Global urban homogenization and the loss of emotions

Abstract

Urban expansion is generating unprecedented homogenization of landscapes across the world. This uniformization of urban forms brings along dramatic environmental, social, and health problems. Reverting such processes requires activating people’s sense of place, their feeling of caring for their surroundings, and their community engagement. While emotions are known to have a modulating effect on behavior, their role in urban transformation is unknown. Drawing on large cognitive-psychological experiments in two countries, we demonstrate for the first time that urban homogenization processes lower people’s affective bounds to places and ultimately their intentions to engage with their neighbourhoods. The dulled emotional responses in peri-urban areas compared to urban and rural areas can be explained by lower social cohesion and place attachment. The findings highlight the significance of considering emotions in shaping just, equitable, sustainable, and resilient cities.

Settlement relationships and their morphological homogeneity across time and scale

“…Our work highlights the impact of a settlement’s position within a settlement network on its morphological homogeneity. This homogeneity harbours a number of potentially negative impacts on various aspects of urban life 2 , 3 , 5 – 7 , 14 .…”

“…the lack of urban morphometric variability, often goes hand in hand with settlement sprawl and can have negative impacts on urban vibrancy 2,3 , local character [4][5][6][7] , and the environment [8][9][10][11][12][13] . It has also been shown that the homogenization of the landscape in peri-urban areas can lead to negative emotional responses 14 , which is a phenomenon that has been observed worldwide 1 . An important factor driving morphological homogenization is the increased accessibility of settlements with motorized individual transport 15,16 .…”

Study on the Evaluation of Urban Park Landscape Pattern Index and Its Driving Mechanisms in Nanchang City

“…The continuous advancement of urbanization has led to a constant expansion of urban population and size. The pursuit of interests without restraint and blind expansion has resulted in severe homogenization among cities, lacking regional characteristics [1][2][3]. At the same time, the process of industrialization has led to a significant encroachment of urban green spaces by buildings, and the reduction in green space areas has greatly impacted the living environment [4].…”