I can report my own feelings with regards to this. I find cities (at least the American cities I have experience with) to be spiritually fatiguing. The constant sounds, the lack of anything natural, the smells—they all contribute to a lack of mental openness and quiet inside of myself.
The older I get the more I feel this.
Jefferson had a quote that might be related, though to be honest I’m not exactly sure what he was getting at:
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe. Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
One interpretation of this is that Jefferson thought there was something spiritually corrupting of cities. This supported by another quote:
I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. true, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others with more health virtue & freedom would be my choice.
although like you mention, there does seem to be some plausible connection to disease.
I can report my own feelings with regards to this. I find cities (at least the American cities I have experience with) to be spiritually fatiguing. The constant sounds, the lack of anything natural, the smells—they all contribute to a lack of mental openness and quiet inside of myself.
The older I get the more I feel this.
Jefferson had a quote that might be related, though to be honest I’m not exactly sure what he was getting at:
One interpretation of this is that Jefferson thought there was something spiritually corrupting of cities. This supported by another quote:
although like you mention, there does seem to be some plausible connection to disease.