There is now evidence that the relaxed pace of life in small towns promotes better health and greater longevity than does the hectic pace of life in big cities. Businesses in the small town of Leeville report fewer days of sick leave taken by individual w

In his statement the author suggests that slow and relaxed pace of life in small cities contributes to better health and longevity. On a first shallow glance the author’s proposition seems to be cogent but careful inspections leads to loopholes in the argument. The author’s premises can be explained in the number of other ways. First premise is that businesses in small town of Leeville report fewer days of sick leave taken than do businesses in the larger city of Masonton. Second premise is that in a bigger city the number of physicians is five times as high due to residents being sick more. And third premise is that the average age of Leeville residents is higher then in Masonton.

First, the author provided no information in regards to which businesses and over which period of time reported about sick leave days among employees. For example, the author could have reports only from the same types of businesses that exist in both small and bigger city, let’s say, retail and manufacturing. The author might not have taken into consideration big IT businesses which exist only in the bigger city. Also, the author didn't elucidate over which period of time reports we taken, as fluctuations could be quite disparate over decade and one year. Even though, it is quite possible that life in a smaller city is less stressful, people do need good kind of stress in order to progress and prosper. The stress in a small city might remind a lethargy, which some people might describe as degradation; therefore, it is far from being conducive to a healthy lifestyle.

Secondly, the lesser number of physicians is by no means an indicator that lesser number of physicians is needed. Indeed, population could be sick and depressed requiring greater number of physicians and psychologist but specialists can be not available or unwilling to go to Leeville, preferring to stay in a bigger and more vibrant city of Masonton.

And finally, in order to understand if average age is truly indicative of higher longevity, we need to know the number of people that are taken into account. It could be that population of Leeville is only a fraction of Masonton's population, therefore average age would not show if longevity is lower in the bigger city. Let’s say, Leeville has only thousand residents while Masontown has one million residents. In this case, comparison of those two cities does not make much sense as the difference in the number of residents is huge. Masonton, therefore, could have ten times more centenarians then Leeville have.

As a result, there could be a number of different explanations to the author’s conclusion. People of Leeville could turn out to be sick and depressed and not happy at all. Leville's residents could take less days off because there is nothing to do and could continue going to work while being sick or there could be miscalculation and misrepresentation in the author’s report. Doctors might not want to go living in dead-end small town and the average age, in effect, might not indicate longevity.