The fact is that there is a higher concentration of psychiatric illness in the city than in the country. There is increased risk for anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and schizophrenia.
Of course, there are lots of possible reasons for this. There is a greater socioeconomic divide in cities, and people of low socio-economic class have a higher risk for psychiatric disease. There is also better access to health care in cities, and someone who might pass as just “very odd” in the country is more likely to get diagnosed in the city. Finally, it is often easier to function in a city with a severe mental illness, with some better access to shelter, care, and emergency medicine.
But there is also some evidence that living in a city can “bring on” mental disorders.
While many mental disorders are thought to have a genetic component to some degree, the addition of stress may be able to bring out an underlying mental illness. And of course, cities are stressful.
Specifically, cities produce social stress, the stress of living around and being seen (or feeling you’re being seen) by lots of people, constantly.
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