Environment
In Disaster's Wake, Tightly Knit Communities Suffer More
Researchers find that strong ties to a neighborhood, while normally a good thing, can make it even harder to recover from shared stress
Social science literature has pretty well documented the idea that the stronger your ties are to your community—the more attached to it you feel—the better off you are.
“Usually people who are more strongly rooted to place, who’ve been there longer, they have more friends there, they often have kinship networks there, they often know local business owners, they’re heavily involved in civic and church activities, these kinds of things,” says Matthew Lee, a sociologist at Louisiana State University. “What we find is that people who are really socially active and involved, under normal circumstances, are happier.”