that Griffith Park exists.
This is going to seem pedantic but like just sharing my perspective. Central Park sooo doesn't feel like a forest to me. It's like walking around a crowded lawn (ok maybe thats a bit dramatic). But Central park really doesn't do it for me; when I'm in NYC I need to spend time in Prospect Park (which is closerrr to a forest) or else I go crazy
Are you sure you’ve explored the whole thing? The crowded lawn is certainly one part of it but there are whole swaths up near 110th that are much quieter as well as large dense tree sections e.g. near the zoo.
Not the original complainer, but that looks quite sterile to me. Apart from the trees there's very little vegetation, beyong the odd fern - no moss, no rotting logs, no undergrowth or leaf-mold floor. It doesn't look moist enough. Just dry, dusty dirt.
Those are paths people walked on. Since there’s a lot of foot traffic they’re wider than regular forests.
But yeah, it’a city forest. Not the same as wild, but more forest-ty than the discussion implied I think. Most visitors only see the south park of central park.
To clarify, I meant 80s and 90s suburbs, not the godawful European-looking Stepford-wife monstrosities they build now. Suburbs with tree cover where you may or may not be able to even see the house next door. The kind where every house looks different because it was built by a different company and none of the lots are smaller than half an acre.
Not really. This is just a problem of poorly designed gardens, bad choice of species, and greed.
Trees are valuable and fine wood species are always in risk of being stolen. I said this after seeing this afternoon a street reformed and notice the space left by a big blue cedar and a nice Beech that suddenly dissapeared in the center of the field for no reason. Both around 80 years old and perfectly healthy.
Most people would freak if the bank in their street is robbed but don't even notice when the park in their street is robbed.
The difference with New York City is that it’s old and spent a lot of time and money on parks.
Any modern development will be a tree wasteland long term, as all of the topsoil is generally scraped away and sold, and the heavy equipment packs down the soil.
For people who actually grew up in nature, Central Park feels as synthetic as everything else in the city. Every inch is landscaped and planned out.
It's nothing like taking a walk in the woods, with the plethora of wild plants and animals. It feels like a sad attempt by a city to be less of a city, but you can't replicate or build nature.
I grew up in the city. Urban and rural is great but suburban is depressing. Socially isolating an fake nature with fewer trees in particular. Worst of both worlds.
To each their own. There are those of us that would die of boredom and depression in a rural or suburban environment. To us the city is where is at, especially a place like NYC.
I was so sad (figuratively speaking) when we moved from an older office - but one which had trees all around and even running water - to a very modern, but boring open floor glass paned antfarm-like building.
After some time I got literally depressed. Walking around the concreted block did nothing for me anymore. No trees, no water, no birds, no squirrels. Just cars and a lot of heat in the summer - and a lot of wind during the winter.
yeah totally. I will take jobs that pay less but have an interesting office location, usually in a less developed outer area of the city where vegetation and lots of walking space exist
I once worked at a place that had a mile of walking paths through an adjacent prairie. I walked it every day that the weather was nice and it was amazing. I was so sad when I changed jobs and the office was in the city.
I work in central London and feel the same way. Coworkers are often surprised that when I moved to London, I chose to go quite a bit north and have to take the tube for 45 minutes to get to work.
But I live on a one way street with no traffic, and when I look outside my window, there is a giant field of grass with lots of huge trees.
I can go outside, lie down in the grass, enjoy the peace and quiet. I will watch the squirrels outside on my days working from home, trying to fight the crows for food. The crows outsmart them every time, without hesitation. It's part of what keeps me sane in this big city.
For a while my commute was 1.5 hours each way. I found it intolerable and moved, but I have coworkers who commute as long or longer. London is starting to sound good.
Eh - I see diminishing returns around smaller public-ish transit (!) commutes. The difference between a 15 minute commute and a 45 minute commute wasn't significant for me. I can still pay bills, answer personal mail, read a book, and talk to friends on my way to work. I imagine folks at the end of the tube line in London feel the same way.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say London density is bad. London _sprawl_ is bad, and one problem is how low density London actually is. More density would mean more housing available near the centre.
London people are funny. They thing if you are outside of Zone 2 that you are "out in the sticks" (an idiom for "living in the countryside"), make fun of you and desperately want you to want to live in London.
It's not funny, it makes sense. Imagine what would happen if you are living in zone 3+, and your friend/partner lives in zone 3+ on the _opposite_ side of London. You could easily have a 90 minute travel time between those two points. In most places a travel time that long would count as being in another city.
Well you could’ve move in with your partner, and meet your friend somewhere. I get what you are saying but London is damn expensive so living out a bit makes sense for many people.
But it reduces the conversion of initial dating to something more permanent. Living nearby and being able to meet up at the last minute with little effort makes it so much easier, I think it’s why socialising at university is so much easier.
Living further away requires a greater activation energy to lead to stable bonding.
That's not a reason to live in central London just in case it happens, unless you're that myopic you can't imagine meeting some from Reading, or further afield.
In the same time it takes to get across London one can easily be in Lincolnshire via the East Coast Main Line, though the £8k annual season ticket to King's Cross is a bit of a whack.
Johannesburg is said to have the second most amount of trees after Berlin, and all of the trees (in contrast to Berlin) were planted. It's a pity that politics take precedence over an unassuming fact like this.
I've been in a few places with inside trees: Most notably, "Arby's" (a fast-food restaurant) and nursing homes.
Sometimes, places simply have a hole in the foundation that allows access to the ground. These holes often have more dirt on top and can support a rather tall tree. Other places have large containers of dirt which support smaller trees.
It really isn't much different than folks planting trees in the middle of the sidewalk or trees/shrubs in large pots outside, honestly, except for the fact that it won't rain indoors.
I have been stuck inside my house for a month, with a month to go thanks to some broken bones. The house sits across from a park with big trees, lots of birds and people playing sports. I can feel my change in mood and contentment when I look out the window or sit on the porch (weather and mobility permitting). There's also a general ambient pleasantness knowing I'm within the greenery even though I'm inside. It's been keeping me sane!
I'm lucky enough that most of our city is like that, incredibly green. But I have worked in some pretty grim buildings, and would never take an office without windows anymore.
This is something that bugs me about Old Street/Silicon Roundabout in London.
I moved office from the Borough Market area (not exactly the most tree lined part of London) to right near the Old Street roundabout and the lack of greenery, traffic and general noise and density is grim in this part of the city. Despite that it’s the most desirable post code for a tech startup.
Same with the area around Golden Gate Park in SF, being close to so much well-maintained and curated nature is delightful. The place is a real treasure.
The words "well-maintained" and "curated" don't usually rhyme very well with "nature", IMO. Real nature is by definition unmaintained. When it's maintained it becomes a park/garden, and loses more or less all its diversity. Fine, if you just want to look at some green leaves (which is great in a city) but we shouldn't call it nature just because something is alive there.
Berlin has trees. I find it really dreary though. I clearly perceived some sort of “guilt heaviness” that pervades the area, with world war 2 monuments scattered around. I got a vibe that because a lot of people are children of people who were Nazis, they felt bad even though they didn’t personally commit the war crimes. It was pretty startling honestly coming from Northern California. Landing at SFO felt like returning to heaven.
No, at least not for the purposes of this particular study.
> The researchers report that living in areas where 30 percent or more of the outdoor space is dominated by tree canopy was associated with 31 percent lower odds of psychological distress, compared to people living in areas with 0 to 9 percent tree canopy.
I hate when journalists confuse correlation with causation. It's one of the most basic things you have to know to be be capable of writing about science and the fact that they failed the first step tells me they shouldn't be journalists.
Can we get a title change from "Improves" to "Associated With?" The causal affect is mentioned nowhere but the (incorrect) title. All of the content and quotes from the authors use "associated with."
Interesting.. it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees. So what are the other possible arrows of causation? Maybe healthy people choose to live near trees?
That's not the same as controlling for socio-economic status. A millennial living in a city-center apartment and a boomer living in a paid-up house in the suburbs might have the same income, but they have very different life circumstances and experience very different levels of stress.
They also controlled for "age, sex, annual household income, economic status (eg, employed, retired, or unemployed), highest educational qualification, and couple status".
Taken together those are likely to capture socio-economic status in all but a few edge cases. With a very large study size, and a huge result (30% difference) it's unlikely that it can be explained by socioeconomic status.
If this were a small study or found a small result, then edge cases like lower income millennials with no degree who live in inherited houses in wealthy areas with trees might skew the results.
If you disagree with the studies methodology fine, but I'm satisfied that authors have done their due diligence with respect to socio-economic status.
The problem with that is tree coverage drastically goes up again when you hit "broken washing machine on lawn" levels of poverty due to just the general amount of old growth in rural poor areas
> it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees
Why not? Maybe people who feel well are more likely to care about their environment, and e.g. organize protests when someone wants to remove trees from their neighborhood. Meanwhile, depressed people will watch their environment deteriorate, and do nothing about it.
(I am not saying this is how it is, just proposing a possible causal mechanism.)
A possible common-cause explanation could be that some places are designed "for people to feel happy", and those contain trees, but also other things (parks? accessible sidewalk? or perhaps those are simply places where many nice people live?) which make people happy.
Richer people live in areas with more trees? Or, if they control for wealth and racial group and all the rest, try something like "health-oriented people prefer being around trees?"
> it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees
Rich people have gardens. Poor people liver crammed together in city slums.
...is one story you can tell. These things are hopelessly intertwined with confounding factors, and I never pay attention to them. The ones interesting enough to go viral and show up in my feed are of course extra suspicious.
In 2008, I was living in Central Pennsylvania, taking many a weekend hike along a short section of the Appalachian trail that ran within a short drive from my home. Then I got assigned to a project in Bloomington, Illinois. I spent a month out there, this strange land completely devoid of trees. I never thought of myself as an "outdoors" person before that, I just liked hanging out with some friends and getting a little exercise. After Bloomington, I realized just how important trees were to my mental health.
I feel you. I've done road trips accross the country, and every time I go through those midwest states I get this low-key dread that I barely notice at first. But then, once I get to a place with rolling hills and trees on the horizon, I immediately notice how relieved I feel. I always attributed it to just wanting familiarity in the landscape, but maybe trees are a bigger part of that than I realized. The smell of forests is also much more pleasant than fields, so perhaps it's a combination of visuals and odors being "off" that makes me feel uncomfortable.
I moved to another city because the mayor of the previous city I lived in had some crusade against trees in that town.
Living near trees is the best. I have a cherry tree growing outside my window right now. Still miss the three poplars I used to have at my old apartment.
Raleigh NC is called "City of Oaks" for a reason. I feel like it probably has more tree coverage than Atlanta, but it's much smaller too. Still, great place to live and a pretty solid tech scene between downtown offices (RedHat, Salesforce, Citrix) and RTP + Durham jobs a short drive away (SAS, NetApp, Cisco, Epic Games).
We also are working on a new 300 acre park project that's only about a mile from downtown, so I'm really excited to spend time there when Fall comes around.
Thanks, Raleigh is definitely in my top 10. I'm currently living in Texas so my nature options are pretty limited. I do appreciate not having an income tax though.
Portland, OR is a great candidate for this, IMO. In the city is "Forest Park" which is more like a forest than a park. There are tons of trails, and you're less than an hour from dozens of trails in the Colombia River Gorge.
Atlanta is great! There are places like this[0] inside the perimeter. My old apartment had a trail down to the river and we would drive half a mile up the road and then tube back down to my apartment.
IMO Sac is the best location in California if you're a outdoorsmen but need to be close to a city. I live 30 minutes east in the mountains and work from home.
If you live more towards Grass Valley it is gorgeous, but wow the greater Sacramento area is pretty devoid of nature. I would argue Chico is way more beautiful, if you are working from home already.
Stockholm is not bad at all for a nature loving SW developer. I know lots of people who moved from here, to the valley (biggest opportunity), London/Berlin (bigger than Stockholm while still European cities) and lately some successful people started leaving for Singapore (taxes & climate reasons) but I don't think any of those offer the same nature opportunities. We have a pretty damn good tech/IT scene here, and from the city center you can go on a run and be in a huge, empty natural reserve forest within 20 minutes (it's about 2 miles out). You can also head out into the archipelago of 25,000 islands just east of the city. Lots of space, pretty unspoiled and accessible to all regardless of ownership, thanks to a law that gives the public the right to hike or camp anywhere in the country. I'd imagine there are few IT startup hubs that can compete in this. Portland maybe? Helsinki or the Baltics certainly have the nature, but smaller startup/tech scenes.
Helsinki has a forest smack in the center going north. slightly to the east is another green corridor going northeast and ending in a National Park (Sipoonkorpi) .
There is another big national park (Nuuksio) just to the north west.
Helsinki central itself is sterile compared to actual forests.
Most of southern Finland however is deforested or wood plantations. About 5% of the area is natural state forest.
For the Bay Area, probably the best bets are Los Gatos if you work on the peninsula and Mill Valley if you work in the city ( San Francisco ). Requires a roughly one hour commute though, depending on time of day and the parking situation.
We specifically moved to a part of Boston with lots of trees.
All the benefits of public transit, nightlife, and resources, but as I look out my home-office window right now, I see a big tree, a dog park, and very small forest of trees right behind that. I can't see another building, and its wonderful.
I moved to place with trees. Paid extra for that. After a year in, the forest died due to drought (and bugs). Now I'm looking at forest being cut down and removed. It's quite miserable feeling.
Make sure you look for native trees. They are much more likely to survive drought. Hard to say what to do about bugs which are likely non-native invasive species though. Other than plant a variety of different trees so bugs don't get them all at once.
I wonder if green space and trees still improve well being if someone is allergic to them (not deathly so, just enough to be a nuisance). I myself am especially allergic to the flora around me, and I always dream of moving somewhere cold where everything is nice and dead and can't hurt me.
You can make your living space a low-grade cleanroom with a decent HEPA filter or two (the 99.97 kind) for at most a few hundred dollars. If I close the windows my apartment easily achieves a PM2.5 score of 0.
You can't so much create an "outside" environment for so little effort.
My biggest grievance with where I live is that being "outside" somewhere that concrete and brief strips of grass for dogs to pee in aren't the dominant space occupiers is work and I'm not just outside, I'm at a destination.
The way that it seems to work judging by blood tests I've gotten over my life is that the more I'm around something, the more allergic I become, all of the things around me, the trees, the animals, the food I eat, etc. I've become extremely allergic to. If I go somewhere with completely new plant life I should be ok in theory, I have done this once and my allergens were pretty much gone, but I dont have reason to assume that they wouldn't come back. I've got some fucky gene stuff going on in general, and there are other reasons why the cold would be nice in general.. and i can guarantee that i have an extensive morning/night drug regimen, and have tried about every allergy med i could get my hands on, they can take the edge off, but it will never go away.
Years ago, I went to a photography exhibition. Theme was the city. The artist's motivation was the idea that we - humans - live in a mineral world (cement, concrete, glass and bricks) now. But we evolved to live and prosper in high grass and trees, in an organic world.
Also, long ago I read that humans liked to sit on benches in park because it feels like we are hiding in the edge of the forests, looking for things from a safe distant place.
"Exposure to grass was, surprisingly, associated with higher odds of psychological distress."
I'm guessing it's the constant maintenance of a lawn that stresses people, and in this case, other people's lawns. That or you're a youtuber or streamer, and the constant sound of lawn equipment is driving you nuts.
Surprisingly, I find my lawn maintenance to be supremely de-stressing. I get to slap on headphones and listen to podcasts or music while doing mild physical labour that results in something becoming more aesthetically pleasing than it had been previously.
You don't have to be a youtuber or streamer to have the leaf blower drive you nuts - in a suburban setting, you're almost guaranteed a 7am wake-up call from one of these machines on a Saturday. It just takes one punctilious neighbor.
You have good points. I would add : constantly have to watch your steps to make sure you dont walk on some animal poop, or some angry bee/hornet that was just lying there
I think its something to do with the complex, fractal imagery provided by trees etc. The simple planar surfaces of built spaces are profoundly unstimulating.
I think it's also just the way trees breath. I live in a wooded area of my city, and when I go to the concrete downtown it just feels worse. Like it's much hotter, and the air is stale.
I feel the opposite. I'm way more prone to feeling overstimulated in urban environments. Though it's nearly impossible to say if that's from the environment, the people, or both.
Forests and beaches are both very calming to me though. I think it's the consistent, but non-threatening landscape and background noises and smells. I'm not over-stimulated by those natural environments, so I have peace to introspect. In cities I'm always watching my surroundings and trying to figure out where I am based on the buildings and roads around me, so I definitely feel like I notice and am stimulated by the city. I'm just kind of exhausted afterward and not able to relax because it demands so much attention.
There is a tree directly outside of the window right next to my bed. In the morning, I watch the variety of birds (changing with the seasons) flit around the branches, socializing with each other. It's simple, but a highlight of my day. I'm moving in a few weeks and this tree will be one of the things I miss most about my apartment.
Sure, but this article cites a large study that seems to correct for a lot of variables. Might be more productive to discuss specific aspects of the study you think are flawed.
Could this be caused by a deeply ingrained instinct from our hominid ancestors that associates trees with safety? Like Miles stated, correlation doesn't imply causation. It makes you think though!
208 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 230 ms ] threadAnyone who has had to maintain a lawn will likely find this unsurprising.
Most is not like that mind you. But not bad for a city forest
But yeah, it’a city forest. Not the same as wild, but more forest-ty than the discussion implied I think. Most visitors only see the south park of central park.
(I personally don't understand the appeal of a neighborhood that has been methodically expunged of shade)
Not really. This is just a problem of poorly designed gardens, bad choice of species, and greed.
Trees are valuable and fine wood species are always in risk of being stolen. I said this after seeing this afternoon a street reformed and notice the space left by a big blue cedar and a nice Beech that suddenly dissapeared in the center of the field for no reason. Both around 80 years old and perfectly healthy.
Most people would freak if the bank in their street is robbed but don't even notice when the park in their street is robbed.
Any modern development will be a tree wasteland long term, as all of the topsoil is generally scraped away and sold, and the heavy equipment packs down the soil.
I agree re: suburbia, but for different reasons.
It's nothing like taking a walk in the woods, with the plethora of wild plants and animals. It feels like a sad attempt by a city to be less of a city, but you can't replicate or build nature.
I was so sad (figuratively speaking) when we moved from an older office - but one which had trees all around and even running water - to a very modern, but boring open floor glass paned antfarm-like building.
After some time I got literally depressed. Walking around the concreted block did nothing for me anymore. No trees, no water, no birds, no squirrels. Just cars and a lot of heat in the summer - and a lot of wind during the winter.
But I live on a one way street with no traffic, and when I look outside my window, there is a giant field of grass with lots of huge trees.
I can go outside, lie down in the grass, enjoy the peace and quiet. I will watch the squirrels outside on my days working from home, trying to fight the crows for food. The crows outsmart them every time, without hesitation. It's part of what keeps me sane in this big city.
(Hello from the Bay Area)
Driving that commute though? Never.
Living further away requires a greater activation energy to lead to stable bonding.
Sometimes, places simply have a hole in the foundation that allows access to the ground. These holes often have more dirt on top and can support a rather tall tree. Other places have large containers of dirt which support smaller trees.
It really isn't much different than folks planting trees in the middle of the sidewalk or trees/shrubs in large pots outside, honestly, except for the fact that it won't rain indoors.
If I were really going to include something I missed, though, it'd be wind.
I mean, what effect does population density have on an area. Does more density create better health outcomes or less density?
I'm lucky enough that most of our city is like that, incredibly green. But I have worked in some pretty grim buildings, and would never take an office without windows anymore.
I moved office from the Borough Market area (not exactly the most tree lined part of London) to right near the Old Street roundabout and the lack of greenery, traffic and general noise and density is grim in this part of the city. Despite that it’s the most desirable post code for a tech startup.
This New York Times opinion piece goes into it in more detail https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/opinion/germanys-nazi-pas...
> The researchers report that living in areas where 30 percent or more of the outdoor space is dominated by tree canopy was associated with 31 percent lower odds of psychological distress, compared to people living in areas with 0 to 9 percent tree canopy.
Taken together those are likely to capture socio-economic status in all but a few edge cases. With a very large study size, and a huge result (30% difference) it's unlikely that it can be explained by socioeconomic status.
The study discusses this by the way.
Socio-economic status is notoriously difficult to control for.
https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/81-82/1/21/282643
If you disagree with the studies methodology fine, but I'm satisfied that authors have done their due diligence with respect to socio-economic status.
Why not? Maybe people who feel well are more likely to care about their environment, and e.g. organize protests when someone wants to remove trees from their neighborhood. Meanwhile, depressed people will watch their environment deteriorate, and do nothing about it.
(I am not saying this is how it is, just proposing a possible causal mechanism.)
A possible common-cause explanation could be that some places are designed "for people to feel happy", and those contain trees, but also other things (parks? accessible sidewalk? or perhaps those are simply places where many nice people live?) which make people happy.
Rich people have gardens. Poor people liver crammed together in city slums.
...is one story you can tell. These things are hopelessly intertwined with confounding factors, and I never pay attention to them. The ones interesting enough to go viral and show up in my feed are of course extra suspicious.
It's an amazing book.
https://www.amazon.com/Overstory-Novel-Richard-Powers/dp/039...
Living near trees is the best. I have a cherry tree growing outside my window right now. Still miss the three poplars I used to have at my old apartment.
I was looking at Atlanta, GA which I heard has the most trees for a city.
According to Wikipedia, it has 47.9% tree coverage
We also are working on a new 300 acre park project that's only about a mile from downtown, so I'm really excited to spend time there when Fall comes around.
[0] https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8906588,-84.4418735,3a,90y,1...
https://medium.californiasun.co/sacramento-city-of-trees-207...
IMO Sac is the best location in California if you're a outdoorsmen but need to be close to a city. I live 30 minutes east in the mountains and work from home.
Helsinki central itself is sterile compared to actual forests.
Most of southern Finland however is deforested or wood plantations. About 5% of the area is natural state forest.
You can't so much create an "outside" environment for so little effort.
My biggest grievance with where I live is that being "outside" somewhere that concrete and brief strips of grass for dogs to pee in aren't the dominant space occupiers is work and I'm not just outside, I'm at a destination.
Also, long ago I read that humans liked to sit on benches in park because it feels like we are hiding in the edge of the forests, looking for things from a safe distant place.
I'm guessing it's the constant maintenance of a lawn that stresses people, and in this case, other people's lawns. That or you're a youtuber or streamer, and the constant sound of lawn equipment is driving you nuts.
Forests and beaches are both very calming to me though. I think it's the consistent, but non-threatening landscape and background noises and smells. I'm not over-stimulated by those natural environments, so I have peace to introspect. In cities I'm always watching my surroundings and trying to figure out where I am based on the buildings and roads around me, so I definitely feel like I notice and am stimulated by the city. I'm just kind of exhausted afterward and not able to relax because it demands so much attention.
Spurious Correlations[1] has been posted here many times[2], but a few representative examples may be worth sharing just the same:
Per capita cheese consumption correlates with Number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets
Total revenue generated by arcades correlates with Computer science doctorates awarded in the US
Japanese passenger cars sold in the US correlates with Suicides by crashing of motor vehicle
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...
[1] https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=spurious%20correlations&sort=b...