City living and our morals

The 18th century English novelist Jane Austen once said: "We do not look in our great cities for our best morality". Fast forward to the present, and 21st century Chinese cities are well known for their metropolitan hustle and bustle.

Like all large, densely-populated cities with a fast pace of life, they can sometimes worry visitors who are not used to them. Just like in New York and London, visitors sometimes get the impression that this vast sea of people living together is impersonal and unfriendly.

Without a sense of community and out of their comfort zones, many new city dwellers wonder whether human connection has the same value when your new home has 10 million people. However, new research from psychology researchers in the United Kingdom indicates that living in a city makes you no more or less friendly than living in a village, and that city life need not be associated with the cold and indifferent reception that many would-be new residents fear.

Researchers at University College London conducted a study that found that altruism does indeed tend to vary by area, but whether it is rural or urban does not seem to be a factor. In fact, the likelihood that someone will come to your aid instead depends on the area's wealth. Nichola Raihani from UCL who conducted the study said: "There's no evidence for this idea that city living makes us unfriendly." Along with UCL colleague Elena Zwirner, over the course of several years, she carried out hundreds of experiments in 37 different areas across the UK.

One involved a dropped, fully stamped and addressed envelope left on the ground, to see if people would pick up the letter and put it in the nearest post box. In some variations of the study, letters were placed on windshields with notes saying "Could you post this for me please? Thank you." Other stunts, which arguably also say a lot about the UCL researchers' dedication to their experiment, involved Zwirner walking across a road to see if cars would stop for her.

The study indicated that, on average, in wealthier areas you were about twice as likely to help, regardless of whether you were in a city or town. This is promising for the world population in general, as more and more people move into expanding urban areas. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, 68 percent of the world's population could live in cities. Cities in East Asia especially are projected to make up the majority of these figures.

China's rapid investment into hi-tech city infrastructure such as smart city initiatives mean that the promise of industry and quality of living will continue to attract people from afar. In the next few decades, China's urban population could reach as high as 1 billion, meaning that it is welcome news that urbanization has little effect on how kind people are to each other.

The maintenance of strong economies in cities across the world, therefore, is also of utmost importance to keep our day-to-day lives friendly, if prosperity is indicative of our societal moral standards. Coming from deprived areas can result in hardships that are influenced by a person's environment, especially during childhood, and that affects an individual's psychology.

Whether you live in a city of 20 million or a small village, we can all do our bit to ensure that we make life pleasant for each other. If you are in the UK especially, make sure you pick up and post any letters that you may find on the floor.

Barry He is a London-based columnist for China Daily.