Leaving the City is a visionary book about health and happiness in the ‘other’ America - the places outside of the intense urban centers like NYC and LA. The urban world is known for its harried pace, mutual alienation and distance from the rhythms of nature and of human nature. He focuses not merely on contagion, pollutants, violence and innumerable other sources - both natural and human - of illness, disability and premature death that one finds in urban America, but also addresses the inherent unhappiness and threats to mental health that life in the urban world typically brings.