3 commentsUrban Alienation
New York Magazine takes on urban alienation in Is Urban Loneliness a Myth?
Some quotes I found surprising and interesting:
Of all 3,141 counties in the United States, New York County is the unrivaled leader in single-individual households, at 50.6 percent
New York State’s suicide rate is currently the third lowest in the nation (second if you discount Washington, D.C.), at 6.2 percent, and the city’s rate is even lower, at 5.4 percent. According to a report issued by the state’s Office of Mental Health, in fact, suicide statistics in New York follow a simple formula: The less populous the county, the higher the rate (with superdense Kings County, or Brooklyn, boasting the second lowest, at 4.4 per 100,000). The United States follows the same pattern, with suicides rising the more rural the area becomes. States with the worst suicide rates are the least dense. (Montana, Nevada, Alaska, New Mexico, and Wyoming are ranked, respectively, one through five.)
It’s not a short article, but worth a read. I still prefer not living alone, but I know plenty of people who don’t.
3 comments
great article! Thanks for sharing. I agree with everything the author says here, and as someone who has lived in both a suburb and a city, I would say it’s empirically true. I think “openness”, “civic engagement”, “empathy”, “awareness of political events”, and several other good traits would also have a sharp increase in urban areas.
Interesting, although I only made it through 2.5 pages before deciding I should really get back to work. I do not necessarily find the city to be a lonely place, but I do prefer living in an area with lower population density.
This article was in my local newspaper yesterday, and included a graphic that unfortunately did not make it to the online version. That graphic showed that violent crime rates in the suburbs were on the order of 100 per 100,000 people, while in the local cities it was around 700 per 100,000 people. I would have expected crime rates per person to be relatively stable over various population densities, so this was rather surprising.
@Peyton yeah, agreed.
@Chad Interesting.. it’s too bad they didn’t have the graphic online. I’m not sure what would account for the varying crime rates. I found some related data here: http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/ncrj/rural_crime_facts.htm, some of which is interesting.
Leave a Comment