New York City Raises Smoking Age to 21

Bloomberg Pushes Cigarettes From NYC

In the time that Michael Bloomberg has been mayor of New York, many health related reforms have been pushed through the city council. Many of these proposals have been unpopular at times, but overall they appear to have paid off. Bloomberg has passed many new laws aimed at targeting everything from high-calorie foods in restaurants, to cigarettes to sugary drinks and has encouraged active lifestyles through the creation of bike lanes throughout the city. The following graph shows the increase in life expectancy of residents of both NYC and Boston over the past several decades. Notice how fast life expectancy has risen in NYC since Bloomberg was elected in 2001.

Now surely not all of these gains can be directly attributed to Bloomberg's progressive health policies, but they certainly have not hurt the city. 

Waging War on Cigarettes

The current controversial proposal that is making it's way through the city is a measure that would raise the purchasing age of cigarettes within the city to 21 years. Right now the federal minimum age is 18 and New York would be the largest city to raise the limit to 21. Already cigarettes can cost upwards of $14 per pack within the city thanks to aggressive taxes. In the 10 years between 2002 and 2012, smoking rates within New York City plummeted from 22% to 14%, much faster than the national drop. The proposal to raise the age to 21 passed last night in the city council. 

Before complaining about the restrictiveness of personal freedom from the new law, consider the health effects just of smoking. Take a look at the drop in life expectancy that can be attributed to smoking.

Can we really argue that restricting access to cigarettes is a bad thing for New York or for society as a whole? It seems to me that Bloomberg's new proposal will continue the upward trend of health that is emerging in New York. 

Hidden Costs of Commuting

How Commuting Hurts Us

In 2012 the average American spent about 25 minutes commuting to work every day each way. Some lucky Americans can get to work in 5 to 10 minutes, while others have to spend upwards of an hour commuting each way. Often we write off our commutes as something that does not matter and will not affect our quality of life, but this simply is not the case.

This map shows most of southern New England commute times. Lighter colors represent shorter commutes and tend to cover areas of cities while more suburban areas tend to be shaded by darker colors. Living further from the city center has a strong relationship with increased commute times.

Does Commuting Really Matter?

Yes. Let's do the math. If you are an "average" commuter you will spend 50 minutes per day moving from place to place. This may not sound bad on it's own, but if you extrapolate this over a typical 50 working week per year 40 year career, you have wasted 347 days commuting to and from work, the equivalent of almost an entire year. 

Long commutes also correlate with higher health risks. An article from The New York Times showed that longer commutes correlate with high blood pressure, obesity and cardiovascular disease. And interestingly enough, in Manhattan where people have some of the shortest and most active commutes, the average person weighs 7 pounds less than the average American. 

Just Think

Sometimes it is not possible to eliminate a long commute, but we often have more choice in our lives than we realize. Rather than ignoring the effect of a commute on your own personal well being, I ask that before making a decision about where to work or live, you at least consider how you will feel about spending so much time commuting every day. 

My Trip with Public Transportation

America Has a Long Way to Go

I often write about the benefits of public transportation and insist that it is quite often the best way of traveling from place to place. So I decided to try something new, and I took a vacation where I travelled only by public transportation. I traveled by foot, bus, train and subway around the northeastern United States.

Overall my trip looked something like this.

I took a train from Worcester - Boston, a bus from Boston to NYC, a bus from NYC - D.C. and finally came home via a bus from D.C. - Boston and a train back to Worcester. I spent two nights in New York and three in D.C. While in each of these cities I traveled only by foot and through the subway.

I am not sure whether to be impressed with or disappointed by the public transportation that I took throughout my trip. On the plus side, the trip was extremely cheap and all of my traveling, including the subway fares for the week cost less than $100. I found this to be really convenient. On the flip side I realized that unfortunately I could have traveled much faster by car. For example, my final trip from Washington to Worcester from end to end lasted about 17 hours for me, but had I driven the trip would have been only around 8 or 9 hours depending on traffic.

Future Developments

Right now I will admit that despite my best efforts to travel via public transport, it was really inconvenient even in the highly developed northeast corridor of the country. In other areas I'm sure that the problems are even worse. While it was possible for me to get to all of my chosen locations, it was always a challenge and I am not sure if I would choose to travel this way again. This being said, many of my transportation options, such as Megabus, were not available even just 5 or 10 years ago. I see a lot of potential for this country and particularly the Northeast to expand public transportation options over the next decade so that eventually it will even be preferable to take trips this way rather than driving. 

Government Shutdown: Signs of a Broken System

Why The American Government is Failing Us

As of earlier this week, the American government has closed it's doors except for functions which are deemed necessary because Congress has not approved the budget for the next year. This is a signal that something has gone seriously wrong with our country. Rather than reaching an agreement, the government has shuttered itself. Many people from other countries cannot even fathom the idea of their governments choosing to shut themselves down. Why should we?

My blog typically serves as a forum to discuss urban and demographic issues, but this is a reality that affects each and every one of us in the United States. Whether we like it or not, so many of our daily activities are supported by the federal government and if the shutdown persists it will lead to mounting problems in the country. Even now the shutdown is estimated to be costing somewhere around $50 million per day.

Why This Happened

The United States is one of the only developed countries in the world that does not offer universal healthcare to it's people. Every person, regardless of age, income or race should be allowed access to healthcare. It is a basic right. No person should be denied healthcare because they cannot afford it. Here is a map that shows all countries with universal healthcare. Notice again that we are one of the only developed nations that does not.

In 2010 the United States Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. This act was designed to increase health coverage for all citizens regardless of their income or preexisting medical conditions. In effect, this act was meant to add the United States to the list of countries offering universal healthcare. I repeat, this act passed through Congress and was later upheld by the Supreme Court. Universal healthcare is not a farcical idea, it exists in so many other places.

Fast forward to 2013. On October 1st of this year, the health care exchanges were set to open to allow people to enroll into the new healthcare insurance system. Coincidentally, this was also the deadline for Congress to approve a budget for the upcoming year. Republicans in Congress decided to agree to approve a budget only if the Affordable Care Act could be scaled back or repealed. That premise is ridiculous.

Legislation is passed with a purpose. Each law has a specific reason for enactment. The Affordable Care Act is intended to provide health insurance for everyone. The annual budget is intended to fund the government. These two things are completely unrelated. By tying healthcare to the budget, Republican effectively took two unrelated issues and put them together. By refusing to approve the budget, the government shut down. 

What Does This Mean

A government shutdown means that as of Tuesday about 800,000 federal employees were furloughed and important government services were shut down. Children who were supposed to start cancer treatment trials at the National Institutes of Health were denied care and all national parks and museums are closed. 

Republicans attempt to justify this shutdown by saying that we cannot afford universal healthcare and that the Affordable Care Act is wrong. Newsflash, we are again among the only developed nations not to offer this to our people. I would say that it is wrong not to offer people healthcare. Additionally, this legislation has already passed and been signed into law. It is completely undemocratic in nature to attempt to kill the law by defunding it. Don't we pay our lawmakers to do useful things for our country? It seems like they are failing.

A Budgetary Take

While I admit that nobody is truly certain about what the cost of the Affordable Care Act would be, here is an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

This projection actually shows that over the next 10 years this healthcare act could save the country over $153 billion. Some argue that the plan could actually increase the deficit. I am no expert and I believe nobody can say for sure.

But here is something. Every lawmaker in Congress is paid at least $174,000 per year and there are 535 lawmakers in the federal government. Just their direct salaries cost the country over $94 million per year. They also still are being paid during the shutdown that they ordered. If instead of worrying about the cost of the Affordable Care Act we eliminate Congressional salaries, I can assure you that over the next ten years we will save at least $1 billion.