Housing affordability directly impacts health outcomes
Sketch of early settler cabin on Lake Apopka, Florida found during a Spectacular Sunday Ride (TM) with Dr. Scot French. At the time it was built, this was country living.
It's my pleasure to scan these things for nuggets when I can. Here's a study which recently compared the housing cost burden of rural and urban dwellers, and found comparatively more cost burden in the cities, translating to more health issues. However, rural health issues aren't tracked as well, access to health care fades after the highway exit. So the policy study seems to support conventional wisdom, which is housing is cheaper in the country.
But not by much, and you don't get as much for your money as you used to. Housing affordability seems tied to the real future of whether we remain polarized as urban sophisticate/country reject, or is there an opportunity to re-cast this dialog.
The hippies, in a way, were the last generation able to use the country as a retreat to aspire to more, and share bounty - hence, communes. After the 60s were over, the country became less and less interested in keeping stride with the city and larger forces exploited the lifestyle and culture schism between the two.
Anyway, it seems like a whole industry has consolidated. This industry is busy demonizing rural living, yet it's cheaper - marginally. What's frustrating to those who enjoy rural living, if you listen to backyard barbecues and lunch conversations, is the loss of habitat. the illusion of choice is now: work for amazon or walmart - but, one's cost of living outpaces wages. There's more competition for seemingly less. Encroachment by developers into once-rural lands is a threat to a traditional lifestyle.
In the meantime, western Europe seems to have managed the balance, worshipping rural living. Towns in France are especially gorgeous, valued and visited by people worldwide. What is it about this kind of society that values the totality of country and city? It is a society that has produced much incredible architecture, that's for sure. And what's more, it has produced healthy outcomes.
The cost of living difference would seem to tip housing choices more towards the country, and less towards the city, but growth continues to shroud urban centers in more and more parking lots, strip centers, and subdivisions. So something's not working in the country, and it may be up to country folk to fix it.
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