The modern city is a place where a vibrant array of ideas, sights, sounds, and smells intermingle to spawn creativity, expression, and innovation. We are drawn to the noise, the constant connectivity, and the delicious food.

Simply put, society is tuned to the pulse of the city. But at what cost?

That’s the question explored in a recent Science perspective piece co-authored by University of Washington researcher Peter Kahn. Its authors discuss the growing tension between an arguably necessary role urban areas play in society and the numbing, even debilitating, aspects of cities that disconnect humans from the natural world.

“Kids in large cities are growing up having never seen the stars. Can you imagine that—having never in your life walked under the vastness of the star-lit sky, and there’s that feeling of awe, restoration and imaginative spark?” said Kahn, a professor in the UW’s Department of Psychology and School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.