Getting the Measure of the Restless City

Abstract

Questions of mental health and urban life have long been central to Des Fitzgerald's research, and his work with Hubbub has led him to further explore some of the literatures and histories that undergird that relationship, and to think more expansively about the sociology of this emergent space. Critically, engagement with Hubbub has enabled contact with a range of creative practitioners (technoscientific and artistic) interested in very similar kinds of questions. This chapter outlines the development of Des's consideration of the empirics of urban ill-health. Keywords Bodies · Environmental exposure · Interdisciplinary · Mental health · UrbanWhy is it that the experience of city living is, for so many people, an experience of unease, if not illness? Why is it that a place that is for many (for me, most of the time) profoundly enlivening in its restlessness and its hurry, can also become, for others, an entirely overwhelming space of noise, disquiet and clamour? What is it about the urban form of life, fundamentally, CHAPTER 12