Glaeser on life expectancy in New York

Ed Glaeser writes about trends in life expectancy in New York City (all of it) versus those for the nation over the last century or so. He cites a New York penalty that declined and reversed by 1940, then increased again to 1990, and then reversed. New Yorkers now enjoy 1.5 more years in period life expectancy at birth than do Americans as a whole. The causes remain rather mysterious; Glaeser reports that mortality rates above age 55 are consistently lower in NYC than elsewhere, but while cancer deaths are less prevalent among New Yorkers, heart disease deaths are not.