![]() ![]() During the same period, the per capita rate of suicides by leaping from tall buildings increased fourfold, while suicide by other means declined. Yet there is some evidence to suggest that high-rise buildings themselves are actually responsible for some of the harms done to residents.įor example, in Singapore, between 19, the percentage of people living in high-rise buildings climbed from 9% to 51%. So it’s difficult to say whether it’s the building itself, or other hardships such as poverty, which cause high-rise residents such difficulties. In Nashville, although the residents shared the same ethnic background, high risers were poorer, less educated and had fewer social contacts: all factors which may contribute towards mental ill health. The true causes?īut researchers aren’t always comparing like with like. The high risers had a higher incidence of depression, phobias, schizophrenia. Psychologists have been investigating this link since the 1970s – a 1979 study based in Glasgow found evidence that high-rise residents were presenting psychological symptoms more often than other housing residents.Īnother paper from 1991 compared elderly African-Americans living in high-rise and low-rise buildings in Nashville. Living with fear every day means that residents of high-rise housing – and especially social housing – are vulnerable to mental health issues. If her neighbour is not there, she is stuck. One wheelchair user explained how she relied on her neighbour to help her get to the lift and out of the block. ![]() from Many of these older residents rely on networks of neighbours, friends and family to help them get around and perform basic chores. And in earthquake-prone countries, residents of high-rise towers face the possibility that their entire building could collapse.Ī lonely life. Many feel an absence of community, despite living alongside tens or hundreds of other people. Sharing semi-public spaces with strangers can make residents more suspicious and fearful of crime. The sheer number of people sharing a single building can also increase the threat from communicable diseases such as influenza, which spread easily when hundreds of people share a building’s hallways, door handles and lift buttons. High-rise living evokes unsettling fears – residents could be trapped in a fire, or fall or jump from the tower. Understanding the link between high-rise living and mental health is crucial to protect the well-being of tower block residents across the globe. In Moscow alone, there are 11,783 high-rise towers, in Hong Kong there are 7,833, and in Seoul there are over 7,000, many of which are residential. Today, millions of people live in high-rise apartment blocks around the world. Over the years, most of these so-called “villages in the sky” have become concrete containers for society’s poorest and neediest people. But now, the mood has turned to one of bitterness, anger and fear. They were greeted with hope and optimism by housing officials, architects and town planners across the UK. Back then, high-rise tower blocks represented a new vision of social progress. The fire at Grenfell Tower has catapulted high-rise social housing into the public consciousness, in a way not seen since the 1960s.
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