11 ms·
Poor New Yorkers Tend to Live Longer Than Other Poor Americans
- morgante 11y agoIn addition to the investments in social services which the government provides, I suspect there's also a psychological element as well. New Yorkers, rich and poor, share a common identity which I don't see in a lot of other communities. There's an understanding that everyone lives in one city (even if they live in different parts of it), and at least has a modicum of responsibility to each other. Contrast this with other cities like Detroit where the rich and poor live entirely separate existences.
- Spooky23 11y agoAnother key element is that you have old style ethnic communities in NYC.
- intsunny 11y agoIts interesting you mention this, because the same trains that the run through some of the poorest areas of the city, also run through the wealthiest area of the city. (D train, Norwood and UWS. 2/3 trains, Tribeca and East New York.) The ability for any New Yorker to be just about anywhere regardless of income is unparalleled.
- morgante 11y agoYup, it was always fun to see the bankers on the UES forced to stand in the morning while Bronx commuters got to sit down. Personally, I think the subway is a great force for egalitarianism.
- giaour 11y agoDuring the periods of reduced service, I could always hop on a 6 train at 116th Street, while people who lived in the UES had to wait hours for a spot on a train. I was pleasantly surprised to see that even the wealthiest and most powerful New Yorkers respected the unwritten rules of MTA etiquette.
- darkerside 11y agoWhat unwritten rule do you mean? They couldn't fit on the train in the first place, right?
- giaour 11y agoThere's strong social pressure enforcing a first-come, first-serve rule on seats and standing room. Seats are only surrendered for the pregnant or disabled, and standing room is only surrendered if a child pushed his way onto a train but his parent or guardian didn't quite make it. In other cities, I've seen people ask for spots on an otherwise full bus or train because they were running late. That would be unheard of in a NYC subway.
- colechristensen 11y agoDo people really have to wait _hours_ for a spot on a train?
- bradleyjg 11y agoNew Yorkers may exaggerate from time to time. But I have been at the 1st Avenue L stop during the morning rush and had to let 3 trains go by before getting on to the fourth (probably 20 minutes total waiting). I probably should have walked at some point but then I would have had to pay again at Union Square.
- bwilliams18 11y ago1st Ave L is probably one of the most crowded stops in the morning for rush hour in the city, probably competing closely with Lorimer and Bedford L stops. In PM out of the city Union Square is similarly packed, and the train is nearly empty once you pass Lorimer
- ams6110 11y agoWhen I lived in Chicago, the State Street Subway at evening rush hour would have every car packed literally sardine tight. They could barely close the doors and there was barely room to breathe, forget about sitting down. I'm sure it was illegal but the conductors seemed to just pack people on until there wasn't room for one more.
- FussyZeus 11y agoI think you're hitting on the biggest contributor to this feeling of it being one city. In pretty much every city on the planet you have the different districts that are known for different things, predominantly the wealth of that area, but New York is somewhat unique in how intertwined and connected all of those distinct districts are in that city. As others point out, the same trains all go through the same areas, and everybody rides them. It's hard to develop the "little people" attitude when you spend so much time around said little people.
- thrwy15272 11y agoThis is hardly unique to New York. Many European cities have this feature (it was deliberately designed into London, for example). It may be unique to New York within the US.
- cguess 11y agoHave you been to London lately? It's heavily segregated, and the only place I've seen much mixing is at the chip shop or curry joint.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- yodsanklai 11y agoI see what you mean. There's certainly a feeling of community that don't exist in other places but I still think the rich and the poor live very separate existences despite some proximity. Actually, it reminds me of a "date" I had once in New York. One night I met a rich finance girl (from Craigslist!). It's a bit of a cliché, but when I left her luxurious penthouse and went back to my life, I couldn't help but think we lived in totally separate worlds!
- morgante 11y ago> It's a bit of a cliché, but when I left her luxurious penthouse and saw the poor people on the street, I couldn't help but think we lived in totally separate worlds! You still saw them though. In many places, the closest you'll come to poorer people is on a highway overpass. Obviously the rich and poor don't have identical existences anywhere, but in New York there's a lot more commonality between the existences (everyone taking the subway, for example).
- matthewmcg 11y agoThis was part of the social purpose of Central Park. Frederick Olmstead advocated similar parks for San Francisco, writing that people could be found in public parks: "with a common purpose, not at all intellectual, competitive with none, disposing to jealousy and spiritual or intellectual pride toward none, each individual adding by his mere presence to the pleasure of all others, all helping to the greater happiness of each." https://books.google.com/books?id=hAItCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA368&dq=%22with+a+common+purpose,+not+at+all+intellectual,+competitive+with+none%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM7byMlofMAhVLox4KHRAcB0MQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=%22with%20a%20common%20purpose%2C%20not%20at%20all%20intellectual%2C%20competitive%20with%20none%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=hAItCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA368&dq=%...
- hkmurakami 11y agoThis is what I felt walking through Boston Commons, during my brief time as a SF resident. If only we could move Golden Gate Park a few miles East!
- busterarm 11y agoDon't worry, New York will get there eventually. Having spent 30 years in this city, I've seen two ends of the spectrum in terms of class-mixing. In the 80s & early 90s it wasn't uncommon to go to a house party in some squat or slum and see social elite there (with their shared love of art, music or drugs) or go to a club/elite art gallery and see the misfits there. This does not happen any more. At all. There are some of us remaining who straddled both circles that can fit in both places but the poor really do not socialize (as in parties) with the rich anymore. But at least it's not like Atlanta where I see the middle class show open hostility to the homeless.
- bradleyjg 11y agoIt's entirely possible that you are right. But have you considered the possibility that it's you that's changed instead of or in addition to the city? I certainly don't go to the same type of parties I did when I first moved to the city and that was only a dozen years ago.
- busterarm 11y agoI've considered that but my circles are pretty wide and I've been thinking about this for a long time and going out and verifying (asking absolutely everyone who will listen). Consensus seems to be that we're trending towards homogeny.
- cguess 11y agoI think you're probably right on this. I'm probably about a generation younger than the guy above you and I still see parties across the board. I've been with millionaires in Bushwick squats at avant-garde art shows and poor-as-s* immigrant artists in massively famous actor lofts. I'm a lower middle-class grandson of farmers and preachers, who's done OK for himself. I LOVE that New York lets me hang out with everyone without having to fake my way through any side. (There are exceptions, but the ultra-wealthy are annoying as hell, even if they do have the drugs, music, booze etc.)
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- illumin8 11y agoIt could also be due to the fact that New Yorkers tend to walk much more than populations in other areas. My theory is that just walking a couple miles a day between subway stations is a great benefit to an aging population.
- dexterdog 11y agoPoor New Yorkers are a lot richer than other poor Americans. And why are the only graphical comparisons given comparing NY to Detroit? That's a pretty low bar.
- ethanbond 11y agoWhat do you mean by the first statement? Richer based on what numbers?
- ant6n 11y agoTitle should probably be "..Than _Some_ Other Poor Americans".
- lr4444lr 11y agoI'm not sure about that. The cost of living is a lot higher in major cities like NYC. They may earn more in absolute dollars, but comparing the purchasing power with their counterparts in less populous parts of the country, I would guess that poor New Yorkers are much worse off, even when you consider the added costs for owning a decent used car in other areas.
- eachro 11y agoThe poor new yorkers living in project housing who work minimum wage jobs trying to support 2 kids with an absentee father?
- tricolon 11y agoOn the face of it, your first statement seems to be false. New York's 15th congressional district is the poorest in the country: http://talkpoverty.org/cd-year-report/new-york-cd-report-15-2/ http://talkpoverty.org/cd-year-report/new-york-cd-report-15-...
- lr4444lr 11y agoThe findings underscore public health research showing that healthy habits matter. The JAMA paper found that several measures of access to medical care had no clear relationship with longevity among the poor. But there were correlations with smoking, exercise and obesity. ... The city also imposed novel regulations on restaurants and food, banning trans fats that are associated with heart disease, and requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menus. Efforts to tax or limit soda sales were unsuccessful, but public campaigns to discourage unhealthy eating were widespread. The implication is that the nanny state has to step in because the poor don't exercise personal responsibility as diligently as the non-poor. Sad.
- elthran 11y agoOr are these people poor /because/ they don't exercise personal responsibility as diligently? I can easily see the arguments for the causation going either way
- lr4444lr 11y agoYes, that's part of the implication the findings appear to make. I don't see what you're saying differently.
- loudin 11y agoWhich is completely absurd because not only were many of these laws recently enacted, but their the efficacy of some rules is also questionable (most notably the calorie count law). I wouldn't be surprised if most of the difference cited by this study was due to walking. I know that I've had to exert extra effort living in SF to be more active than I had to when I lived in NYC. I wonder if there will be a follow-up study looking into the actual reasons why life expectancy is higher in NYC.
- wutbrodo 11y ago> I wouldn't be surprised if most of the difference cited by this study was due to walking. I know that I've had to exert extra effort living in SF to be more active than I had to when I lived in NYC. Wow I find this kinda surprising. I walk more or less as much in sf as in NY, if only because roughly 100% of the time, the weather is comfortable enough to enjoy walking in (as opposed to Manhattan in the summer.... Or the winter). Then again, I think my house is unusually well connected to transit, so maybe where you live transit+walking isn't as feasible an option.
- davidw 11y agoYet another reason to make it easier for the less well-off to live in places like NY and San Francisco by building more housing.
- Animats 11y agoNot SF. SF is fat-friendly, by city policy. NYC is not.
- Shengbo 11y agoWhat do you mean? How can a city be "fat-friendly" by policy?
- Animats 11y agoSan Francisco Human Rights Commission, "Compliance Guidelines To Prohibit Weight and Height Discrimination"[1] "Medical providers must not make weight loss or weight gain related intervention a condition for treatment." "Employers must strive to maintain a respectful, non-hostile environment related to weight and height. Verbal or written harassment against an employee based on weight or height is prohibited. Unsolicited comments, advice, or literature recommending weight loss or gain are inappropriate." "If a tenant needs and requests an accommodation because of weight or height, it must be made if it is readily achievable. Some examples of alterations that are usually readily achievable include: installing offset hinges to widen doorways, rearranging furnishings, lowering mirrors or replacing shower doors with shower curtains. The need or potential need to make an accommodation may not be considered as a factor in the decision to select a tenant." [1] http://sf-hrc.org/sites/sf-hrc.org/files/migrated/FileCenter/Documents/LBE_EBO/EBO/Height_and_Weight.pdf http://sf-hrc.org/sites/sf-hrc.org/files/migrated/FileCenter...
- davidw 11y agoI think I'd look at actual health outcomes as per the study, rather than policies like this, that may or may not make a difference.
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- tombert 11y agoI have to wonder if this, in part, has to do with the fact that poorer people here tend to ride the subway, and get exposed to a larger number of viruses, and building up an more immunities. I'm no doctor, but it at least seems plausible from a lay-man's perspective.
- raverbashing 11y agoProbably it has more to do with the amount of stair climbing that riding the subway requires
- theandrewbailey 11y agoAnd also due to the extra half mile or so of walking to your local stop and final destination.
- jba 11y agoMy guess would be more along the lines that people who walk/subway are generally more fit than those who take a car everywhere. NYC doesn't have a lot of fat people in general. (though it's worse than it used to be)
- maxerickson 11y agoExposure to infections does not make you stronger. Immunity is highly specific. This is why the flu is a chronic problem, it mutates rapidly enough that exposure to previous generations of the virus does not confer immunity to current generations. Immunity is more like a collection of solutions to puzzles than it is a muscle. Being infected while in a healthier state and thus gaining immunity with less risk might be beneficial later, but you can look at mortality statistics and see that while infections are a major cause of death, they aren't responsible for a large portion of deaths: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm (Chronic lower respiratory disease there is stuff like COPD, not particularly infection related)
- tombert 11y agoThat's what I get for taking medical advice from a George Carlin stand-up... That's a fair point, I'll admit I was mistaken.
- nxzero 11y agoThere's clearly some sort of selection bias going on, since I would hope it's obvious that simply moving NYC will not help you live longer. (My guess is that people that live longer end up moving in with someone they know, and given that NYC has so many people, it's more likely that they'd move to NYC than another city.)
- pavel_lishin 11y ago> There's clearly some sort of selection bias going on, since I would hope it's obvious that simply moving NYC will not help you live longer. If you live a sedentary, car-centered lifestyle and are a heavy smoker, then moving to NYC may indeed help you by forcing you to get more exercise and quit smoking due to the costs.
- JPKab 11y agoNope. Poor people in densely populated areas with strong public transportation networks are going to be able to get medical care more easily than poor people in less densely populated areas. In fact, the poor people in the US with the highest death rates are those living in the rural US and in and around small cities. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/04/10/a-new-divide-in-american-death/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/04/10/a-new-d...
- sp332 11y agoThat's not at all clear. The anti-obesity and anti-smoking campaigns, and the sheer walkability of New York compared to Detroit, mean you will face less pressure toward obesity and cardiovascular disease. Just moving there really might mean you live longer.
- peg_leg 11y agoIt's because they walk.
- guscost 11y agoI would put a lot of money on this as well.
- morgante 11y agoI'd expect that to apply equally to wealthier people too, but the inter-city gap disappears at higher income levels. Wealthy New Yorkers also walk a lot more than wealthy people in other countries. New Yorkers definitely walk a lot more, but I don't think that explains the full effect.
- songshu 11y agoI have no idea what effect the walking is having, but would point out that wealthy non-new Yorkers have other routes to attain the benefits of walking, such as gym time and hiking trips. You can't say the same of poor non-new Yorkers.
- cwilson 11y agoThe walking and the stairs. So many stairs. I don't know many friends who live in buildings with elevators, especially in the outer boroughs. We live in a four-story walk-up in Brooklyn, have stairs in our duplex to go to the second story/loft, and walk up and down subway stairs on a daily basis. So all those stairs plus generally walking everywhere around the city equals a lot more exercise on a daily basis than the average person (is my guess). It's night and day versus growing up in Austin, where I drove everywhere, rarely used stairs, and walking consisted of taking out the garbage to the curb.
- merpnderp 11y agoAbsolutely this. Lots of people I know who've lost tons of weight started attempting to eat better and then walked an hour or more a day. I started walking every day and dropped my resting pulse into the 50's, and lowered my blood pressure from barely normal, to near athletic. All that walking is just awesome for people's health. And most people in the US don't get much exercise.
- intrasight 11y agoCorrelation vs causation
- mfringel 11y ago....is not some magical incantation. Please state your point, in the context of the article.
- intrasight 11y agoYes, yes - sometimes my incantations are too brief. There are a lot of factors that may have correlation to health outcome. The fact that something is correlated does not, as journalists will often suggest, imply that there is a causation effect. The fact that the poor in some locations are more healthy is a good hint that being poor is not the direct cause of their health issues. But being poor is a root cause of many adversities in any society that doesn't treat health, education, and other such things as basic human rights.
- giaour 11y agoI didn't get any sense from the article that the authors thought they had identified the root cause of poverty and/or reduced life expectancy. They're pointing out a rather chilling correlation.
- guyzero 11y agoSurprised the article doesn't try the hypothesis that the issue is access to high-quality hospitals and medical schools. Detroit is a nice enough town (in parts) but I'd rather get sick in New York City.
- maxerickson 11y agoWayne State University has a good teaching hospital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_State_University_School_of_Medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_State_University_School_... Beaumont Health is an excellent system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumont_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumont_Health And the University of Michigan Hospital is available to anyone with a car: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan_Health_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan_Health_... So the availability of care isn't going to be a problem in Detroit (access to care could be very different though).
- jessriedel 11y agoActually, the best controlled and pseudo-controlled studies show that, within the United States, access to medical care has negligible impact on life expectancy.
- Symmetry 11y agoNo, they excplicitly address the hypothesis and reject it: The findings underscore public health research showing that healthy habits matter. The JAMA paper found that several measures of access to medical care had no clear relationship with longevity among the poor. But there were correlations with smoking, exercise and obesity. “There remains this misconception in our society that health is determined by health care,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor and director of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, who wrote an editorial commending the research but offering some methodological criticisms. “Behaviors have a huge influence on health outcomes.”
- iskander 11y agoHospitals add surprisingly little to health and longevity. The biggest factors are hygiene, exercise, diet, and pollution (including smoking). It's nice to get a speedy by-pass surgery when your heart clogs up, but it's even nicer to not get that heart attack in the first place.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoThe original paper is here: https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2513561 https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2513561 I'm kind of wondering if the NYT reporter actually read it. From the article: differences in life expectancy for individuals in the lowest income quartile were significantly correlated with health behaviors such as smoking (r = −0.69, P < .001), but were not significantly correlated with access to medical care, physical environmental factors, income inequality, or labor market conditions. Other factors which had no effect include residential segregation, health insurance, and unemployment. Contrast this with the NYT: "New York is a city with some of the worst income inequality in the country." "We should really be thinking about how do we build up the public health infrastructure."
- Pxtl 11y agoIirc, obesity statistics are about equal between the poorest parts of NYC and the national average. Sedentary, isolating suburbia is killing us all.
- tracker1 11y agoObesity is not the only indicator of health. For that matter being skinny doesn't mean you won't suffer from metabolic syndrome, only that obesity as a symptom doesn't present itself.
- Overtonwindow 11y agoI wonder if it's becuase living in a place like New York City requires one to be a little stronger and resilant to every day things. I don't think it has anything to do with tax dollars, city services, or even walking. Could be totally wrong here, but I think living in New York City puts one on a more defensive, "aware" footing, and builds resilancy. Too far off the mark?
- saulrh 11y ago> I wonder if it's becuase living in a place like New York City requires one to be a little stronger and resilant to every day things. I would expect the opposite to happen - the extra grinding-down every day would result in people devoting more resources and stress tolerance to "being a little stronger and resilient", decreasing their ability to do other things including maintain their health.
- stevenmays 11y agoExcept, hormesis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis
- saulrh 11y agoThere is a paragraph in there about low levels of stress having an anti-aging effect. Very interesting, thanks for the link. I guess the question, then, is where the therapeutic/hormetic level of stress is. I'd have very much guessed that it'd be well below the level an average dense-inner-city resident suffers, based on studies regarding IQ loss due to stress and similar. shrug
- brudgers 11y agoRelated article showing comparisons across the US: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/11/upshot/for-the-poor-geography-is-life-and-death.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/11/upshot/for-the...
- rbcgerard 11y agoAnother piece of the puzzle is access to to cheap non-fast food options...there are not a lot of American cities that have an abundance of fruit cart vendors as an example...
- davidf18 11y agoMike Bloomberg donated $600 million (with an additional $125 million from Bill Gates) to combat tobacco in low- and middle-income countries. Here is the plan used in NYC based on the WHO MPOWER program: http://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(07)60782-X/abstract http://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(07)60782-X/abstr... NYC also placed over 1,000 fruit and vegetable carts in poor parts of the city where fruits and vegetables had not been readily available. While the attempts to limit sugar-added beverage consumption failed, the publicity over the 3 different attempts against Coke and Pepsi ultimately resulted lower consumption. An interesting behind-the-scenes story can be read if former NYC Health Commissioner's new book, "Saving Gotham: A Billionaire Mayor, Activist Doctors, and the Fight for Eight Million Lives"
- tracker1 11y agoRegarding sugar consumption, I do wish that more efforts like Coca-Cola Life were made... mixing lower-calorie sweeteners... and for that matter, making things less sweet in general. The effects on gut flora from the artificial sweeteners (according to recent studies) is scary. As a diabetic, I've leaned towards far more water, and far less anything else (some tea, arnold palmers, etc). I wish that there was more effort to curve the marketing of anything using refined sugars. Hell, just preventing the advertisement of any product that has more than 50% of its' calories from refined sugar from shows airing before 8pm and those whose primary demographic is children would be incredibly impactful.