4 ms·

Why New Yorkers Last Longer

37 points by robg 17y ago

Raphael 17y ago
in bed!
- mcantor 17y ago
  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.
HoneyAndSilicon 17y ago
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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    http://xkcd.com/552/ http://xkcd.com/552/ probably my favorite xkcd
lionhearted 17y ago
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/ http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/ Freakonomics, no affiliate link: http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/006073132X http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden...
- andrewbadera 17y ago
  It was a lot dirtier when I visited as a kid, some 15+ years ago. And a lot more fun too ;)
abalashov 17y ago
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.
- gms 17y ago
  I think you might be attributing a lot to malice. In fact I think if said European cities and NYC were built after cars were invented, they would be similar to the sprawl in e.g. California.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - nir 17y ago
    There's an excellent TED talk by J Kunstler about livable cities and how we stopped building them: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_subu...
- biohacker42 17y ago
locopati 17y ago
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/61/6/740 http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/61...
ilitirit 17y ago
This is was published two years ago. For interest's sake, has anything changed since then?
mhb 17y ago
Maybe the idea of giving up a rent-controlled apartment is also a factor.
mynameishere 17y ago
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.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  That would lower the mortality rate, not increase longevity. Longevity is age at death. I think the simplest explanation works well. NYC has become richer over the past 10-20 years, and rich people live longer.
  - jcl 17y ago
    If most of the population arrives at age 20, it would almost totally cut out infant mortality. As the article points out on the first page, infant mortality has the greatest effect on their longevity numbers: "By the same logic, one infant’s dying during childbirth -- 77.8 years too early -- is equal to ten people’s succumbing to lung cancer at age 70." However, the article is not only about how much healthier New York is relative to the rest of the country -- it's also about how much healthier it is relative to itself about ten years ago. One has to wonder if the immigration rate of 20-year-olds has increased that much in that time.
- maukdaddy 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    I had the same thought.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

37 points by robg 17y ago

Raphael 17y ago

in bed!

mcantor 17y ago
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.

HoneyAndSilicon 17y ago

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 17y ago

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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  http://xkcd.com/552/ http://xkcd.com/552/ probably my favorite xkcd

lionhearted 17y ago

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/ http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/ Freakonomics, no affiliate link: http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/006073132X http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden...

andrewbadera 17y ago
It was a lot dirtier when I visited as a kid, some 15+ years ago. And a lot more fun too ;)

abalashov 17y ago

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.

gms 17y ago
I think you might be attributing a lot to malice. In fact I think if said European cities and NYC were built after cars were invented, they would be similar to the sprawl in e.g. California.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- nir 17y ago
  There's an excellent TED talk by J Kunstler about livable cities and how we stopped building them: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_subu...
biohacker42 17y ago

locopati 17y ago

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/61/6/740 http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/61...

ilitirit 17y ago

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

mhb 17y ago

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

mynameishere 17y ago

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.

yummyfajitas 17y ago
That would lower the mortality rate, not increase longevity. Longevity is age at death. I think the simplest explanation works well. NYC has become richer over the past 10-20 years, and rich people live longer.
- jcl 17y ago
  If most of the population arrives at age 20, it would almost totally cut out infant mortality. As the article points out on the first page, infant mortality has the greatest effect on their longevity numbers: "By the same logic, one infant’s dying during childbirth -- 77.8 years too early -- is equal to ten people’s succumbing to lung cancer at age 70." However, the article is not only about how much healthier New York is relative to the rest of the country -- it's also about how much healthier it is relative to itself about ten years ago. One has to wonder if the immigration rate of 20-year-olds has increased that much in that time.
maukdaddy 17y ago
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 17y ago
  I had the same thought.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]