ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the impact of environmental stressors on people from a point of view of controllability and importance of setting in which the stressors occur; social stress and social class factors are then analysed in some detail. However, the processes that make certain environmental conditions stressful can also be seen in various terms: an arousal model proposes that they affect the reticular activating system, and that stress will result if arousal levels thereby move outside an optimum range. Involuntary moves of residence may represent an important example of social change which is likely to have adverse mental health consequences. One of the most important urban processes that is relevant to mental health is redevelopment and residential relocation. The density of the new environment was on average about one-third that of the old, so that the urban areas exploded in size. In this process, the standard of domestic facilities such as bathrooms and hot water systems became generally much higher.
