Personal experiences are valid and important, but they're almost never representative. That's why we run studies and experiments: our anecdotal experiences don'

Personal experiences are valid and important, but they're almost never representative. That's why we run studies and experiments: our anecdotal experiences don't give us enough data and often lead to generalization fallacies. They also typically come along with confirmation bias, a pitfall which the Mayor here likely fell into. For the rest of your post, I'm not saying we can't talk about problems affecting individuals? I think a lot of good can be done on the individual level: drug treatment, counseling, medical care, etc. Not sure where you're coming up with any of this.