Cities Are Safer For Kids

There is a lot of discussion of the value of living in urban locations versus suburban locations. From sprawl to pollution, the trend in planning has been towards infill and density. Now it turns out there is an even further case for urban living.

Prof. Christian Holz-Rau and PD Joachim Scheiner from the Department of Transport Planning at the Faculty of Spatial Planning at TU Dortmund have been recalculating. Their surprising result: life in the city is much safer than in the countryside or in the suburbs.
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The results of the analysis show that the risk of fatal accidents is already 40% higher for the population of the populous surrounding districts than for city inhabitants. For inhabitants of the countryside the risk to die in traffic is even twice up to three times as high. With regard to accidents with severe injuries the situation is similar but not so obvious. Accident statistics regard everybody as severely injured who needs in-patient treatment. In rural districts the risk of severe injuries is 70-100% higher than in cities. - Science Daily

Once again, science has challenged the conventional wisdom, and it is the conventional wisdom which was found lacking. Go science!