
Why New Yorkers Last Longer - robg
http://nymag.com/news/features/35815/
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abalashov
Walking built into everyday life is "revolutionary?" Seriously? I think just
about any European city dweller can tell you that. This is not revolutionary,
it's just commonsensical, self-evident fact everywhere else.

Life in the suburban/rural US (i.e. most of it by surface area) is a very non-
classy way to die, at the mercies of some of the most perverse planning and
design humanly imaginable. I deal with the implications of that in the
sprawling, automobile-centric catastrofuck that is Atlanta every day -- and I
have it "good," I live downtown!

Also, a very, very important insight:

"It’s also because New York is old and filled with attractive architecture and
interesting street scenes—since, as it turns out, aesthetically pretty places
lure people out of their homes and cars."

Bingo! Even though there exist places in the US where it is possible to walk,
in principle, it is not a compelling aesthetic or interpersonal experience.
Consequently, it is unmotivating and unfulfilling, so, unsurprisingly, people
don't do it. Taking a walk in otherwise comparably "inconvenient" ways from a
purely logistical perspective in many cities in the world is an interesting
undertaking; people are interesting, nicely dressed, there is nice
architecture to look at, engaging and attractive public spaces, etc. That has
a lot to do with why people do it. Most of the US is a horrific existential
blight in that respect, even many of the parts where sidewalks exist and the
distances required are theoretically manageable.

~~~
biohacker42
As a European living in a US exurb, it's fascinating how little it takes to
kill community.

I'm not talking economically or actually kill it. The economy is strong here,
but there are no sidewalks, or public squares. There is obviously main street,
a terrible place with gas stations and McDonald's and IHOP and Home Depot and
no one walking between them, because why would you?

There are business parks, the one I'm in and the one directly across the
street. Not that I've ever walked over there, what would I do, it's not like
there's a nice open air restaurant there, or any kind of a place to eat, it's
just offices like ours, but no one we do business with.

And so we're like islands, and the private residences are a lot like islands
too. Most people do know their immediate neighbors but your neighbors just
down the street? Where would you run into them? Unless you're already friends
when/where would you rub shoulders together?

I know it's not malice that designed this.. I can't really call this a town
even though it legally is.

It's just that people want a big yard and a quiet neighborhood and there's a
lot more land then in the old world. And people like to organize things, zone
them, here and there, and who would ever want to walk, you don't need
sidewalks.

But boy does it ever result in a strange place to live. For me living involves
doing stuff like going out. But people in the suburbs just reside here, they
do go out, they drive to some place, they don't go as in walk out here though.
It's like we don't really live here.

~~~
Goladus
_Most people do know their immediate neighbors but your neighbors just down
the street? Where would you run into them? Unless you're already friends
when/where would you rub shoulders together?_

Most commonly, communities in rural and suburban US form primarily around
churches and schools; and secondarily at places like bars, the library, the
YMCA, or charities.

Also, "just reside here" tends to mean a lot more in a suburb than a city. I
"just reside" in my apartment in the city, I live in the neighborhood. In a
suburb people don't just reside in their homes, they live in them. They have
dinner parties and outdoor BBQs. Their kids play ball in the back yard with
the neighbors and hide-and-seek in the nearby woods. Even a modestly priced
home has room for a workshop, a library, a garden, and an entertainment
center. In the city, you'll be lucky to pay through the nose for enough room
for one of those things in a decent neighborhood.

~~~
pietro
Hence, islands.

~~~
Goladus
Sort of, although you still have access to nearby islands and there are
communal places such as those I mentioned. It's more isolated than the city,
but it's also not always like being totally alone and devoid of any community
at all.

------
HoneyAndSilicon
No sure explanations, yet:

"Homicide, AIDS, and drugs are characteristically New York ways to die young,
of course, so it’s no surprise that when we sharply decreased the fatalities
they caused, we caught up with the rest of the country. But here’s the thing:
It’s not just that we’ve conquered these urban blights. Cancer and cardiac
arrest are down, too. The number of people in the city dying from heart
disease has dropped by a third in the last twenty years, and cancer rates have
slid by nearly a fifth. And again in these cases, New York is getting
healthier faster than the rest of the U.S."

Proposed: More walking; better health care access; less crime -> attracting
more wealthy-healthy residents, bans (like smoking, trans fats)... They're
making NYC sound like what we always thought California was supposed to be.

But neither NY state nor Calif can muster effective state legislatures. Oh,
well, there's another post waiting to be written.

------
ars
Summary: all the walking is making them last [live] longer.

And specifically a correlation between walking fast, and living longer.

And new yorkers walk very fast - which is an indication of good health.

Does walking fast also cause good health? The article implies it, but does not
prove it.

~~~
jcl
That's only one point of several in the article, but I agree that it is one of
the most questionable:

"She and a group of scientists assembled 3,075 seniors in their seventies and
asked them to traverse a 400-meter course, walking as fast as they could.
[...] For every minute longer it took someone to complete the 400-meter walk,
he had a 29 percent higher chance of mortality and a 52 percent greater chance
of being disabled. People who walk faster live longer -- and enjoy better
health in their later years."

The article doesn't explore the alternate explanation that healthier seniors
_are able_ to walk faster. (...although, to its credit, it does raise the
possibility that people who like to walk are more likely to move to New York.)

~~~
forgotmypasswd
<http://xkcd.com/552/> probably my favorite xkcd

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locopati
I wonder how that article mixes with this one...

'Exposure to New York City as a Risk Factor for Heart Attack Mortality'

[http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/61...](http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/61/6/740)

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ilitirit
This is was published two years ago. For interest's sake, has anything changed
since then?

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lionhearted
Really interesting piece, good stuff. New York's funny for me, because I did
all my working, living, and visiting of NYC only in the last five years. I'm
old enough to remember hearing of New York as a dirty, dangerous place, but I
never experienced any of that outside of movies like Coming to America. I talk
with older relatives about spending time in Harlem, in Queens, in the
Meatpacking District, and they're like, "New York?! Be careful!" And my
reaction was, "...umm, it's one of the safest cities in America." People don't
believe it.

IIRC, Freakonomics had a chapter talking about the reduced crime in New York.
It's been a few years since I read it, but I think Friedman's conclusion was
that the reduction in crime had less to do with the broken windows policy and
more to do with the fact that NY tripled their uniformed officers in that
timeframe. Uniformed officers walking around an area is one of the largest
deterrents of crime anywhere. Some good stuff in that book, anyone who liked
this piece would do well to check it out.

Steven Levitt's blog:

<http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/>

Freakonomics, no affiliate link:

[http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-
Hidden...](http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-
Everything/dp/006073132X)

~~~
andrewbadera
It was a lot dirtier when I visited as a kid, some 15+ years ago. And a lot
more fun too ;)

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mhb
Maybe the idea of giving up a rent-controlled apartment is also a factor.

------
Raphael
in bed!

~~~
mcantor
If it's the first thing that popped into your head, it's probably the first
thing that popped into everyone else's heads, too.

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mynameishere
Six pages? Really?

Okay, I didn't read it, but I'm wondering if they mention the obvious: That
lots of people in NYC are migrants who arrived in their 20s or later, which
increases the longevity for simple mathematical reasons.

~~~
maukdaddy
You couldn't be bothered to read six pages of a very well written and thought-
out article? WTF is wrong with my generation? :(

~~~
abalashov
I had the same thought.

