How Cities Shape our Wellbeing

Join Liza Griffin to explore how the hustle and bustle of urban life impacts our minds. She will dive into the science behind how noise, crowding, and even greenspaces can influence our mental wellbeing. She'll talk about how thinkers from as early as the 19th Century were concerned with how living in cities impacted our psyche, and she'll discuss the contemporary scientific ideas that show how urban environments actually shape our brain function and mental health. Liza will talk about the challenges and opportunities of city living through real-world examples and discuss how urban design might help us become healthier urban citizens. 

Our cities are constantly speaking to us. Every street, building, and park sends signals to our brains and our brains respond, but are we listening? Through Neurourbanism, an approach that combines neuroscience, psychology, and actionable urban planning, we can tune into the dialogue and decode how our urban spaces impact our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. By learning how to actively listen we can then transform our cities into intentional living environments that are built to support our wellbeing. This talk delves into the ways we've tried to listen and what we've learnt.