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The suburbs are good for your social life
A new study says that people who live in sprawling suburban areas have more friends, better community involvement and more frequent contact with their neighbours than urbanites who are wedged in side-by-side. The results challenge the accepted idea that suburban life is socially alienating a notion that's inspired everything from the Academy Award-winning American Beauty to Harvard professor Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone.
The study, released by the University of California at Irvine, found that for every 10 per cent decrease in population density, the chances of people talking to their neighbours weekly increases by 10 per cent, and the likelihood they belong to hobby-based clubs jumps by 15 per cent.
"We found that interaction goes down as population density goes up. So, turning it around, it says that interaction is higher where densities are lower," says Jan Brueckner, an economics professor at UC Irvine who led the study. "What that means is suburban living promotes more interaction than living in the central city."
Here is the story. Here is Brueckner's home page, here is the paper on-line.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 14, 2006 at 07:37 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Well, doesn't that strike against the common wisdom of the day? One thing the results don't invalidate, though, are other externalities associated with suburbanization - like traffic externalities as well as the loss of green space - but that one result itself goes a long way.
Posted by: Jason Voorhees at Nov 14, 2006 8:35:46 AM
only a single data point, but in my experience few things could be less true.
Posted by: theCoach at Nov 14, 2006 8:39:36 AM
anecdotally I have the same experience as coach. in the suburbs I have lived in people often don't even know their next door neighbor or the family across the street.
Posted by: kyle at Nov 14, 2006 8:56:41 AM
The reason that people join "hobby-based clubs" is because there are few other mechanisms for social interaction in the suburbs (churches/synagogues/mosques are just the hobby of religion from this perspective). They get together on a weekly or monthly basis to discuss a shared interest, which produces a largely superficial social interaction. That makes it, in my opinion, an inferior substitute good to daily social interaction with those around you.
Posted by: Thurston at Nov 14, 2006 8:56:49 AM
The data doesn't support the conclusions. The data is simply: suburbanites talk to their neighbours and go to activity clubs more than urbanites. This does not support the conclusion "people who live in sprawling suburban areas have more friends, better community involvement" or "The results challenge the accepted idea that suburban life is socially alienating".
Posted by: Noel Welsh at Nov 14, 2006 9:08:35 AM
I think the mechanism behind this is that if you have some 1000 people in a quarter mile radius it is less likely that you will be interested in talking to the people immediatly ajacent to you. I definately have more social contact living in the city than I would in the suburbs even though I don't talk to my immediate neighbors. In a situation where people have more options it should be unsurprising that they are less likely to choose any given option.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Nov 14, 2006 9:11:47 AM
To echo the previous comments, this paper's measure of interaction is awful. If one lived in rural Montana I imagine I would talk to my neighbors all the time as there wouldn't be anyone else around. In a city one can choose among a much wider pool of people to talk to. I suppose I should read the paper, I hope they address this obvious criticism.
Posted by: Tim at Nov 14, 2006 9:50:22 AM
Sorry, I grew up in a city. I would shoot myself if I had to live in the burbs. Having a monthly club meeting does do it for me. Going to the local street cafe, which you cannot find in the burbs, takes me out of this world. Density is where its at.
Posted by: RWP at Nov 14, 2006 10:31:06 AM
Maybe it has something to do with homogeneity in suburban populations - if you're "like" everyone you live around (e.g. white, middle-class, with young kids) then aren't you more likely to get along? Contrast this with the city, where the population is more likely to be heterogeneous from a socio-economic, racial, religious, age, etc. point of view. Just my 2 cents (btw, I live in the city and wouldn't trade it for anything)
Posted by: Rob at Nov 14, 2006 10:40:28 AM
Does this paper control for economic status? I can't imagine either rural or urban poor would spend much time on "hobby-based clubs".
- Josh
Posted by: Wild Pegasus at Nov 14, 2006 10:43:48 AM
I agree with Thurston. Joining a hobby-based club is similar to signing up for 300 meals a year at PF Chang’s – one makes an extension of her house kitchen to the backdoor of the restaurant. In suburbs, by choice or by necessity, people tend to form smaller networks with stronger ties, whereas in cities, bigger networks, weaker ties. It is hard to put a value judgment on it. If someone loves having 300 meals a year at PF Chang’s, good for her, but she won’t be my friend.
Posted by: Yan Li at Nov 14, 2006 11:00:23 AM
My experience is that much of the interation with next door neighbours takes place when you are working outside mowing lawns, shoveling snow, etc. The lower the density, the bigger the yards, the more time doing yard work, the more interaction with next door neighbours. Could the explanation for the regression results be this simple?
Posted by: joan at Nov 14, 2006 11:08:43 AM
rob: "Maybe it has something to do with homogeneity in suburban populations - if you're "like" everyone you live around (e.g. white, middle-class, with young kids) then aren't you more likely to get along?"
Have you ever lived in a middle class suburb? I've lived in five suburbs in three states over the past 30 years. My current one is typical. My wife and I have hosted two huge subdivision parties and 5 or 6 block parties since 1999. Our closest neighbors drink wine together when we hand out Halloween candy from one driveway or another. My wife has close interaction with 7 other women in the neighborhood. I play golf with a couple of guys.
Our neighborhood is anything but homogenous. Our circle of friends includes European-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Indian guest workers, and Asian mmigrants. Our token gay guy did move away, but only after serving three years as president of the Homeowner's Association.
I've had similar experiences throughout my 30 years of suburban life. Suburbs were less diverse years ago, but no more.
Interacting with neighbors really has nothing to do with density. IMO, it's dependent on personal attitude and perception of safety.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Nov 14, 2006 11:18:50 AM
Isn't it interesting that this paper comes from a university located in a planned, suburban community and not from, say, UC Berkeley, Columbia U or U Chicago? Why -- because research is often about justifying an intuition that turns out to be *either* biased or true. Trouble is that the researcher often cannot tell one from the other...
Posted by: David Zetland at Nov 14, 2006 12:06:15 PM
Isn't it interesting that this paper comes from a university located in a planned, suburban community and not from, say, UC Berkeley, Columbia U or U Chicago? Why -- because research is often about justifying an intuition that turns out to be *either* biased or true. Trouble is that the researcher often cannot tell one from the other...
Posted by: David Zetland at Nov 14, 2006 12:07:34 PM
John Dewey. That is wonderful but generally suburbs are less diverse than cities. There is no getting around that.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Nov 14, 2006 12:08:57 PM
He does not cite one of the major works in this field,
To Dwell among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City, which is (at best) partly
supportive of his findings. Fischer found roughly equal number of friends no matter where
one lives (not more in the suburbs or city), but he found other differences. It's a good read,
somewhat ahead of its time.
Posted by: Red Crayon at Nov 14, 2006 12:46:33 PM
Just like to point out that in many western cities, the distinction between urban and suburban is not so clear cut. What you often see is suburban style neighborhoods spread out over many square miles, right up to what used to be the city center - which isn't the center anymore.
Posted by: Randy at Nov 14, 2006 12:50:49 PM
Desperate Housewives versus Sex in the City.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 14, 2006 1:02:34 PM
That is wonderful but generally suburbs are less diverse than cities. There is no getting around that.
Well, DC has a greater difference between rich and poor than the suburbs surrounding it. (Both richer and poorer.)
However, suburban Fairfax County is more diverse than D.C.:
Fairfax County:
"The racial makeup of the county was 69.91% White, 8.57% Black or African American, 0.26% Native American, 13.00% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 4.54% from other races, and 3.65% from two or more races. 11.03% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race"
Washington, D.C.:
White 35.34%, Black 61.96%, American Indian 0.86%, Asian 3.17%, Pacific Islander 0.14%, with Hispanics of any race being about 9%.
Suburban Fairfax County is clearly more diverse. It has many more Asians and Latinos of all varieties, and "looks like America" far more than D.C., which has an overrpresentation of blacks far more than Fairfax's slight overrepresenation of whites.
Posted by: John Thacker at Nov 14, 2006 1:23:36 PM
"Suburban Fairfax County is clearly more diverse"
Is that a scientific calculaton? Seems to me ethnic diversity is not the question. Isn't Fairfax county the richest county in the country?
What a crock. I think this would prove the point of why living in the burbs is a 'happier' place. Don't have to see all those poor folk.
Posted by: RWP at Nov 14, 2006 1:43:11 PM
Is that a scientific calculaton? Seems to me ethnic diversity is not the question. Isn't Fairfax county the richest county in the country?
Well, what type of diversity are you referring to? As I said, Washington, D.C., and indeed cities in general, do have a much greater gap between the richer and poorer. I thought that the gap between rich and poor was a bad thing, unlike racial diversity which is considered a good thing. Should Fairfax County attempt to make some people richer and others poorer in order to increase diversity? By that sort of calculation, cities, states, and countries with little income inequality are less "diverse."
Yes, Fairfax County has the second highest median HOUSEHOLD income of any county in the country with over a certain number of residents. (2000 Census; Loudon County also passed it in the 2005 estimates.) It's somewhat farther down (10th-15th) by income per individual. Being a suburb, a larger percentage of households are married couples. It's sort of an odd calculation to claim that a county got richer simply because two people married, replacing, say, two $50,000/year households with one $100,000/year household. The more urban, citified areas like Arlington and Alexandria end up coming ahead of suburban Fairfax County when you go by per capita income, because they have lots of wealthy young professionals who like city life. Alexandria, incidentally, is also racially less diverse than Fairfax County, largely because housing is more expensive there (even while appealing more to singles.)
There are all sorts of ways to define diversity. D.C. has a much larger gap between the rich and poor. The suburbs tend to have fewer singles, but at the same time some cities like San Francisco are nearly devoid of families with children (outside of the very wealthy and in some cities the very poor.)
Posted by: John Thacker at Nov 14, 2006 1:55:43 PM
Don't have to see all those poor folk.
Don't see all those rich folks, either. They tend to live in the city, too.
Cities tend to be wonderful places if you're rich. They tend to be horrible places if you're poor, and have lots of laws and zoning that keep people poor. The poor immigrants to the DC area have all recently been locating in the suburbs, where they quickly climb up to the middle class. The poor in DC, OTOH, stay poor.
Posted by: John Thacker at Nov 14, 2006 1:58:01 PM
My experience is the same as John Dewey's, except a little less diversity. Most suburbs have larger families whose kids bring you together. Parents meet each other a few times a week at football, baseball, and soccer games. Add in boy and girl scouts. There is a LOT of interaction, while in cities a lot of walls go up to protect privacy (and sanity). We do spend more time together because it's easier to get away from each other.
Posted by: Tom at Nov 14, 2006 2:26:35 PM
Cause and effect issue.
Married people with chidlren are more likely to live in the suburbs, and most types of community activities are oranized around childen and married couples.
Posted by: Half Sigma at Nov 14, 2006 2:32:20 PM
It's amazing the hostility that comes out when you talk about the burbs.
Posted by: bob montgomery at Nov 14, 2006 3:38:34 PM
Many urban areas have so many negative qualities that a lot of families prefer to raise their children in an environment with a safer and more social atmosphere. One example is they don’t have to deal with every block you walk, a person coming up smelly like MD 20/20 asking for some money to feed his family. When you don’t have to deal with these types of situations it makes the residents happier and more willing to socialize among their community.
Posted by: wbg at Nov 14, 2006 3:51:32 PM
Michael Foody: "John Dewey. That is wonderful but generally suburbs are less diverse than cities. There is no getting around that."
Perhaps the level of diversity depends on whether one considers the entire city or just a neighborhood within a city. I live outside of Dallas, TX. Dallas itself has large sections that are clearly not diverse: African American sections; Mexican-American sections; Vietnamese-American sections; gay sections; and blue-blood sections. One can say that the entire city is diverse, or one could claim that neighborhoods along the edges of the ethnic sections are diverse. But overall, at least half the neighborhoods are clearly segregated.
Contrast that with my immediate neighborhood in Flower Mound. Asians, Indians, blacks, West Indies immigrants, Hispanics, mixed race families, and, until recently, gays, all lived within 500 feet of my front door. Another North Texas suburb I lived in had a similar makeup. So did my suburban Houston neighborhood. My Memphis suburb and Sacramento suburb, on the other hand, were a little less diverse, but hardly segregated.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Nov 14, 2006 5:08:43 PM
In response to David Zetland's comment;
Jan Brueckner has only been affiliated with Irvine a short time, while spending the bulk of his career at Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champange. I don't think he has the bias of someone who has been brain-washed by planned suburban communities.
Posted by: Jamaal at Nov 14, 2006 5:08:51 PM
I think the hostility that suburban threads bring out is related to resentment of the avoidance of crime. Instead of dealing with the crime explosion of the late 60s/70s, people who could just moved away.
Also, the Eisenhower era highway development should bother enemies of freeridership, shouldn't it?
Posted by: Delirious at Nov 14, 2006 10:35:38 PM
Doesnt this sort of boil down to the basic law of supply and demand? Supply goes down demand goes up. Amount of people in the community go down the more demand for interaction and social exception goes up. Makes perfect sense when using the law of supply and demand.
Posted by: Heather at Nov 14, 2006 10:36:46 PM
I'd like to second the comment about yard work,ect. Since moving downtown from the suburbs I do not run into my neighbors during the day as often as I did in the suburbs and there are definately pros and cons to the layouts of urban and suburban living.
Say you want to spend time outside... In the 'burbs you hang out in your yard and end up mingling with your immediate neighbors and other people in the neighborhood passing by. You see these people frequently (and as a result have a strong incentive to get along). In the 'urbs you head over the nearest park. Are we more likely to form meaninful relationships with the strangers we come in contact with at a park? When we know that we aren't going to cross paths that often? We certainly cross paths with more people in the 'urbs, so the potential to meet more people is there, but does that translate to practice?
Ignoring your neighbors in the 'burbs comes off as rude. But ignoring a fellow resident in a large condo or apartment complex is par for the course.
Posted by: Kyle at Nov 15, 2006 4:56:45 AM
Delirious: "Instead of dealing with the crime explosion of the late 60s/70s, people who could just moved away."
I think there's some truth to that idea. But don't be too quick to blame the new suburbanites for not dealing with crime. They were paying high taxes in the cities, yet receiving little protection. Court rulings in the 60's and 70's made it much more difficult for police to remove criminals from the street.
IMO, crime wasn't the main reason for white flight to the suburbs in the 70's. Forced busing to achieve integrated schools truly frightened parents. Integration wasn't the problem. Most parents weren't concerned about a few African Americans ni their child's school. But they absolutely revolted when judges ordered their 10 year olds to be bussed clear across town to schools in low income neighborhoods.
Once the Supreme Court ruled that children should not be bussed across school district lines, urban school districts were doomed. By moving just a few miles, frightened parents could remove the bussing threat for good.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Nov 15, 2006 10:10:23 AM
Maybe this it obvious, but I think that there are a host of reasons for the 'suburban flight' phenomenon. Whether it's crime rates in the city, or desire for more space for less money, better school districts, less pollution, most people are probably making that decision based on their perceptions of city/suburban life and the cost/benefit between the two. Personally I'm a city guy, but I'm still relatively young and I don't have children. I like the anonymity that the city affords, and when I want to get together with friends, I call them up. I don't know whether the study mentions what the criteria for friendship is, but that may be a factor. Being friends with one's suburban neighbors may be the result of a homeowner's thing, a having children who play together thing, or a I-have-a-chat-when-I-see-you-bringing-the-garbage-to-the-curb thing, or a host of other reasons.
It may be true that suburbanites have more friends than thier urban conterparts, but whether that makes your life better does not necessarily follow. I think to a large extent it boils down to preference and lifestyle choice, not how many people you know.
Posted by: JC at Nov 15, 2006 11:15:27 AM
I agree with the homogeneity argument. I live in the middle of a major city right now that's also usually pretty high on the "most dangerous cities" list. I meet people through school, work and "clubs," as Toqueville would put it. Talking to your neighbor around here isn't exactly a wise course of action.
Posted by: Matthew at Nov 15, 2006 3:47:01 PM
I believe that living in the suburbs gives you more opportunities to do more stuff, then in other places such as the rural areas. More people seem to be more attracted to the suburbs because there is more employment opportunities because it is a continuosly growing area. Growing up in the rural areas it seemed as if there were not as much opportunities. There wasnt a YMCA to go to, or a mall less than 2 hrs away. And the jobs are very limited there. I really like the suburbs and would like to start a family there. There is such a big opportunity for kids also.
Posted by: Kendra at Nov 15, 2006 4:02:58 PM
The results of this study could be no further from the truth. To assume from one study that people in lower population densities have higher social interactions is absurd. Most people move from urban environments to get away from people and avoid the forced social interactions of urban living. Especially in todays fear riddled environment. People today are now scared of their suburban neighbors. With media covering so many terrible stories of the queit neighbor who went crazy or the child abducted from the backyard, America is turning agoraphobic. They are coming to the suburbs not because it is safe, but because it is safer. You can smell the fear in suburban America today.
One of my last residences was in southern villages in Chapel Hill, NC. A nice community based on the old style American suburban living where there steet lights and side walks everywhere. A local movie theater, grocery store, elementary school, church and restaurants. I have never lived in a place so socially isolated from my neighbors. The suburbanites seemed to actually go out of there way to avoid you. My only social inteactions were anonymous complaints from neighbors left on my door step about noise and parking. And the letter from the "beautification committee" informing that I must replace my mailbox, which they would gladly do for a fee, or if done myself I had to purchase a certain brand and model which was exclusively sold from one supplier in Raleigh. If that doesnt sound neighborly what does.
In summation dont go to the suburbs expecting friendly neighbors. The Norman Rockwell way of life is gone and past. In a society where no one trusts anyone, social interaction is declining everywhere. Or move to the neigborhood where the study was done because it sounds like an exception to me.
Posted by: scott korfmann at Nov 15, 2006 5:48:59 PM
I grew up in Charlotte, NC. I lived in south Charlotte, not the middle of the city and I did not know a lot of people that lived around me. On the other hand, I lived in Westchester, NY when I was little and my family and I knew almost everyone in our neighborhood. Everyone has heard all their lives that if you grow up in a small little town everyone waves to eachother and everyone knows everyone elses business. I have not experienced small town living myself but can see where these statements would come from.
Posted by: Christine at Nov 15, 2006 5:54:29 PM
I would have to say i grew up in the suburbs and i absultly loved it, all the families on my street were really close and we could always count on one another for anything. THe parents and the kids were all really good friends. I dont know what it is like growing up in the city, my mom grew up in atlanta and lived right downtown and then they moved to the surburbs of atlanta and then she grew to love it. She said the people in the surburs are more friendly nad more outgoing. i think i want to raise my family in the surburbs so that they can experience what i got to experience growing up.
Posted by: AIngle at Nov 15, 2006 6:05:43 PM
Whether burbs are friendly are not totally depends on the burb, its history, demographics, transient rate, and a few other things like "style." The "style" of the neighborhood I recently moved out of was that of coldness. No one talked to each other. People avoided eye contact. This being my first house, it made me furious. Nearly everyone I talked to in the region (northern Dallas suburbs) felt the same.
I made a film called Subdivided about living in that area and in the course of it got to talk to Robert Putnam, who describes the decline of community over the last 30 years in his book Bowling Alone.
This UCI study is a very thin look at the issue, a slice. It doesn't mean that there aren't cold neighborhoods with little social capital everywhere. It doesn't mean that the way subdivisions and towns are designed around the automobile and longer and longer travel times is suddenly a smart strategy. And this one study does not suddenly make suburbia a good idea.
Posted by: Dean Terry at Nov 16, 2006 2:40:42 AM
Dean Terry: "The "style" of the neighborhood I recently moved out of was that of coldness. ... Nearly everyone I talked to in the region (northern Dallas suburbs) felt the same."
Dean, I've lived in two north Dallas suburbs the past ten years - in Carrollton and in Flower Mound - and had exactly the opposite experience. Please read my description of my Flower Mound neighborhood above - about the 13th or 14th from the top.
Certainly some of my neighbors have appeared to be unsocial. But most that started off that way opened up with a little encouragement. My wife is a master at getting quiet people to start talking. I'm not too bad at it myself.
IMO, there are just not that many truly cold people in America. There are millions of shy people, though.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Nov 16, 2006 7:53:00 AM
It is worth noting that Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone found the very same thing. All of this data sets that compared suburbs with cities and lower density areas with higher density ares showed that suburbs and lower densities had a stronger sense of community, as Putnam measured it, than cities and higher density areas.
Putnam totally ignored these results in reaching the conclusion that suburbs are responsible for a decline in community. He even somehow "calculated" that suburbs are responsible for "perhaps 10 percent" of this decline.
I don't really believe that Putnam was ever able to measure a sense of community, which is intangible at best. But his willingness to ignore his own facts made his conclusions especially distasteful.
Posted by: Randal O'Toole at Nov 16, 2006 7:08:41 PM
This study jibes with my experience as well. My theory: When you live so close to people you learn to "not see" them. That way each of you can go about your daily routine without having to worry about how you look, etc etc. When you live farther apart having the social connection is more important because if something goes wrong there is not someone "right there". I lived in Arlington VA for 15 years and rarely socialized with my neighbors. I have lived in more rural Oakton VA for 9 years and know all my neighbors and I am actively involved in various things with them.
Posted by: Murphy at Nov 17, 2006 11:41:38 AM
