US Counties With the Most/Least Meaningful Interaction Between Rich and Poor Residents (live, best)

[18Montclair]

This is interesting for what it is. I just wish they'd actually list their findings in a ranking format instead of a map where we have to click on each county, annoying and pretentious as if there are ads-there aren't.

US Counties With the Most/Least Meaningful Interaction Between Rich and Poor Residents:

These are the results of a study that was published in Nature, one of the most respected scientific journals in the world. They studied 21 Billion Facebook friendships from 70 million users to make their findings.

San Francisco...residents have roughly an 80% chance of being exposed to high-income peers, and poorer people are about 6% more likely to befriend someone in a higher income household, the study said.

Out of the country’s 200 largest counties, these are the study’s top 11 cities where such social connectedness thrives:
1 San Francisco County, California
2 Utah County, Utah
3 Loudoun County, Virginia
4 Snohomish County, Washington
5 Norfolk County, Massachusetts
6 Fairfax County, Virginia
7 San Mateo County, California
8 Waukesha County, Wisconsin
9 Santa Clara County, California
10 Davis County, Utah
11 Honolulu County, Hawaii

On the flip side...

Out of the country’s 200 largest counties, these seven cities have the lowest rates of social connectedness in the study, starting at the bottom:
1 Cameron County, Texas
2 Hidalgo County, Texas
3 Shelby County, Tennessee
4 Tulare County, California
5 Mercer County, New Jersey
6 Mobile County, Alabama
7 Fresno County, California

California is such a socio-economic dichotomy.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/03/san-...r-parents.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/06/buil...alifornia.html

Link to Article in Nature:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04996-4

Link to the study results with interactive access to individual county data:
https://www.socialcapital.org/?dimen...lectedId=06037

[RocketSci]

In looking at the details by Zip Code, the low income areas have low connectedness, and the high income areas have higher connectedness. Basically, the wealthier an area is, the more connected it is.

[btownboss4]

I wonder if this is friends *within the metro* because otherwise I think there is a bit of a selection bias. Nearly everyone who moves to metro Boston, Seattle or SF is going to be “high income” regardless of their background.

Also I’d be interested did they compare it to the national average or the county average?

Seems like it might be the former because the map looks suspiciously like a median income map. So Norfolk County or Santa Clara county just have far more “above average” people to be fired s with rather than it signifying social connectivity

[tam770]

Sorry but the word social and the San Francisco area should not even be in the same universe. For San Jose area that expands to multiverse.

[Hemlock140]

We live not far from Snohomish County WA, #4 on the first list, and it makes sense. There are some areas of cities there that could be compared to the proverbial "tobacco road" or are clearly ghetto while at the same time, there are newer developments of $1.1million-2.2 million in cities like Lake Stevens and Bothell in the same county.

[CXT2000]

Miami being at 29.3% is not surprising at all. Florida in general is almost entirely red on the map provided. Vermont/NH being almost blue is also, not surprising.