21–30 of 205 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coastal America and rest of America might be a better way to cut it.
I don't think its so geographically aligned like that. Plenty of rich areas in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix etc.
County level:
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa/life-expectancy-by-c...
State and county level:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/life-expectancy/...
Freedom in the USA is a wonderful thing.
But Americans are thereby free to poison themselves to an early grave by the consumption of processed foods that taste great, are extremely convenient and available to any income.
There really are two Americas - wealthy america and the rest of america. I'll bet if you split America into two sets of counties, the graph would be much different -- one would be a super-outlier and the other a super-laggard. I know this personally, as I've spent 21yrs of my life in one half, and another 20 in the other half. I've also lived overseas for several years, and they also have stratas, but much less prono…
Coastal America and rest of America might be a better way to cut it.
Wikipedia's collected some of the recent per-county census data here, although that isn't a perfect metric since states vary a lot in county size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_countie...
In general there's a good/bad outcomes split within (almost?) every major American city between the affluent and the poor neighborhoods. I haven't verified this with the life-expectancy data, but I would bet it differs more between rich vs. poor areas within each state, than it does between coastal and non-coastal states.
There really are two Americas - wealthy america and the rest of america. I'll bet if you split America into two sets of counties, the graph would be much different -- one would be a super-outlier and the other a super-laggard. I know this personally, as I've spent 21yrs of my life in one half, and another 20 in the other half. I've also lived overseas for several years, and they also have stratas, but much less prono…
Which half made you happier?
I think the key thing was getting past the lower rungs of the Maslow hierarchy. It is very difficult to concentrate on schooling (or anything) when you are hungry or sick. I was constantly hungry when we didnt have free public school meals. A close relative had TB, due to poor healthcare where the hospital/system didn't seem to give a darn. The worst thing is how horrible normal people treated you (even teachers at public school.) I was constantly sick, probably due to poor nutrition.
College was great, I will still poor, but the prospects were getting better and all the basics were covered (no longer hungry; decent healthcare). This allowed more happiness because you knew it would be over soon.
With better jobs comes more stress -- the expectations (perhaps justified) that one should have a home, that one should have a school for children w/o crime/gangs -- and bigger mortgages, bigger spending. I live fairly conservatively despite decent career success, but I can see how I could "become unhappy trying to reach happiness" ... all that said, i'd take unhappy-rich to hungry-poor any day.
There really are two Americas - wealthy america and the rest of america. I'll bet if you split America into two sets of counties, the graph would be much different -- one would be a super-outlier and the other a super-laggard. I know this personally, as I've spent 21yrs of my life in one half, and another 20 in the other half. I've also lived overseas for several years, and they also have stratas, but much less prono…
Coastal America and rest of America might be a better way to cut it.
There really are two Americas - wealthy america and the rest of america. I'll bet if you split America into two sets of counties, the graph would be much different -- one would be a super-outlier and the other a super-laggard. I know this personally, as I've spent 21yrs of my life in one half, and another 20 in the other half. I've also lived overseas for several years, and they also have stratas, but much less prono…
Coastal America and rest of America might be a better way to cut it.
Metro-Denver, Metro-Austin/Dallas/Huston, Metro-Atlanta, Metro-Nashville, Metro-Chicago, Metro-Detroit, Metro-Minneapolis, etc. etc. etc.
I’d say it’s more city/suburban vs rural. This doesn’t account for the poor & homeless in all of America’s inner cities, but does a better job explaining.
Maybe “Fortune 500 headquarters adjacent” is the better indicator. The towns with big global companies almost always have affluent suburbs surrounding them. Even Cincinnati has tons of affluent people due to P&G.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think its so geographically aligned like that. Plenty of rich areas in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix etc.
While that is true, I think that some of these things are tied to local culture too, which is why the Coastal distinction does have some merit. If you generally are in the Bay Area or LA you rarely see the level of obesity you see in say Houston despite the fact that both areas despite being rich have their fair share of the poor too. Similarly for smoking. It's exceedingly rare to see public smoking in the Bay Area.…
Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
Are other races somehow not American? I never understood this argument. "If it weren't for all those black people and immigrants we'd actually be really good! Those other countries are just too 'homogenous'. " And then somehow this fact apparently dismisses other countries efforts at providing universal/preventative healthcare and initiatives that the US simply does not.
I am a US->Canada transplant, and the cultural and economic differences here just don’t seem that stark. Yes, there is universal health care, obviously…but there is definitely not an abundance of easily available mental health care here, especially outside the major metro areas. And the health care in the most economically disadvantaged areas (First Nations reservations) certainly isn’t platinum care.
Really, the road deaths chart stands out to me. Canada is very car centric, and huge, and full of plenty of large animals to hit. I simply cannot hazard a guess as to why it’s that different.