SociALLIEgy in the Community

After reading the excerpt from Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, I learned that the community that people live in has a huge impact on the way people interact with others. By developing strong relationships with your peers, you will have a healthier lifestyle. People rely on others more than they realize, and their lives not be healthy without a solid support system. I live in a community where there is constant competition. It is very prestigious, and there is a lot of tension between families because everybody is very passive aggressive. For example, parents pressure their children to be the best, so they have to start playing competitive sports earlier than other athletes. I know that the area I live in is different than other places because I spend my summers at a camp in a small Michigan town. The population of that town is very small. All of the families know each other, and the town is very welcoming when the "camp people" are in town. A larger town, like mine, has too many people to realize when new people are in town. A lot of the relationships made in my town are superficial because the town has such a high population, and it is hard to get to know so many people. If the theory of sociological imagination is true, the people of an intimate farming town will live healthier lives than the people of my suburban town.