Robert David Sullivan

Stop blaming the victims for loneliness "epidemic"

The theme has become something of a joke after the publicity given to the Atlantic's "Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?" article, but yesterday NPR offered another suspect for the death of civility. It asked, with a possibly winking headline, "As Headphones Invade The Office, Are We Lonelier?"

Headphones or earbuds are becoming common in the workplace. Not just for listening to music on a break, they allow people to tune out their co-workers all day long. But in many cases, those same co-workers are still communicating — online. ...

"We're getting used to a new way of being alone together," says Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She's concerned that all these snippets of information, texts and posts are connections, not conversations. She says technology is letting us hide from one another.

The horrified fascination with loneliness — when will Washington declare war on it? — goes back to the 2000 book Bowling Alone and has intensified with the greater use of smartphones, hook-up sites, iPads, Twitter, etc.

I'm not convinced that loneliness is on the rise. I suspect that it's always been pervasive in free societies (as opposed to places with arranged marriages and the like) and that we're just disappointed that we haven't figured out a way to eliminate it.

Oregon is more urban than Pennsylvania, Maine more "small town" than Mississippi

Here's a reminder to political journalists, based on today's Census Bureau release of the urban vs. rural population in the US:

Of the nation's four census regions, the West continued to be the most urban, with 89.8 percent of its population residing within urban areas, followed by the Northeast, at 85.0 percent. The Midwest and South continue to have lower percentages of urban population than the nation as a whole, with rates of 75.9 and 75.8, respectively.

Do not be confused by a state's overall population density, which implies that Nevada is a rural state even though almost everyone there lives in or near Las Vegas and almost no one lives in the desert. And don't write about Ohio and Michigan as big, urbanized states when their rural vote is actually far more significant than in states like Florida, Arizona, and Texas.

After the jump, the entire list of 50 states and how urbanized they are. Another counterintuitive fact: Maine and Vermont, in the Northeast rather than the South or Midwest, have the highest share of residents living in small towns.

Little Footprint, USA: states where it's not unusual for your ceiling to be someone else's floor

Lately I've been acutely aware of living in an apartment building, thanks to the noise (some of it, alas, my own) and a number of fire alarms going off in the middle of the night. But I still prefer communal living to having to worry about gophers in the driveway and snow on the roof. And most of my friends live in multi-family dwellings -- apartments, condos, and two-to-three-family starter homes that allow you to collect rent to go toward paying the mortgage. 

A little more than one-third of all residents in Massachusetts live in multi-unit housing, second only to New York (see all the states' data after the jump). But what's common here is pretty weird in the rest of the US. Only 20% of all Americans live in multi-unit housing, and the number is as low as 8% in West Virginia. And my guess is, when that number is lower than the poverty rate (which is 18% of the entire population in West Virginia, compared with 15% nationally and 11% in Massachusetts), pretty much everyone with shared roofs are poor. Which must make the idea of voluntarily living above or below other people seem even weirder.

Apartment dwellers are commonplace in TV sitcoms, but American politics has a bias toward homeowners (think of the tax deduction for mortgages). The map above shows an extremely theoretical Electoral College majority of states with the highest shares of people living in multi-unit housing. What's interesting is that Florida and Texas are more urban, by this measure, than the older industrial states of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Jacob rules boy's names in US, but Wyatt is king in Montana

The top baby names of 2010 for each state were released by the Social Security Administration today. Check it out to cluck disapprovingly of your neighbors.

To get a sense of geographical variations, I made a list of the top boy's and girl's name in each state that was not in the national Top 10. In other words, these are the names that you'll hear screamed across the food court at the local mall but aren't so common in other states.

Nationally, the top boy's names are Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Jayden, William, Alexander, Noah, Daniel, Aiden, and Anthony. For girls, the top names are Isabella, Sophia, Emma, Olivia, Ava, Emily, Abigail, Madison, Chloie, and Mia.

BOY'S NAMES OUTLIERS (highest in state not in Top 10 nationally)

(rank within state in parentheses)

Several names are quite popular in states with a lot of white rural residents but don't show up very high in the national rankings. For example, Mason is the most popular boy's name in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, but it's 38th in California and 31st in New York, leaving it 12th nationally. The Irish-accented Ryan is still No. 1 in Massachusetts, but it's 23rd nationally.

I don't know why Brayden (40th nationally) is at No. 3 in Kentucky, but I wonder if there's a sports-related reason. It's comforting to see the ultimate Western name, Wyatt, in the top spot in Montana even though it's 57th nationally.

Boston packs in working-age people, San Francisco bends toward seniors

After crunching Census data to come up with a "diversity density" index, I ran the numbers on age groups to see find the greatest concentrations of children, seniors, and working-age residents. Boston fares pretty well on the last category.

Boston's Suffolk County, which ranks 7th in overall population density, finishes a strong 6th (overtaking Hudson County, New Jersey) if measured only by the number of residents between ages 18 and 65 per square mile. It ranks 8th in the density of both children and seniors.

Boston and San Francisco pack about the same number of children per square mile: 2,469 for Suffolk County and 2,547 for San Francisco. But the California city has considerably more seniors: 2,553 per square mile versus 1,341 per square mile in Suffolk County. Indeed, San Francisco is the largest county outside of Florida with more seniors than children. One reason may be the extremely high cost of housing there, combined with a state property-tax law (Proposition 13) that gives homeowners an incentive to stay in place rather than move to smaller quarters or more affordable communities.

The Hub also seems to have a stronger working-age population than Philadelphia does. Philadelphia County is pretty close to Suffolk County in both children per mile (2,679 vs. 2,469) and seniors (1,377 vs. 1,341). But Suffolk has a higher concentration of residents between 18 and 65 (8,710 per square mile vs. Philly's 6,659 per square mile). This suggests that Boston is better at attracting (and keeping) residents who are more likely to be in the workforce and less likely to need city services.

Boston, Malden, Lowell have high "diversity density"

In an earlier post, I listed the 20 US counties that rank highest in "diversity density," a measure that combines racial diversity with populaton density to get a sense of "the likelihood of running into people of several different races during a brisk walk across town." Only New York and San Francisco scored higher than Boston.

This time I'm looking at Massachusetts cities and towns, and my hometown — and current residence — of Malden ranks near the top. (Photo at right is of the central business district a couple of years ago.)

Again, I based the rankings on newly released Census data. I defined "diversity" as strong representation for at least three of the racial groups for which the Census Bureau collects data. So I calculated the percentage of the population who didn't claim membership in either of the racial groups that were the two largest in each particular city or town. Then I came up with the population density for that subpopulation.

*The Bay State as a whole is 76% non-Hispanic white and 10% Hispanic, leaving 14% in other groups: 6% black, 5% Asian, 2% two or more races, and less than 1% identifying as American Indian, Native Hawaiian, or "other." In Boston, 31% of the population does not belong to either of the two leading racial groups, which are non-Hispanic white and black.

20 COMMUNITIES WITH THE MOST PEOPLE PER SQUARE MILE WHO DON'T BELONG TO THE TWO LARGEST RACIAL GROUPS IN THAT COMMUNITY

(compared with rank in overall density)

Note: Winthrop, Melrose, Quincy, Belmont, and Salem are among the 20 most crowded cities and towns in the Bay State but did not make this diversity list. Counties that rank higher on diversity density than on overall population density are in bold.

1. Boston: 3,909 (4)
2. Cambridge: 3,763 (2)
3. Somerville: 3,751 (1)
4. Malden: 3,204 (6)
5. Everett: 3,106 (5)
6. Lowell: 2,094 (14)
7. Chelsea: 2,018 (3)
8. Lynn: 1,699 (11)
9. Brockton: 1,191 (27)
10. Springfield: 1,164 (22)
11. Revere: 1,159 (8)
12. Medford: 1,061 (15)
13. Brookline: 961 (10)
14. Worcester: 942 (20)
15. Watertown: 869 (13)
16. Waltham: 841 (21)
17. Randolph: 757 (32)
18. New Bedford: 724 (23)
19. Arlington: 673 (12)
20. Lawrence: 625 (7)

New York, San Francisco, Boston lead in "diversity density"

Boston is the most racially diverse place in America outside of New York and San Francisco. That is, if you measure diversity by the likelihood of running into people of several different races during a brisk walk across town. (Update: See this post for data about individual cities and towns in Massachusetts. Also: more on diversity density in a story I wrote for the Boston Globe.)

Below is the list of 20 counties with the highest "diversity density," which I based on newly released Census data. Since I wasn't looking for counties that are merely "non-white" or places in which just two racial groups are nearly even, I calculated the percentage of the population who didn't claim membership in either of the racial groups that were the two largest in that particular county. (The US as a whole is 64% non-Hispanic white and 16% Hispanic, leaving 20% in other groups: 12% black, 5% Asian, 2% two or more races, and less than 1% identifying as American Indian, Native Hawaiian, or "other.")

I added population density as a factor because I wanted to get a sense of real interaction among people of different races; without this factor, the list would have a lot of small, isolated places (chiefly in Alaska and Hawaii) and sprawling, highway-laced counties with large areas dominated by one or another racial group (chiefly in Texas). I admit to an urban bias here, but I'm open to any research showing that suburbia is actually more socially integrated.

Note: Baltimore and St. Louis are among the 20 most crowded counties in the US but did not make this diversity list; more than 90% of the populations in both cities are either black or non-Hispanic white, with few Hispanics or Asians. Counties that rank higher on diversity density than on overall population density are in bold.

20 COUNTIES WITH THE MOST PEOPLE PER SQUARE MILE WHO DON'T BELONG TO THE TWO LARGEST RACIAL GROUPS IN THAT COUNTY

(compared with rank in overall density)

1. New York, NY (Manhattan): 18,328 (1)
2. Kings, NY (Brooklyn): 11,504 (2)
3. Queens, NY: 9,156 (4)
4. Bronx, NY: 5,401 (3)
5. San Francisco, CA: 4,328 (5)
6. Suffolk, MA (Boston): 3,957 (7)
7. Hudson, NJ (Jersey City): 3,660 (6)
8. Philadelphia, PA: 2,362 (8)
9. Alexandria, VA: 2,326 (10)
10. Cook, IL (Chicago): 1,745 (17)
11. Essex, NJ (Newark): 1,706 (14)
12. Arlington, VA: 1,673 (11)
13. Richmond, NY (Staten Island): 1,496 (12)
14. Washington, DC: 1,485 (9)
15. Manassas Park, VA: 1,429 (16)
16. Union, NJ (Elizabeth): 1,418 (18)
17. Falls Church City, VA: 1,050 (15)
18. Nassau, NY (western Long Island): 931 (20)
19. Orange, CA: 847 (26)
20. Bergen, NJ: 828 (25)

In general, a high "diversity density" seems to be correlated with a stable or growing economy, as found in New York, Boston, and Washington. Other highly ranked counties include Oakland, California's Alameda County (ranked 59th in overall density, 21st in diversity density); Middlesex County in New Jersey, home of Rutgers University (ranked 45th overall, 24th in diversity density); and Dallas County, Texas (42th overall, 25th in diversity density).

Whites double back to Boston as inner suburbs get some color

Via Matthew Yglesias, here is a prescient cartoon (click it to enlarge) done by Tom Toles in 1998:

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You can see the success of this "plan" in Boston by looking at new Census data. Go to this map and click on various census tracts; you can see that the white population in the South End, Roxbury, and Mission Hill (all near the Orange Line) has increased over the past decade while the number of African-Americans has declined or been stagnant. Then go to this map and click on tracts in Everett, Malden, and Revere; the black population has soared while whites have gone elsewhere.

This isn't really a conspiracy, of course. It's just a matter of higher-income groups rediscovering the advantages of living in the heart of the city (now that crime has gone down and pizza shops have been replaced by cocktail bars). The question is what will happen to inner-ring suburbs as their relatively low housing costs attract more and more immigrants and low-income residents. They're likely to become more dependent on state aid in order to provide education and other public services. My fear is that they will face a political alliance between prosperous Boston and well-off suburbs (all of them able to generate income from high property taxes and lucrative commercial property) that will impose "fiscal discipline" on less fortunate communities.

Census Bureau: Reports of dying counties are greatly exaggerated

The press release is a couple of weeks old, but I've just discovered that the director of the US Census Bureau has stern words against the phrase "dying counties," which I used in a post a few weeks ago to tweak the notion that the Republican Party's base is in dynamic, job-creating parts of the nation. Robert Groves wrote on his blog that journalists are reading too much into "natural decrease" numbers, which mean that a county has had more deaths than births in a given period:

Jumping from observations of counties that show no natural increase in a year to labeling them as “dying” is quite a leap. Natural increase can affect the population size but in-migration and out-migration can also affect the size of a county. Together, the ups and downs of county populations are part of the dynamic nature of our country. A year of loss does not mean an inevitable course to death.

Groves also includes this chart, which surprised me. It shows that not much more than a third of all US counties have had uninterrupted growth over the past half century. It seems that many, perhaps most, of all "dying counties" are able to cheat death eventually:

Why would Providence balk at checking immigration status?

The city of Providence isn't that keen on checking people's papers, according to an AP story in the Boston Herald:

Providence has asked to opt out of a federal program that allows police to check fingerprints of all people arrested to verify their immigration status.

Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare said in a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the Secure Communities program will create fear in the immigrant community and mistrust of police.

It's not really surprising that the city wants to avoid a bad image among immigrants. While it's not technically "dying," Providence County (which includes the city of the same name) has a stagnant population — which means that a labor shortage may limit economic growth. Census data show that Providence County suffered a net loss of 4,939 people due to domestic migration in 2008-09. (In other words, that more American citizens wanted out than in.)

The county would have lost people overall if not for its net gain of 2,741 from international migration. Providence, like a lot of aging cities in the Snow Belt, is a more popular destination among immigrants than among US natives, and local government probably doesn't see any benefit in enforcing a KEEP OUT message.