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How the city hurts your brain (or Why Cities are Mostly Democrat)
Boston Globe ^ | 2 Jan 09 | By Jonah Lehrer

Posted on 01/08/2009 2:00:53 PM PST by helpfulresearcher

Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: brain; city; democrat; stupid
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To: Vigilanteman

How much cellulite is in the Senate, anyway?


21 posted on 01/08/2009 2:33:34 PM PST by 2nd Bn, 11th Mar (The "P" in Democrat stands for patriotism.)
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To: helpfulresearcher

Peggy Noonan lives in a rather large city, eh?


22 posted on 01/08/2009 2:34:42 PM PST by 2nd Bn, 11th Mar (The "P" in Democrat stands for patriotism.)
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To: helpfulresearcher
Cities automatically make people stupid, lacking in forethought, and hedonistic.

Hence the city-dwelling species known as homo moronicus democratus.

23 posted on 01/08/2009 2:56:29 PM PST by Starboard
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To: MHGinTN

The farm pigeons are good to eat, but city pigeons, not so much. I would be concerned with disease with city pigeons, and Democrats for that matter LOL. Plenty of farms, when I was young, were infested with the things and farmers used to pay us to hunt them $1 a head. Crows included. First we had to chase them out in the fields, then bang!.

Doves are much harder to hit than pigeons. Taste about the same. When we weren’t having much luck with the peasant and grouse we would stop by the farm on the way home and get a few pigeons.


24 posted on 01/08/2009 3:06:47 PM PST by Tarpon (America's first principles, freedom, liberty, market economy and self-reliance will never fail.)
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To: RipSawyer

People live in cities for specific reasons:

A)It’s possible to make a great deal of money in a relatively short amount of time.

B)It’s possible to compete in terms of skill set against some of the best in the world.

C)To indulge a passion, such as art, music, etc.


25 posted on 01/08/2009 3:17:15 PM PST by durasell
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To: Vigilanteman

Lookin at that pic, livin in the city make you ug-lee too.


26 posted on 01/08/2009 3:31:14 PM PST by upchuck (Get ready for 2009: Pray; Raise/conserve cash; Pay your debts; Pray; Stockpile; Buy ammo; Pray)
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To: durasell
Some capabilities get dulled by urban life.

Other capacities are sharpened.

Urbanites don't notice or care about some things that people from small communities do see and take in an interest in.

But they make up for that by developing other skills and things to focus on.

It looks like the researchers didn't get to the bottom of that.

27 posted on 01/08/2009 3:33:57 PM PST by x
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To: helpfulresearcher

Bump for later. Thanks.


28 posted on 01/08/2009 3:37:52 PM PST by AuntB (The right to vote in America: Blacks 1870; Women 1920; Native Americans 1925)
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To: durasell

Yes, our best and brightest live in the city.


29 posted on 01/08/2009 3:38:15 PM PST by Guns are GOOD
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To: x

It’s just another way to live — no better or worse than any other way. Depends on the person.

On the other hand, the crisis that nobody seems willing to talk about is the rapid depopulation of many rural communities.

The other thing I’ve noticed as a city dweller is the influx of rural folks who are unsuited to city life and end up getting into large amounts of trouble.


30 posted on 01/08/2009 3:40:50 PM PST by durasell
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To: Guns are GOOD

Yes, our best and brightest live in the city.


Not always, though certainly our most ambitious.


31 posted on 01/08/2009 3:42:14 PM PST by durasell
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To: helpfulresearcher

Thank God I’m a country boy!


32 posted on 01/08/2009 4:04:27 PM PST by Be_Politically_Erect (Don't be a Mawworm!)
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To: upchuck

Ugly is free, but I think you have to work really, really hard to get as stupid as Barbara Boxer or Patrica Bin Murray.


33 posted on 01/08/2009 4:28:15 PM PST by Vigilanteman (Are there any men left in Washington? Or, are there only cowards? Ahmad Shah Massoud)
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To: helpfulresearcher

We always joke, when we have to drive into Boston, that we need tin foil hats, because folks who cross the border into the city seem to have lost IQ points, if they ever had that many.


34 posted on 01/08/2009 4:45:02 PM PST by SuziQ
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To: helpfulresearcher
This really is not a new idea or concept:

"The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body."
-Thomas Jefferson

Ol' Tom pretty much had it pegged, dint he?

35 posted on 01/08/2009 7:50:13 PM PST by hadit2here ("Most men would rather die than think. Many do." - Bertrand Russell)
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To: Right Wing Assault

The “”concentration of social interactions” that is largely responsible for urban creativity” can be created better on the internet...

Free Republic being a good example thereof.


36 posted on 01/08/2009 9:26:36 PM PST by helpfulresearcher (Biparisanship: The PC Term for Collaboration with the Enemy)
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To: Vigilanteman
I live right outside Willy Jefferson country - I know what I'm talking about. Of course, my brilliant Senator Landrieu is pictured here so maybe that disqualifies my comment.
37 posted on 01/09/2009 6:18:37 AM PST by Bitsy
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