You ever walk down a street and just feel... tense? It’s not always the noise or the crowds. Sometimes, it’s the literal shape of the buildings. Most people don’t think about it, but design in the city is basically a massive, ongoing psychological experiment that we’re all participating in without signing a waiver.
Cities aren't just piles of concrete and glass. They’re interfaces. When those interfaces are designed poorly—think narrow sidewalks, "defensive" benches with spikes, or endless gray facades—our brains respond with cortisol. When they're designed well, we actually breathe deeper. It’s that simple, yet we’ve spent the last fifty years getting a lot of it wrong. Honestly, the way we’ve built most modern urban cores is kind of a disaster for the human nervous system.
The Boring Building Problem
There’s a real scientific reason why you hate walking past a 300-foot-long glass office block. Research led by experts like Colin Ellard, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo, has shown that humans are essentially "programmed" to crave visual complexity. When we walk past a "boring" building, our heart rates actually increase. We get bored, and boredom in an urban environment often translates to a sense of unease or even mild aggression.
Compare that to a street in a place like Amsterdam or even parts of Brooklyn. You’ve got different textures. You’ve got stoops, windows, small shopfronts, and varying heights. This isn't just "pretty" architecture; it’s physiological safety. Design in the city that ignores this—opting for "value engineering" and flat, cheap surfaces—is effectively making us more stressed.
We Need to Talk About "Hostile" Design
You've seen those slanted benches at bus stops where you can't actually sit down. Or the metal spikes on flat ledges. This is called hostile architecture, or "defensive design." Architects like James Furzer have been vocal critics of this trend, arguing that if you design a city to be uncomfortable for the most vulnerable, you’re making it uncomfortable for everyone.
It's a weirdly aggressive way to manage public space.
💡 You might also like: Why the Blue Jordan 13 Retro Still Dominates the Streets
Instead of solving social issues like homelessness, we’re just making the physical environment more jagged. It sends a subconscious message to every passerby: You aren't welcome to linger here. A city where you can't sit down is a city that feels like a transit corridor rather than a home. It’s the opposite of what urbanists like Jane Jacobs fought for. She believed in "eyes on the street," the idea that a vibrant, lived-in sidewalk is the safest kind of sidewalk. When the design pushes people away, the street becomes a ghost town, and weirdly enough, it actually feels less safe.
The Biophilia Fix
Everyone talks about "green cities," but most of the time, it’s just a couple of sad trees stuck in concrete boxes. Real biophilic design—integrating nature into the actual fabric of the city—is a game changer. Look at the High Line in New York or the Bosco Verticale in Milan. These aren't just vanity projects.
Data suggests that even looking at a fractal pattern—the kind of repeating, irregular pattern found in tree branches or ferns—can lower stress levels by up to 60%. Imagine if design in the city prioritized fractals over flat, 90-degree angles. We’d all be a lot calmer.
Small Wins in Urban Planning
- Parklets: Turning two parking spots into a tiny wooden deck with plants. It’s cheap. It works.
- Permeable Pavement: Letting water soak into the ground instead of flooding the sewers. It changes the humidity and temperature of the street.
- Tactile Urbanism: Painting crosswalks or putting out lawn chairs. It’s temporary, but it proves that people want to be in the space.
The 15-Minute City Controversy
Basically, the "15-minute city" is a design concept where everything you need—groceries, work, healthcare, a decent coffee—is within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. It’s become a bit of a conspiracy theory lightning rod lately, which is wild because it’s just how humans lived for thousands of years.
Paris is the big case study here. Mayor Anne Hidalgo has been aggressively pushing this, removing car lanes and adding thousands of trees. The result? Air quality is up, and local business is actually thriving. People think removing cars kills business, but it’s usually the opposite. Cars don’t buy lattes; people do.
📖 Related: Sleeping With Your Neighbor: Why It Is More Complicated Than You Think
The pushback usually comes from a fear of losing freedom of movement. But true design in the city should give you more options, not fewer. If you have to drive to buy a loaf of bread, you aren't really free—you're a slave to your car's gas tank and the local traffic report.
Lighting and the "Night Mayor"
We usually design cities for 2 PM, but they exist at 2 AM, too. Bad street lighting is usually either too dim (scary) or too bright and blue (destroys your sleep cycle). Experts like Leni Schwendinger advocate for "Nighttime Design," which uses warmer tones and directed light to create "rooms" on the street.
When you light a park well—not like a prison yard, but with layers of light—it becomes a usable space after dark. This is huge for city safety and social life. It's about using light to guide the eye and create a sense of place, rather than just blasting the darkness away with harsh LEDs.
Getting Practical: What Can You Actually Do?
You don't need to be an architect to influence design in the city. Most of the best changes happen from the bottom up.
First, start paying attention to your "desire lines." Those are the dirt paths worn into the grass where a sidewalk should be but isn't. Take a photo. Send it to your local council rep. Tell them, "Look, people are already voting with their feet."
👉 See also: At Home French Manicure: Why Yours Looks Cheap and How to Fix It
Second, support "mixed-use" zoning. If someone wants to put a small bakery on the ground floor of an apartment building, say yes. That’s how you get a neighborhood instead of just a housing development.
Third, stop prioritizing "flow" over "place." Traffic engineers want cars to move fast. Urban designers want people to stay. In a healthy city, the people should win. Look into your city's master plan—most of them are public documents—and see if they're still stuck in the 1970s mindset of car-first design. If they are, go to a meeting and complain. It’s surprisingly effective because almost nobody else shows up.
The goal isn't to make every city look like a postcard. It’s to make them livable. We’ve spent too long designing for cars and corporate real estate portfolios. It’s time we started designing for the people who actually have to breathe the air and walk the pavement.
Actionable Steps for Better Urban Design
- Advocate for "Third Places": Support local libraries, community gardens, and plazas. These are the "living rooms" of the city where you don't have to spend money to exist.
- Demand Tree Canopies: Trees aren't just for looks; they provide "evapotranspiration" which can cool a street by several degrees. This is a life-or-death issue in heatwaves.
- Audit Your Commute: If there’s a part of your walk that feels dangerous or ugly, identify why. Is it the lack of lighting? The narrow sidewalk? Knowing the vocabulary of urban failure helps you advocate for the fix.
- Support Pedestrianization: Next time a street in your area proposes closing to cars, give it a chance. Data from cities like London and Barcelona shows that pedestrian zones almost always lead to higher retail sales and lower pollution.
City design is a choice. We can choose to build places that exhaust us, or we can choose to build places that sustain us. It starts with realizing that the "way things are" isn't inevitable—it's just a set of blueprints that can be redrawn.