Move to Marin County--Live Longer

Bay Area Life spans (in years)

                           Men Women
Alameda County     78.6 82.8
Contra Costa Cty   78.5 82.7
Marin County         81.6 85.1
San Francisco Cty  78.5 84.4
San Mateo County 80.4 84.9
Solano County       76.7 81.8
Sonoma County     78.2 82.3
— Source: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

The Marin IJ's  article, Marin County men have the highest life expectancy in the nation, women rank No. 2 illustrates the benefits of wealth despite scientists arguing otherwise.

Dr. Ali Mokdad who heads the research team that prepared the report, said Marin life expectancy rates are high and getting higher because most residents don't smoke, aren't obese, are physically active and eat a healthy diet.

The wealthy can afford to add more fruits and vegetables in their diet. The rich tend to be better educated, and, as a whole, avoid tobacco and get more checkups (and better health care overall) than the poor. The rich also have more time to exercise and can afford gym memberships. It's true that the warm Northern California sun begs residents to go for a run or a bike ride, but income counts. Mokdad disagrees with me.

"Income has an impact on health but it's not a big player in terms of this variation of life expectancy." Some countries where life expectancy is increasing do not have high incomes.

Life expectancy may increase in middle income areas as word gets out about proper lifestyle changes but there is no substitute for wealth. I find the link between affluence and life expectancy to be quite strong. Look at the chart (Bay Area Life spans) at the top of the page. The top two richest counties, Marin and San Mateo, have the highest lifespans. The poorest, Solano County, has the shortest lifespan average. The difference for males is close to five years. Solano County weather isn't bad--one can run just as many days in Vallejo as in Novato. The difference between the two counties is lifestyle, and that is greatly affected by income.

I Speak Coyote

The coyotes are killing and eating the neighborhood cats :-(
on my hillside. It's mating season, and they howl through the night. It's a good thing that I understand their language and can interpret their conversations for you.

Male coyote: Come here, baby. I have Thai food!
Female coyote: Really? Curry with chicken?
Male coyote: No. Siamese cat. We can enjoy it together under the moonlight.
Female coyote: Cat, cat, always cat! Do you eat anything besides cat? This is Marin county! I expect better.
Male coyote: What do you mean, babe?
Female coyote: The coyote on the other side of the hill just got a rat. He said it was special imported food, Norwegian rat, all the rage now in Albuquerque.
Male coyote: All the rats here are Norwegian rats!
Female coyote: Well, I expect better than cat wolfed down in  30 seconds followed by a quick sprint away from the Humane Society guy.
Male coyote: OK, OK.
Female coyote: And another thing. The coyote on the other side of the hill has a nicer territory. He says he has a pool.
Male coyote: The Corte Madera Creek?
Female coyote: Whatever. He says he filled it with game.
Male coyote: It's got geese in it that flew south for the winter.
Female coyote: I take my goose served rare.
Male coyote: You got it or my goose is cooked.

Economic Inequality in Wealthy Marin County

Ah, my home, Marin County, the land of BMWs, doctors, lawyers, and CEOs, and plenty of liberal guilt over all this wealth. The January 18th top story in the Marin IJ, Economic disparity revealed (link here) explored the gap between rich and poor, mining that nagging rich liberal guilt.

"A Portrait of Marin," produced by the American Human Development Project, an extension of the nonprofit Social Science Research Council, draws distinctions between towns such as Ross and Tiburon — where residents enjoy long lives, high incomes, extensive educations and access to healthy foods — and those such as the Canal area of San Rafael, which the report compares to rural West Virginia.

I've been to West Virginia; I spent a week outside Morgantown, and the comparison is patently ridiculous. In  many areas of West Virginia poor unemployed whites live in houses on rolling green hills outside a small town or in rural coal-mining areas. There isn't a bustling city close by. In the Canal, Mexican immigrants live in high density apartments a mile from downtown San Rafael, Whole Foods, Safeway, farmers markets, Dominican University of California, bookstores, music shops, and art stores. West Virginian life at its worst resembles characterizations from Steinbeck's  The Grapes of Wrath (West Virginia taking the place of Oklahoma), a generational cycle of poverty and few opportunities for betterment. In comparison, life in the Canal boasts of all the opportunities small city life has to offer--good schools, and plenty of job opportunities. Most people that live in the Canal haven't lived in the country for long and certainly for less than a generation. Just about everyone is working.

Certainly there is great income inequality between rich neighborhoods such as Ross and the Canal.

According to the report, the top fifth of Marin's taxpayers earn about 71 percent of the county's total income, while the bottom fifth earns only 1.3 percent — and life for those bottom-earners is extraordinarily stressful, the report suggests.

Last time I saw my specialist, he charged me $500 for 10 minutes of his time. My lawyer charged me $450/hour and my accountant half that. It's true. Canal bricklayers are not in the one percent and don't make that kind of money.

"It's no surprise to me that the population of the Canal neighborhood would be rated way below that of Ross," said Tom Wilson, director of the Canal Alliance, which serves Marin's low-income immigrant populations. "It's not only an immigrant community, but a self-selected group of immigrants: people who came here because they were fleeing oppression, poverty, war and any number of other traumatic events. And about half that population are indigenous peoples, who might speak Spanish as a second language or not at all. It's a unique group."

Anyone with a pulse knows that poor Mexican immigrants wait on Canal neighborhood street corners for work and provide cheap labor for anyone willing to pay. May we mention what the Marin IJ and the director of the Canal Alliance refuses to say: the Canal has more than its share of illegal immigrants that came here for a better life. As bad as life as an uneducated laborer is in the Canal, it's way better than that of an uneducated laborer in Mexico.

The article states that less than half of the Canal residents received a high school diploma. If you never finished high school, speak little English, and have an undocumented status, it is likely that your earnings will place you in the bottom fifth in the United States, whether you live in Marin or Los Angeles. The answer to the problem lies in a rational immigration policy and in education. (See my previous blog on education as a weapon against poverty here.)

Gun Control and Marin County, California

Our normally staid Marin Independent Journal, a bulwark against sensationalist news, printed the following mid-page headline yesterday morning:

2 Hospitalized in Gunbattle: Resident, 90, and suspect exchange fire in Greenbrae

Wow! Sleepy bedroom communities don't get much safer than Greenbrae in wealthy Marin County, California. Here's what happened. The victim, "a former member of the Marin County sheriff's air patrol, was able to get one of several guns in his home and shot the suspect." The suspect then shot the victim and drove off. Fortunately, both men were only mildly injured (see link). The suspect called for medical attention for the three bullet wounds he sustained and was arrested.


Greenbrae is full of limousine liberals. The victim lived only a few blocks away from the previous residence of Senator Barbara Boxer! What were the chances of the suspect burglarizing the home of perhaps the only Greenbrae resident carrying firearms? I am impressed with the courage of the 90-year-old man. May we all be able to defend our homes in our later years.