Take a moment to imagine what you think life on Mars would be like. I think most would envision that we would live in some sort of bubble or dome with an artificial atmosphere protecting us from the hostile world. There wouldn’t be any life other than other Earth settlers and the plants and animals we would have brought with us. We would spend all of our time in our habitats. If we ever wanted to venture outside and explore, we would need to still remain completely separated from the natural world (as being exposed to nature here would kill you rather quickly) by wearing a spacesuit or using some sealed spacecraft. We would only leave to go from point A to point B. How could that be desirable?

I grew up in a small suburb that is technically part of the Greater NYC area. I was born and raised there and lived there until I was 26. It was a quiet area even though you could hear the trains and faint rushing of cars on the highway in the distance. My house was at the end of a dead-end street, a 100-year old summer cottage that got expanded into a compact multi-bedroom house. Woods came up right to the edge of our property. You could walk through the overgrowth and stumble over old bricks people would dump there to find some short trails that led to the wealthier neighborhood nearby.

There were a couple kids I would play with in certain periods of my childhood, but aside from them I didn’t really know the people I lived amongst. There were the friendly couple next door, the family across the street down the long gravel driveway, and some kids my brother’s age further down that he didn’t get along with. Out of sixty or so homes in my neighborhood, I only knew the names of maybe seven of the families living there. It didn’t click with me how absurd it was until after I moved out that I never knew the names of people that lived on my own street.

What does this say about us?

We all know that ‘humans are social creatures’. I think that we have internalized that knowledge incorrectly. For a long time I understood that phrase as ‘humans are good at working together’. However the proper takeaway is rather ‘humans need to live and work together to be healthy’. This becomes apparent when we take a look at the loneliness epidemic plaguing us today. The fact that ‘loneliness’ is a condition that we suffer from tells us that we need to be among other humans just as much as we need exercise and a balanced diet.

Chances are high that you live or have lived in a single-family home (if you’re an American). About two-thirds of occupied housing units are single-family. Think of your classic ranch house, split-level, or McMansion; life in a home like this in the suburbs is predictable. You awake in your home, usually living with only your immediate family, structurally cut off from other humans. You get in your car to go to work, structurally cut off from other humans. You spend your time at your workplace, interacting with humans but not genuinely and naturally, but for the ends of the business you work for, structurally cut off from other humans. You then get back in your car and drive home, where you will spend the evening, structurally cut off from other humans. Maybe you go out for a walk, but how many people do you encounter that you know? What interaction is there other than a passing “hi”, if any acknowledgement at all?

For many Americans living in cities in the 20th century, living away from it all in the suburbs was the American Dream. It allowed your average Joe to pretend he was a homesteader staking his claim on the land, or in reality just allowed him to feel powerful because he owned property. Of course, there are much less romantic reasons the suburbs became popular around this time. (Dear reader, what drastic change in American society was happening around the time of this research?) What is not often discussed is that the negative health effects of life in suburbia came apparent rather quickly. Women who stayed at home doing domestic labor found themselves trapped in a box with only themselves and their children (who were either at school or playing outside). The isolation soon became problematic, leading to anxiety, paranoia, and depression. This was not treated as such back then, often hand-waved by male doctors and called “female hysteria”. The emerging class of drugs known as benzodiazepines became a de facto mode of treatment for these women, whose only ailment was that they were cut off from other people. Usage of these drugs were so widespread they were referred to in popular culture as “Mother’s Little Helper”.

Of course, it’s not just isolation from one another that is problematic, but also our isolation from nature. As of the 21st century we have managed to almost completely shield ourselves from the natural world. Heating and air conditioning keep us comfortable at all times of year. Modern plumbing means we no longer have to leave our homes for water. Despite these achievements, almost half of Americans are deficient in vitamin D (as well as many others). I myself take a supplement because I don’t spend enough time in the sun. How sad it is that that which allows life as we know it to exist on Earth is not sufficiently experienced by half the population. Now of course there is more to blame than the housing we have for this, but that is where I’m going to focus right now.

In the suburbs, acres of land are leveled to erect houses and plant vast empty lawns, which are as inviting to wildlife as a parking lot is to humans. Migration paths for animals are paved over for cars to get from the suburbs to population centers. Where I grew up, keeping an eye out for deer while driving was a necessity. In order to live in this “convenient” world, nature has to be pushed aside. Any time the woods encroached on our yard growing up, the hedge clippers and weed whacker came out. As a child I learned that this was normal just due to what surrounded me. When I walked by a home with an unkempt lawn, I would think that the homeowner was lazy or didn’t care about their property. How different would the perspective of a bird or butterfly be! That yard would be an oasis in a desert of trimmed grass and pesticide. Ecosystems could be preserved and lived amongst like humans did for their entire history. It would surely improve our mental health. But we are collectively too entranced by the ideal of keeping up appearances with people we don’t even bother to know.

Suburbia is mundane because it is what we are exposed to, but it’s hard to imagine a way to house ourselves in a less healthy way. We cut ourselves off from what makes us human and scratch our heads when the rate of depression explodes. We don't need to live in caves around a campfire for us to reconnect with one another, but we do need to be intentional in how we live our lives to maximize the health of ourselves and each other.

I never understood the desire to go to Mars. Anywhere in space we are able to reach in our lifetimes is completely inhospitable, barren, and devoid of anything resembling the planet we evolved for or were created to inhabit. Plus Elon Musk might be there and I would prefer to be millions of miles away from him. All that said, to so many of us life there would be familiar. We are all artificially separated from one another, lack connection to the natural world, and detached from society and community. Our alienation from each other and the world around us is normalized. Maybe necessity would force us to live close to one another and reform the kinds of bonds humans used to and meant to have, but that might be just as alien to us as life on a red planet.

Sources used are in the hyperlinks in the text.

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