Finding Connections to Nature in Cities Is Key to Healthy Urban Living

Michelle Ma · UW News · June 3, 2016

Featuring Peter Kahn, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

The modern city is a place where a vibrant array of ideas, sights, sounds and smells intermingle to spawn creativity, expression and innovation. We are drawn to the noise, the constant connectivity and the delicious food.

Simply put, society is tuned to the pulse of the city — but at what cost?

That’s the question explored in a recent Science perspective piece co-authored by University of Washington researcher Peter Kahn. Its authors discuss the growing tension between an arguably necessary role urban areas play in society and the numbing, even debilitating, aspects of cities that disconnect humans from the natural world.