City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population • Hacker News Board

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#161

Post by Frondo » Thu, May 16, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #157

crx07 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, ok, since you want to be horsey: ambulances take 50-60 minutes to arrive (pregnant? heart disease? prepare to feel third world terror), the police can’t realistically save you from any kind of violent altercation or crime and no one else will see it happen, there’s no public transportation and you can’t walk to town—so you’re stranded on a desert island if your car ever breaks down. There’s also a constant threat…

Many people in rural areas have medivac insurance so they can be airlifted in a serious emergency. I believe it used to cost us around $100 a year. And let's be real, the cops don't show up during a crime in the city either.

No, let's be real, the cops show up in cities pretty reliably. The drawback is that sometimes they do good for the situation, while a third of the time they end up shooting someone.

Interesting you mention medivac insurance -- I spent a number of years in a very small town in rural west Texas and I've never heard of that. Numerous times I heard of the race to get someone to one of the towns with a hospital 45 minutes away, though, maybe several times a year.

Maybe it's not at as widespread as you think, or somehow this town of about a thousand people (with one gas station, one restaurant open part time, and no grocery stores) entirely missed out on the existence of something that'd probably have saved lives.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#162

Post by Frondo » Thu, May 16, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

msla wrote: post #145

crx07 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for making the counterpoint. I grew up in a rural setting and would give just about anything to take back that loss of years of my life. A few extras: * You can't exercise, because dogs don't just bark but also chase you, and no one cares or thinks you're the asshole for complaining because you're in the country. * Daily life is /very/ stressful. Forgot milk? Well, fuck you, buddy, because you're ei…

> You can't exercise, because dogs don't just bark but also chase you, and no one cares or thinks you're the asshole for complaining because you're in the country. Even if your neighbor or neighbors have well-trained or well-controlled dogs, you have to worry about wild animals more than you do in urban areas. I'm not talking about predators as much as prey: A mountain lion is scary, but most of them pretty well leav…

One clarification here that fills me with a mixture of disgust and heartbreak:

"in rural areas, land is being used" -- it's more that, in rural areas, land is being owned. Not necessarily used. I lived in an extremely rural area for several years and was surrounded by fenced-off land that nobody used because some rich doctor somewhere owned it. You couldn't hike on it, couldn't camp on it, certainly no one else could use it. What a shitty system.

And yes, I recognize that the system that permits some out-of-state doctor to "own" thousands of acres is the same one that would permit me to some day, and I don't give a shit; I'd rather structure the world in such a way that nobody could fence it off like that. Maybe as small a tweak as a 'right to roam' law in America.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#163

Post by Ma8ee » Thu, May 16, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #158

Ma8ee wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won’t get into the completely different discussion about mental health. You don’t state where your quote comes from, but it would be interesting to know if they say anything about what exactly living in a city makes people more depressed. But your point about move about less: people living in cities actually move more. You’re much likely to walk or bicycle to shops or work when the distance is one and a half mile t…

Quote is directly from the linked article for this thread. I don’t want to be restricted to shopping, work, or entertainment that is walking distance or possibly public transit if I’m feeling adventurous, which is what living in a city constrains you to.

I guess you are joking. Or are you seriously trying to say that you have more choices because you are living in a rural area and have to take the car whenever you want to go anywhere?

Just as an example, where I am sitting right now, I have more than 30 restaurants and cafés that I can reach within 5 minutes walk. If I don't mind walking a bit longer, or taking the subway a few stops, for a total traveltime of say 20 minutes, I can reach hundreds, most likely thousands, of restaurants. Shopping and entertainment are similar.

And this is far from a mega-city, but a city with around a million people.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#164

Post by mrosett » Thu, May 16, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

elliotec wrote: post #138

cjmcqueen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love SLC, but the pollution has gotten too intense.

While I totally agree that the pollution sucks when it sucks here, it has been trending better year over year for the past ten years[0], and is lower on the list than the most populous parts of California (including the entire LA area and the entire SF Bay Area) in terms of year-round, short-term, and overall air pollution[1]. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/83hj3v/air... [1] https://archive.slt…

Thanks for sharing the data. That wasn’t my impression.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#165

Post by magduf » Thu, May 16, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

zamfi wrote: post #128

magduf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC is a very large city, that really would make more sense being separated from NY state and turned into a separate city-state. Manhattan alone is larger than many other cities, and it's only one "borough" in the city. If you look at Manhattan by itself, I'm sure you'll see very different numbers on car ownership. It's the people in Bronx, Queens, etc. that skew the numbers.

Just leaving this here: https://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-yorkers-and-their-cars

Exactly, that proves my point. Thanks for the post. Manhattanites' car ownership rate is extremely low, while in places like Staten Island it's very high. (Staten Island is not like the rest of NYC, and has poor public transit. It's basically a suburb.)

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#166

Post by magduf » Thu, May 16, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

richjdsmith wrote: post #152

magduf wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up another thing: small towns are not actually "rural". Rural is when you literally cannot walk to a store in less than an hour to get food. Small towns really aren't that different from cities, just at a smaller scale. Things are still close together (in fact, usually they're more dense than suburbs) and walkable, if the town was laid out before the rise of the automobile. Of course, they have big downside…

Out of curiosity, are you actually from a small town? If so, what was it that everyone knew everyone? The town I grew up in was around 20,000 people. While I absolutely ran into people I knew when out doing errands, I don't think it was ever to the extent my mother-in-law (someone who despises small towns) imagined it to be. I am curious where this notion came from.

20k people isn't a small town, it's a small city.

A small town is more like 1k, where you're lucky if there's one stoplight. And yes, I've lived in places like that.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#167

Post by magduf » Thu, May 16, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #161

jjeaff wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people in rural areas have medivac insurance so they can be airlifted in a serious emergency. I believe it used to cost us around $100 a year. And let's be real, the cops don't show up during a crime in the city either.

No, let's be real, the cops show up in cities pretty reliably. The drawback is that sometimes they do good for the situation, while a third of the time they end up shooting someone. Interesting you mention medivac insurance -- I spent a number of years in a very small town in rural west Texas and I've never heard of that. Numerous times I heard of the race to get someone to one of the towns with a hospital 45 minutes…

The other thing about hospitals is that, in a place like that, the nearest hospital is probably in the closest small city, but that hospital is staffed with incompetent doctors because who wants to work in a place like that? So if you have a real emergency, you want to go to a good hospital in a larger city, but that's much farther away.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#168

Post by magduf » Thu, May 16, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

Reelin wrote: post #155

crx07 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pepper spray (hell, even max strength bear spray with tear gas) wasn’t anywhere near enough. You don’t have enough range for it to start working in time when they’re charging at you, at least not unless it’s one of those crazy kinds that shoots like 20 feet, and if you aim poorly it’s over. The smart people who were crazy enough to walk or jog regularly carried 5+ foot ugly sticks (or spears/lances) and/or a firearm.…

> and that was the third attack in a one mile stretch Wow. Where was this?! I'm accustomed to clueless pet owners but that's just ridiculous. Cycling regularly, I recall ~4 run-ins over as many years (compared to none in urban or suburban areas ever). I suppose I'd graduate to rubber bullets or even bird shot if it was that bad, but at some point it's really up to the authorities to ensure some minimal level of publi…

>It sounds like you were located in a terribly run county.

That describes most rural counties in America.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#169

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, May 16, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

Ma8ee wrote: post #163

toomuchtodo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote is directly from the linked article for this thread. I don’t want to be restricted to shopping, work, or entertainment that is walking distance or possibly public transit if I’m feeling adventurous, which is what living in a city constrains you to.

I guess you are joking. Or are you seriously trying to say that you have more choices because you are living in a rural area and have to take the car whenever you want to go anywhere? Just as an example, where I am sitting right now, I have more than 30 restaurants and cafés that I can reach within 5 minutes walk. If I don't mind walking a bit longer, or taking the subway a few stops, for a total traveltime of say 20…

Not joking at all. In the suburbs of a major Tier 2 city near Lake Michigan, via the interstate/toll system throughout said suburbs, I can cover ~60-80 miles per hour. How much can you cover in the city on foot, local roads, or public transit? I assure you, far less, having been exposed to Chicago Loop/West Loop/Bucktown/Ukrainian Village traffic and having to ride the L for a period of time (and occasional jaunts into SF and Manhattan). You might walk or subway it to a restaurant, while I decide to drive to Milwaukee or Naperville for dinner (in the comfort of a private electric vehicle, not a dreadful MTA subway or the BART, or trying to walk in inclement weather with a stroller and kids in tow).

I argue we have equal access to places of interest, and I need a car regardless for access to places public transit doesn't go; it's a net win for me versus inflated city housing and other costs associated with an urban lifestyle. (This ignores temporarily the argument that having access to hundreds or thousands of restaurants and places of shopping is necessary or significantly more valuable) Yes, I spend more time in transit, but the quality of life in transit is much higher than that of it in city life.

From my perspective, I personally cannot see a positive in living in the city now that I have a family. We lead a far better life than we could in an urban core (did I mention my backyard pool?). This is my argument against the stance "city == better!" people seem to take, even when evidence (see: this article) is demonstrating otherwise.

Re: City residents live with mental illness at higher rates than general population

#170

Post by neilv » Thu, May 16, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

goatsi wrote: post #133

neilv wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here (small lots, affluent people who pay landscapers to come by frequently for nebulous reasons) the real scourge is weekday unnecessary leafblowers. I think we've raised awareness in the last year, and leafblower use so far this season has dropped dramatically, but we'll see what September is like. We might have to try to outlaw leafblowers like some other Boston area places have.

Have some inspiration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19351934

Thank you, this is very helpful. (Looks like something you could give to local city councilors as well as citizens. Though I don't intend to drag it out for years, and I'd be looking for an immediate ban on gas blowers, and also reducing use of the electrics.)