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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
