The Dehumanizing Effect of Urban Planning

I think the way in which we physically define our lives has a huge and under appreciated affect on our livelihood.  By physically define, I mean how and where we build our homes, our stores, our schools, our roads, etc- essentially urban planning.  I think the things urban planning currently prioritizes has served to dehumanize our existence and contribute to the feeling of loneliness that pervades modernity as well as having other secondary effects on our lives.

I think current urban planning prioritizes efficiency and logic, two things that aren't exactly ingrained into human nature.  We have areas in our neighborhoods zoned for specific things- this area is for residential buildings only, while this area is for commercial buildings only.  Which makes logical sense.  It is a clean and efficient methodology to someone trained in the hard sciences, but there are consequences this style of building has.

For example.  Zoning different areas for different types of buildings means that individuals often need specific reasons for traveling from one area to another.  And because these areas can be far away from one another, it means that we have to drive to get from one area to another.  This means more pollution, more spending on gas and cars, and less physical activity on a day-to-day basis.  I'm drawing on my experience living on a college campus here.  Even if I don't have a "workout" specifically planned for a day, I still get exercise walking from my apartment to classes and to dining halls.  I really believe our obesity crisis is a result of this.

The dehumanizing effect this has is very similar to the one described by the Frost poem "Mending Wall" in which "Good fences (don't) make good neighbors".  The more and more barriers we throw up between each other, the more difficult it is for us to form social relationships.  These barriers come in all shapes and sizes, including doors, walls, fences, roads, and spatial distance.  For most of human history these barriers were relatively minimal in number.  There were no locked doors or gated communities to keep us separated.  And while people did often have their own living quarters, the vast majority of time was spent in communal areas bonding with the people they lived with.  I think its a shame that "private" connotes quality while "public" connotes sub-par.

I think there's also a lot to be said for the effect the frequency of drastic change in our lives has on our social bonds as well.  People change jobs and move to new areas rather frequently, which makes the relationships we form at these places entirely superficial.  We smile and shake each other's hands knowing that in a few year's time, we'll never see each other again.  There might be less we can do about this, however.