I’ve lived on both sides of this. A small Kentucky town that really didn’t have any walkability unless you were going to walk on side streets just to walk, it wasn’t a place where you could walk TO something, a store or whatever, it was all very drivable. And then Montreal, New York City, Santa Monica, and Miami, all extremely walkable. Researchers have a clinical name for this, the social determinants of health, the idea that your ZIP code shapes your health as much as your habits do. But you feel it before you can name it.
Walkability and Food Access vs. Air and Calm
The issue most rural areas have is they’re just not built for walkability. There are pockets where you can walk a little, but for the most part it’s always a car. They do have healthier air, so that’s a plus. Me personally, I love being able to walk to something, I hate getting in a car if I don’t have to, so I’d always opt for the urban setting. In a city, and it doesn’t have to be a massive one like New York, you have more choices to make. The air may not be as clean, but your food access is so much more varied, and you have so many more options that are interesting and healthy at the same time, less so in rural areas.
Stress cuts the other way. Cities are more stressful, there’s no question, unless you’ve got tons and tons of money, and even then, everyone has stress. So it’s a real trade: rural areas typically have better air and less stress, urban areas have more walkability and more food access. It’s kind of a toss-up, whichever one works best for you.
The Stacking Problem
Stacking is really the problem when you live somewhere without a lot of opportunities. You find yourself driving more, then making worse choices for lunch and dinner, then doing fewer activities, and over time that just adds up. So you’ve really gotta be mindful of it and make sure each choice at least sometimes checks the healthy box. The disadvantages compound, but so do the small good decisions, that’s the part worth holding onto.
This Is Not a Verdict
A low wellness score is not fatalistic at all. We’re actually working on an article right now looking at the highest- and lowest-income areas in the U.S. by longevity, and surprisingly, some of the lower-income areas also have some of the highest longevity. So it is definitely not a death sentence, and we’re trying to find out what the takeaway is from those low-income places where people live longest.
I built this wellness-score tool because I just find the data fascinating, and I like to understand where I live and what my area is doing to affect my opportunities to live a healthier life. When you take this data you can zoom all the way in or all the way back, and it gives you a different perspective on where you live, makes you think about things a different way. All this data just tells a story, good or bad, no judgment on it. The more information we have, the better choices we can make. That’s the goal.
Cory Jones has spent 20 years in media and publishing and now leads the data and editorial operation behind The Greenest. He built and maintains the site’s Neighborhood Wellness Score — a proprietary dataset scoring food access, walkability, air quality, healthcare access, and health outcomes across 18,357 U.S. ZIP codes, drawing on CDC PLACES data, EPA air quality readings, and verified location intelligence. He is a huge fan of Rancho Gordo beans and tries to work out more than he actually works out.
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