The Perils of Urban Life: Falling Tree Branches

Even Arrow and Debreu would have trouble placing a probability on all of the "states of nature" that can take place in New York City. I had foreseen choking on a bagel, being hit by massive buckets of pigeon turd, and falling down a manhole but I hadn't thought of this one.

We have to live somewhere, are cities much more risky than the countryside? This raises old questions about risk perception over; job loss, crime, pollution exposure, freak events (like the one linked to above), even risk from divorce. I'm guessing that relationships are less stable in cities but that must be someone's choice. How risk averse are we?

Now, I can't answer any of these questions but I am working on the question of; "given the current baseline risk of living in cities, how much will climate change increase risk in day to day quality of life in different types of cities in the year 2075?"

UPDATE: But rural life also has its risks. The Tierney Lab provides a "heads up" about Mad Cows.