Your Emotional City

Urban space is perceived differently by everyone. But are there also places in the city that are particularly good for us – or particularly stressful? With “Your Emotional City”, we are on the trail of these stressful and feel-good places. In cooperation with Futurium Berlin and together with the residents of Berlin, we want to research, discuss and make the city of the future more liveable together.

Stress-related psychological disorders occur more frequently among city dwellers. Life in the city is associated with increased population density, traffic noise and environmental pollution. With the worldwide growth of cities, scientists assume that two thirds of all people will live in cities by 2050.

Reason enough to ask what exactly are the stress factors in the city. What are places of well-being and what characterises them? Is it possible to identify which factors are particularly stressful for city dwellers and thus potentially hazardous to their health? And: How can we ensure more places of well-being and better health in urban spaces?

The questions of this current field of research are to be better answered within the framework of the project “Your Emotional City”. After all, city dwellers are the experts on their well-being. Due to their own experiences, they are in a position to provide a valid amount of data within a short time and to participate in a citizen science project with their findings. We therefore invite everyone to become a citizen scientist and get involved in the scientific evaluation process.

The first event took place on the occasion of Futurium’s birthday on 5 September. We presented the project and our app as well as the Charta of Neurourbanism. We talked about how mindfulness but also stress affect the body and how the psychology and neuroscience of the city work.
On site, there was the opportunity for interested visitors to participate in small experiments and mark places of well-being or stress on a large city map of Berlin.

The project is funded by the Berlin University Alliance, carried out together with Futurium Berlin and accompanied by Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg (rbb) as media partner. In addition, the project is supported by the EU-H2020 cooperation ARTIS (Art and Research on Transformations of Individuals and Societies) of the Interdisciplinary Forum Neurourbanism e.V., the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, the Theodor Fliedner Foundation and the Foundation for Analytical Psychiatry.

Information on the project and upcoming events can be found here.
For impressions of “Your Emotional City” at the Futurium birthday, please click here.