Street dwelling in Europe vs America
October 28th, 2006Europe has about 3 million people living on the street, out of a population of about 460 million. So Europe has 1 street dweller for every 153 million people. The USA has about 750,000 people living on the street, out of a population of about 300 million. So America has 1 street dweller for every 400 million people.
(Sources of the data above: world-gazetteer.com for population figures; unicef.org for street dweller figures)
The USA is doing much better then Europe at having its population avoid living on the street.
What explains this difference? Is it that a freer form of market capitalism has allowed the USA to more productively generate wealth and provide housing to its people, allowing for less destitute people, despite (or because of?) a social safety net that isn’t as rigorous? Is it related to the density of people per square mile? If I can find data, comparing the ratio of street dwellers to population in affluent Western European countries seems like it would reveal something interesting…
December 21st, 2006 at 2:51 am
It’s becuase in Europe there is public transportation and hostels which allow street dwelling as a way of life. This nomadic lifestyle is quite popular with millions of people under 25.