I don’t have any opinions about where people should or shouldn’t live, but it’s silly to think that cities are scary dangerous places (via):
New research from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine has yielded an unexpected finding on personal safety.
“If you consider safety as your risk of injury overall, we found that you’re actually safest in larger cities and get less safe as the areas become more rural,” said Sage Myers, the lead author of a study published Tuesday in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
It’s not that surprising since car accidents are so common and people drive less in cities. I grew up in a small town and those country roads scared the hell out of me, especially in the winter.
Keith
I live in Houston, and nearly everyone I know drives. Scratch that; EVERYONE I know drives EVERYWHERE. Safety in cities is a complex thing – you can’t drive as fast in cities, even on the freeways. Cities are better lit than rural areas. Most parts of cities have a large police presence, but other parts of the cities are very dangerous (particularly if you aren’t in a car). I don’t think you can really chalk up the reason to any one factor, and I’d emphasize that they’re talking about on-average, as cities don’t have a single characteristic throughout.
schrodinger's cat
As someone who has lived in big cities and tiny towns, I would say that both have their charms. I think suburbs, especially the newer ones tend to be the most boring places to live, all the inconvenience of not living in the city without any of the charm of living out in the country.
Biscuits
My husband does insurance defense for auto claims. Without exception, the rural areas (western Washington state), have the most leathal car accidents. In the city and on highways, it’s usually just fender benders. In the country, it’s kids piled into the back of pickups on logging roads, or blowing through intersections with little or no traffic with tragic results. It’s the speed that’s the determining factor.
Roger Moore
I’d guess that suburban and rural people are a lot more likely to own accident prone power tools like chainsaws, too. And the further apart people live, the slower emergency medical response is likely to be, so the more likely they are to die of an accident when they get into one.
Doug Milhous J
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree with you.
Michele C.
The thing I find the most “unexpected” is that this is presented as an “unexpected” finding on safety. It just goes to show me, yet again, that people believe lots of things that are not true or for which they have no evidence, well, just ’cause, ya know.
Shakezula
Bu- but Urban Thugs!!
Not really surprising. I imagine rescue notification and response times also play a role in where you’re more likely to survive a serious accident.
Cain
Yeah man, have you seen those folks from Hazaard county? Holy Smokes!
Redshirt
I have lived in Manhattan and other cities, and now live in as rural an area as you can get in the lower 48. Here’s one reason you’re probably less safe in rural areas – if you need an ambulance, you’ll be waiting for 30-60 minutes, minimum.
Also, chainsaws. Dang, they’re dangerous!
Also too: Old people. Rural areas skew much older than cities.
Doug Milhous J
@Redshirt:
Olds might be less accident-prone, though (the study was for injury-related deaths).
The Tragically Flip
Isn’t this an extension of the long held liberal claims that the societal reactions to terrorism and crime have been far overblown relative to the actual empirical threat and that mundane, easily preventable causes of death are still the greatest threat for most people?
Michele C.
@Doug Milhous J: I used to work in a retirement community and there were lots of accidents like falls that could have been much worse if they weren’t seen by qualified medical people right away, but other than that anecdotal evidence, I dunno.
Also, on my original reply, it was before anyone else posted about preferences. Since Doug Milhous J said this wasn’t about telling people where to live, I hope no one thought I was dissing any particular place.
Violet
Don be silly. Rural areas and small towns are where Real Americans live. That makes them,by definition, safer.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Another major factor is how close you are to a major trauma center. Rural areas simply do not have the level of emergency medical care that can be found in major American cities, according to Dr. Howard Mell, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians:
Origuy
Read the comments to the Newsworks article. The first one is UN!! Agenda 21!!; the reply is pretty good snark.
Keith G
@Keith Indeed, the various muggings, assaults, auto accidents and bar fights here in the Houston area seem omnipresent, but that is a function of 5.5 million folks bumping into each other, literally.
One forgets that year in and year out agricultural work, fishing , and timber work are among the most dangerous – So are petroleum production and truck driving. All are rural activities (trucking excepted).
Villago Delenda Est
Of course the cities are dangerous! There are blahs in the cities!
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
I don’t know whether they looked into crime or not, but it wouldn’t floor me to learn that, for all the scaaaaaary-ass Negroes in the big cities, the country is worse on that score as well. Lots of drunk, ignorant white assholes with guns all over the house look to me like all the ingredients you need for a hearty slaughter stew.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Tragically Flip:
Mundane, easily preventable causes of death don’t make for good footage on the local 6 o’clock news.
Villago Delenda Est
@Michele C.:
Invisible sky buddies.
mclaren
Highly misleading. Drunk driving is the primary issue in car deaths in rural areas. If you don’t drink and stay off rural roads after about seven P.M. at night, you’re safe.
On the other hand, if you live in, say, the south side of Chicago, those 500 murders per year will bite you in the ass in a very personal way. Not so much if you live in a nice part of the city.
So it really depends where you live in a big city (south central HelL.A.? Kiss your ass goodbye. Brentwood? Totally different story) and how you drive in rural areas.
Comparing bulk statistics like this wipes out so many of the details of the actual reality that it’s a cartoonish caricature.
Keith G
After scanning the PDF, I want to object to wording used by both Doug and the authors of the study.
The study was about deaths from injury and not a study of over all danger or “scariness”. And not about overall harm caused by accidents or intentional acts of violence. So freeking jesus of course I am safer living 5 minutes from the Texas Medical Center in Houston than I am in Cuero or Kingsville. Christ, they needed a study for that?????
Edit: @mclaren: It’s actually highly misleading for the above reason as well.
RSA
Anyone remember this story? In Europe during the Middle Ages (and elsewhere, continuing until the 1900s), the murder rate was higher in rural areas than in towns and cities–in medieval England it was ten times the murder rate of 20th century England. If I remember correctly, this was due to a number of factors: people carrying staffs and knives with them everywhere they went, the distance from authority, and strangers being viewed as fair game compared with acquaintances.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G:
Astonishingly, yes.
Because perceptions (heavily influenced by the bewb tewb’s predilection for coverage of crime and violence) are shaped in ways that are totally opposed to any semblance of reality.
To provide my standard example: Seoul, 1987. Student protests covered heavily by US news networks get my parents all totally concerned that I, a soldier stationed in Seoul, am in deadly danger. Reality: one block away from the student/police confrontation, life is perfectly normal. The students AND the police do not rumble until the TV cameras show up. Then they rumble for the benefit of the TV news dweebs.
Then there’s the massive demonstration surrounding the toppling of that statue in Baghdad of Saddam which, when you pull back from the little knot of celebrants, shows a huge square that is empty. Yet what’s shown on TV looks like a massive celebration. Not so massive in reality.
The camera lies. All the fucking time.
PeakVT
it’s silly to think that cities are scary dangerous places
It is, but a lot of it has to do with the perception of control. Driving may be inherently unsafe, but everybody thinks they are a good driver and won’t get in an accident because they are in control. Random murder of complete strangers (no prior personal relationship, no criminal factors) is rare, but people are scared because they feel they aren’t in control. Plus, in general cities are full of strangers, which scares lots of people.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
No, the camera tells the truth. It’s the person holding it who’s doing the lying.
Keith G
@Villago Delenda Est: The thing is, the generalized breakdown of rural/urban are likely not to be the specific detail that matters.
As mentioned above, it may be more about proximity to Level 1 trauma care, proximity to EMS transport (including helicopter evac) training of fist responders, cell phone coverage, to name a few off hand.
Remeber the quote
”
But then they do not study risk of overall injury, they study survival rate of those who are injured.
From the PDF
It just seems sloppy, and therefore misleading thats all.
My emp, above.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G:
They’re less sloppy than any local news broadcast.
Keith G
@Villago Delenda Est: And that’s not a good measurement for an academic paper.
Higgs Boson's Mate
For the longest time I moved around whenever I felt like it. Don’t have a home state, or a home town because I was a Navy brat. Consequently, I have lived and worked in everything from big cities to miles from my nearest neighbor and an hour’s drive to “town.” I prefer small towns. Suburbs? Malvina Reynolds said it for me years ago with “Little Boxes.”
gnomedad
At the article, reply to troll FTW:
different-church-lady
Oh come on now, this is an easy layup. The way people process “scary” is someone is going to mug me — not, I could drive my car into a tree and nobody will find me and there’s no hospitals nearby. Scary is other people.
The Tragically Flip
@mclaren:
So you’re “safe” as long as you self-curfew? Well, great.
schrodinger's cat
@different-church-lady: Actually , what is scary is what you imagine. To me walking alone to my car in a deserted parking lot or driving on a winding and hilly road off the highway in winter is pretty scary too. To me, no people around == scary.
Woodrowfan
I once had an acquaintance (from rural Idaho) ask me if it was safe to drive down the interstate through DC, or did it “go through the ghetto?” I told him that. yes, it was safe. Sheesh.
Seanly
but, but, but Commissioner Kelly told me that we have still have to police our urban hellhole streets like the dystopian city in Predator 2 from 1990. All the dusky hordes with their blow, submachine guns & vaguely hispanic accents are out to get us! And that’s not even mentioning the aliens hunting us in the gritty city heat…
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G:
Perhaps not, but the larger cultural context is what is the serious problem here. Academic papers are, frankly, for liberal eggheads.
OK, snark aside, you have a point…but when shit gets into the popular culture, all the fucking facts and peer review in the world mean nothing. Just look at climate change.
Mnemosyne
@Woodrowfan:
What, like a guy is going to be able to mug you through your car window at 70 miles per hour? Sheesh.
Diana
@schrodinger’s cat: Amen
Paul in KY
Can’t nobody hear you out in the woods, hee, hee, hee!! (said in Deliverance style voice, while honing my cleaver).
Paul in KY
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): They only have ‘trauma surgeons’ in them big cities due to all of them machine gunning each other all the dang time.
Young bucks buying machine guns with their food stamps, harumph.
Paul in KY
@RSA: I think Game of Thrones sorta encapsulates the mindset of those bygone eras.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Sometimes there can be traffic jams & then the dark hordes will emanate from their subterranian lairs like Morgoth’s orcs did at the Dagor Bragalloch & since you will have no Hurin or Turgon to save your white womanhood, thou shalt be smited or carried off to Thang Goro’s 24 Hour Liquor where you’ll slave in the stocking department forever. Buwahahahaha!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Have an interesting situation here in my hometown. The hometown is wealthy. Very wealthy, and a lot of old folks with a lot of money keep moving here because it’s pretty, the weather’s always nice, etc. Median age in the city at this point is about 50, which has a whole slew of associated problems, but I digress. We also have a hospital, a satellite of the big, very good hospital about 15 miles away. That makes them feel safe.
It shouldn’t. The hospital we have is one of the worst in all of the state. And it takes a hell of a lot of digging to find that out (living here for forty years helps with that sort of thing) because they ride on the stats of their parent hospital – which is one of the best in the state.
Sometimes the things you associate with high survivability need to be tested to be trusted.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Woodrowfan: Hope you read this, you will laugh. I’m a Californian, and my first time driving through DC people kept slowing down and waving me onto the freeway. THIS IS NOT DONE where I come from, and I simply assumed that this was one of those insurance scams where people distract you and you rear-end someone.
Turns out not everyone subscribes to the “kill or be killed” ethos of driving I was raised on.
Paul in KY
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Good point (for a change).
Interrobang
Having had people I know killed or injured in some absolutely grisly farming accidents, and knowing that farming is right up there with fishing and mining (neither of which are particularly “city” pursuits, either) in terms of occupational injury and death, I have never really thought of rural areas as safer than urban areas.
Then again, I’m also not particularly under the delusion that I live in a scary, high-crime city where someone is just lurking around, waiting to rob, rape, and/or kill me. Thank you, mass media, but no thank you.
mclaren
@Keith G:
Excellent point. Bear in mind that “proximity to a major trauma center” applies just as well to “slipping in the shower and falling and getting a concussion” as to “getting injured in a car wreck.”
FYI, the mortality stats in America are:
Heart disease: 597,689
Cancer: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
Numbers 1, 2, and 3, if you read between the lines, are hugely impacted by smoking. Whether a person smokes isn’t greatly affected by whether they live in a rural or urban area, AFAICT.
Number 5, accidents, includes auto fatalities, but also falls in the shower. Can anyone explain how your chances of slipping and falling in the shower change depending on whether you live in a rural or urban area?
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
FTFY. If you’re going to make Silmarillion references, get them straight.
Rafer Janders
@different-church-lady:
Funnily enough, I am far more scared of the car/tree scenario than I am of the mugging. But then again, I’ve lived in both a small town in the country where I drove a lot, and in large cities, so I’m actually able to assess how screwed I am if I ever get into an accident in the remote countryside versus getting into an accident in my current city with a hospital two blocks away.
satby
Honestly, this has been obvious to me since I moved to rural Michigansippi from Chicago. But when people define “safe” as “not living near people that don’t look like them”, then yeah, cities are scary places.
There’s been 40 years of propaganda to divide and conquer average folks.
satby
Oh and mclaren, I’m from the Southside of Chicago; and my sons still live there. The shooting homicides have been terrible, but they are largely confined to areas of the city heavy with gang activity. Large swathes of the city are not affected at all (which probably contributes to the continuance of the problem). And the easy availability of guns is a factor. Fix the gang and guns problem and the murder rate goes down.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Didn’t they emanate at the Dagor Bragalloch too? After Morgoth had released his rivers of fire?