THE INFLUENCE OF URBAN AND RURAL ENVIRONMENT 35 1 



satisfactions that constitute the object of Hfe in larger 

 measure than does the country. 



How nearly has man overcome the handicaps he has 

 created by crowding together? What has he acquired which 

 can be considered a biological asset? 



COMPARATIVE DEATH RATES 



In its simplest terms the truth appears to be that the 

 death rate is higher and the expectation of hfe is less in 

 city than among rural populations. Differences of age, sex 

 and race composition of the populations cannot wholly 

 explain the disadvantage of the city people. Either the 

 greater prevalence and severity of diseases or the lower 

 resistance of the people in the city seems to be responsible. 



Perhaps the best single index of the relative hygienic 

 value of hving conditions in city and country is to be found 

 in the death rate from tuberculosis, a disease which expresses, 

 certainly in comparable racial aggregates, the sum of 

 environmental, social and economic conditions which we 

 speak of as the standard of living. When due regard is 

 given to the place of origin of the disease as distinguished 

 from the place of death of the patient we see emphasized in a 

 striking way the advantages of rural over urban conditions. 



The residential death rates from tuberculosis in New 

 York State as analyzed for the year 1926 by J. V. DePorte 

 show them to be consistently higher among city dwellers 

 than among rural residents. Thus the tuberculosis death 

 rate, computed on the basis of resident deaths for New 

 York City irrespective of the place of death in the State 

 was 102.5 per 100,000 of population and for the rest of 

 the State it was 74.3. 



Similarly the resident tuberculosis death rate for the urban 

 part of New York State outside New York City was 83.2 

 per 100,000 population, while that of the rural portion of 

 the State was 59.4. 



This same difference is maintained throughout all classes 

 of cities when compared with the rural areas of their respec- 

 tive counties, whether we deal with cities of large sizes 

 or with those of 100,000 to 250,000, 50,000 to 100,000, 

 25,000 to 50,000, or places of 10,000 to 25,000. These differ- 



