Materialism and Immorality: More Urban than Rural?

Abstract

Metropolitan areas tend to be materialistic/consumerist, and materialism/consumerism is usually considered immoral. Some literature argues that in cities, in general, there is more vice and immorality. In this study, we empirically explore the relationship between urbanness and materialism/immorality using 1972–2018 US General Social Survey. We find much support for a hypothesis that urbanness is associated with higher materialism and immorality. Seven out of eight measures show some evidence of more materialism/immorality in large cities, and four measures remain significant even in the most oversaturated models. However, we caution, as it is one of the first quantitative studies in the area, that the evidence is provisional. While there is a lot of theory, more empirical quantitative research is needed. The study is associative, not causal, and results may not generalize outside of the US.

1. Introduction

“With urbanization comes disharmony” The Dalai Lama.

There are two broad trends that motivate the present study. Over the past century, both urbanization and materialism/consumerism has been increasing and both are widespread today. The present research tests whether urbanites are more materialistic. In addition, we also test whether urbanites are more immoral, as theory suggests that it may be the case as well. In the empirical part, we will focus on the US only.

Urbanization is rampant, adding tens of millions of people to cities every year. Urban population has mushroomed more than 10-fold from 0.2 b in 1900 to 2.9 b in 2000 [1], and it is further estimated to more than double at 6.7 b in 2050 (population.un.org/wup; accessed on 1 August 2022). Urban is a norm, but it needs to be remembered that for almost all of our evolutionary history, almost all humans have lived without cities. Before industrialization took off, in the 1800s, only a small percentage of humans lived in cities [2]. Such unprecedented change in human habitat, arguably the most dramatic in our history as a species, calls for a broad research agenda into urbanization.

Another strong trend over the past century or so is that of materialism and consumerism. The human pursuit of money and consumption seems without limit. For instance, we have so many consumer goods in the US today that, merely being only richer than the poorest ten percent of society, a person is better off than ninety percent of society around 1900 [3]. Humans were consuming astonishingly little (by today’s standards) only few generations ago. Before 1895, the average person in the West lived on a less than one dollar a day, adjusted for inflation [4]. The average square footage per one inhabitant of a new home more than tripled in the US from 1950s until the 2010s [5], and so forth.

In what follows, we explore the relationship between urbanness and materialism/immorality. Almost all of the literature is theoretical and qualitative—a quantitative test is largely missing. First, we present a general overview of the negative effects of urbanism based on classic sociology. Second, we cover other and more recent literatures to illuminate potential mechanisms or pathways between urbanism and materialism/immorality. Third, we devote an entire section to a recent key study, Joye et al. [6], the only study similar to ours, where we also discuss nature in contrast to urbanism. Finally, we proceed to our person level quantitative study in the US.

2. The Negative Effects of Urbanism (Classic Sociology)

“I think most people know exactly what New York values are” Ted Cruz1.

Wirth [9] observed that in a city “the pecuniary nexus tends to displace personal relations” (p. 1), and “the urban world puts a premium on visual recognition” (p. 14)–urbanites are more extrinsic and focused on success than rural folks [10]. According to Wirth, urban communities more than rural communities are likely to suffer from: “personal disorganization, mental breakdown, suicide, delinquency, crime, corruption, and disorder” [9].

Other classic urban sociologists have added similar strong critiques of urbanism. City intensifies materialism, consumerism, vice, crime, indifference, strangeness, aversion, repulsion, and indeed often results in hatred and conflict [9,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. Urbanism negatively affects the quality of nearly all social relationships and even produces fear, revulsion, and distrust [20].

A city overstimulates the human brain [11], to the point where it is neurologically unhealthy [21]. Reactions of an urbanite to stimuli are rational/economic, the furthest possible from one’s true self.

Sociologists (and economists) have also established that urbanism and capitalism are linked and work together. Therefore, sociological criticism of capitalism, at least in some respects, also applies to urbanism.

Simmel observed that “the metropolis has always been the seat of money economy” ([22], p. 326). The hallmarks of capitalism, industrialization and commercialization, are closely linked with urbanization (e.g., [23,24]). It is in the city where capitalism is most full-blown and felt most ([11]). Capitalism works best at a high density where agglomeration economies are possible (e.g., [23,24]).

Marx observed that humans are alienated under capitalism [25,26,27,28,29,30], and so humans are most alienated in cities, where capitalism is felt most: “urbanism makes alienation tangible” ([31], p. 127).

Human density forces differentiation and specialization, as already observed by Darwin and Durkheim ([11], p. 15). A city not only enables but, what is often missed, forces differentiation and specialization, because it is the only way high density can be supported (e.g., [32]). Humans, as most other animals, have not evolved to spend about half of their wake time performing a repetitive task—it is against human nature [29,33]. Indeed, one ideally should be able to “to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner” [34].

3. Urbanism-Materialism/Consumerism and Immorality Mechanisms and Pathways

This section focuses on the link between urbanicity and materialism/consumerism and immorality. In addition to illuminating the negative side of urbanism in general (previous section), the literature also specifically argues that urbanism results in materialism/consumerism and immorality. Additional mechanisms/pathways mostly due to nature are postponed to the next section.

Materialism is mostly concentrated in cities—urbanites tend to work longer hours [35,36,37,38]. Cities are consumerist and materialistic—e.g., urbanites try to classify others in terms of visible attributes such as dress [20]. Consumption is concentrated in cities [6,39,40]. In particular luxury, positional or conspicuous consumption is centered in the city [41]. There is commodity fetishism [42], and indeed the city itself can be seen as a fetish [43]. A city intensifies conspicuous consumption: urban etiquette, sophistication, manners, and finish ([18], p. 169).

City compounds materialism. One mechanism is a built environment—corporate buildings, shops, advertisements—which signal wealth and material possessions [6]. Visual and social comparisons are more likely in urban areas, as there are more people and more stimuli. Likewise, use of social media is higher in urban areas [44], and both visual and social comparisons in real life and on social media can make people seek status through money, material possessions, and conspicuous consumption [6,45].

What about the relationship between materialism and immorality? Materialism is commonly considered immoral. For instance, the Bible states: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (Timothy 6:10). A Confucius successor saw the root of all evil in selfishness or materialism ([46], p. 332): “The source of disorder in a State lies in the lack of mutual love”. Benjamin Franklin, who wrote on moral perfection, includes frugality, temperance, and moderation in his list of virtues2. Materialism and consumerism have been widely criticized and commonly considered vices and immoral (e.g., [46,47,48,49,50,51,52]).

Again, there is an indication of a positive relationship between urbanness and immorality. There is a moral breakdown in cities in general—the city itself intensifies vice, crime, indifference, strangeness, aversion, and repulsion [9,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,53].

4. A Recent Study by Joye et al. (2020): Nature as a Contrast to Urbanism

Most of the literature about the relationship between urbanness and materialism/immorality is dated, theoretical, and qualitative—there are no recent quantitative studies except Joye et al. [6].

Joye et al. (2020) [6] found that materialism is higher in urban areas, and argues that the mechanism is exposure to nature, i.e., the more nature, the less materialism. Clearly, nature (wilderness) is the opposite of large and dense city—the more built environment, the less nature. Sure, there are urban parks, and some urban nature, but in general, the more city, the less nature [19]. Joye et al. [6] enumerates three pathways between urbanness and materialism:

• urban environment itself (commerce, ads, etc.) amplifies materialism
• nature “provides an antidote to insecurities and worries about meeting one’s psychological and physical needs, known to drive materialism” (p. 5)
• nature makes one value self-transcendent values such as altruism, and self-transcendent values are opposite of self-enhancement values to which materialism belongs and “nature decreases extrinsic aspirations (including the desire for wealth) through increased nature relatedness and autonomy” (p. 5)

In general, the benefits of nature for human flourishing are numerous and have been extensively documented [18,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66]. That is, the negative effect of urbanism can be contrasted with a positive effect of nature (and by definition, the more urbanism, the less nature). For elaboration in addition to Joye et al. [6], also see Okulicz-Kozaryn [19].

There are cyclic turns between rationalism and romanticism: 18th century was Age of Reason, 19th century was Romantic Era, 20th century was Age of Science and Technology [67]. The current rational economic Zeitgeist of materialism and consumerism may perhaps soon change into a romantic period. There is a so-called pastoral idyll, often expressed in lyrics, novels, and paintings during Romanticism—it is visualized in Figure 1.

Clearly such a natural setting invokes feelings of tranquility, peace, relaxation, harmony, etc.; it is antithetical to materialism, and perhaps immorality (except that it may somehow connote with idleness and laziness).

5. Data and Model

We use the 1972–2018 US General Social Survey (GSS; gss.norc.org cumulative file; accessed on 17 November 2021). The GSS is collected face-to-face and is nationally representative. Since 1994, the GSS is collected every other year (earlier, it was collected mostly annually).

The unit of analysis is a person and data are collected in face-to-face in-person interviews [68]. The full dataset contains about 60 thousand observations pooled over 1972–2018.

Marsden et al. [69] provides a useful overview of the GSS, one of the most widely used datasets in contemporary social science. The GSS has a wide range of attitude and behavior data, together with a wide and deep body of background information, including socioeconomic status, social mobility, social control, the family, civil liberties, and morality.

Materialism is a rather straightforward concept and can be measured using several items in GSS listed in

Table 1. Dependent variable definitions.

Name	Description
materialism:
next to health, money is most important	“Now I’m going to read you several more statements. Some people agree with a statement, others disagree. As I read each one, tell me whether you more or less agree with it, or more or less disagree”. “A. Next to health, money is the most important thing in life” 0 = ‘disagree’, 1 = ‘agree’
no right and wrong ways to make money	“Now I’m going to read you several more statements. Some people agree with a statement, others disagree. As I read each one, tell me whether you more or less agree with it, or more or less disagree”. “C. To make money, there are no right and wrong ways any more, only easy and hard ways” 0 = ‘disagree’, 1 = ‘agree’
hrsmoney: more and more	“Think of the number of hours you work and the money you earn in your main job, including any regular overtime. If you had only one of these three choices, which of the following would you prefer?” 1 = ‘Work longer hours and earn more money’, 0 = ‘Work the same number of hours and earn the same money’ OR ’Work fewer hours and earn less money’
job just a way of earning money, no more	“Thinking of work in general, please circle one number for each statement below to show how much you agree or disagree with each”. “A. A job is just a way of earning money–no more” 1 = ‘disagree strongly’ to 5 = ‘agree strongly’
immorality:
honest least desirable	“A. Which three qualities listed on this card would you say are the most desirable for a child to have? B. Which one of these three is the most desirable of all? C. All of the qualities listed on this card may be desirable, but could you tell me which three you consider least important? D. Which one of these three is least important of all?” “3. That he is honest” 1 = ‘1 most desirable’ to 5 = ‘1 least desirable’
r agrees that morality a personal matter	“Please consider the following statements and tell me whether you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat or disagree strongly with each statement”. “D. Morality is a personal matter and society should not force everyone to follow one standard” 1 = ‘disagree strongly’ to 4 = ‘agree strongly’
r disagrees immoral person corrupts society	“Please consider the following statements and tell me whether you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat or disagree strongly with each statement” “C. Immoral actions by one person can corrupt society in general”. 1 = ‘agree strongly’ to 4 = ‘disagree strongly’
r agrees right/wrong not black/white, but grey	“Please consider the following statements and tell me whether you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat or disagree strongly with each statement”. “B. Right and wrong are not usually a simple matter of black and white; there are many shades of gray” 1 = ‘disagree strongly’ to 4 = ‘agree strongly’

. We faced a challenge, however, in choice of measures of immorality/dishonesty, as there is not a standard set of measures. Likewise, there is not an agreed model and a set of predictors.

Under the ‘morality’ tag, GSS lists the following variables: punsin, blkwhite, rotapple, permoral, godright, socright, perright, lesspain. However, we do not use several of them because morality is confounded with religiosity: punsin “r agrees that sinners must be punished,” godright “god’s laws should decide right and wrong,” perright “conscience should decide right and wrong”. Likewise, we do not use another two as they may confound with secularism: socright “society’s laws should decide right and wrong,” lesspain “feel deep sense of respect for reducing pain”. Our measures of outcomes, materialism, and immorality are listed in Table 1. All dependent variables were re-coded in such a way that the higher value means more materialistic or immoral. Distributions of all variables are shown in SOM (Supplementary Online Material) (Refs. [70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80] are cited in the Supplementary Materials).

The main independent variable, urbanicity, is measured using GSS variable xnorcsiz with the following categories: (base: country), lt 2.5 k, 2.5–10 k, 10–50 k, uninc med (unincorporated medium area), uninc lrg (unincorporated large area), med sub (medium suburb), lrg sub (large suburb), 50–250 k, gt 250 k. In addition, as a robustness check, we used alternative measurement using GSS variable srcbelt in SOM (Supplementary Online Material) (results are similar). The detailed definitions of urbanicity variables are in SOM (Supplementary Online Material) under the Table S6.

There are multiple correlates of immorality/dishonesty: age, religiosity, political orientation, and social class (e.g., [81]). Notably, higher social class predicts unethical behavior [82]. Higher social class is likely to be more urban than rural, and hence urbanicity and social class may confound. As discussed earlier, materialism is at least moderately related to immorality/dishonesty, and so its predictors should be similar. Duh [83] presents a useful listing of materialism antecedents—we controlled for basic socio-demographics such as gender, age, and income. The control variables’ definitions are listed in SOM in Table S6.

However, we did not find good GSS measures for the following predictors of materialism: birth order, childhood experience, family/consumer socialization, peer influence, self-esteem, subjective experience of economic deprivation, insecurity during one’s formative years [83]. In general, we cannot well-capture the social influence of family and peers to shape materialistic orientations [84]. However, many of our control variables somewhat proxy the missing predictors, e.g., we control for income, social class, education, race, and religiosity. Still, future research can improve greatly by including better control variables.

The dependent variables are ordinal or binary—for simplicity, OLS results are presented. As a robustness check, SOM (Supplementary Online Material) includes multinomial logit results, which are very similar.

We have used Stata Version 15 (College Station TX, USA. Data are publicly available, and code is available upon request. No conflict of interest or funding is declared.

6. Results

OLS regression results for four dependent variables, measures of materialism and immorality, as defined in Table 1, are shown in

Table 2. Immorality: OLS regressions of honest least desirable.

	a1	a2a	a2b	a3	a4	a5
urbanism (base: country)
lt 2.5 k	−0.04	−0.02	−0.05	−0.03	−0.03	−0.00
2.5–10 k	−0.02	−0.02	−0.01	−0.02	0.01	0.05
10–50 k	0.03	0.04	0.04	0.04	0.04	−0.01
uninc med	−0.08 +	−0.09 +	−0.07	−0.08 +	−0.06	−0.07
uninc lrg	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.04	0.04	0.01
med sub	0.02	−0.00	0.03	−0.01	0.01	0.02
lrg sub	0.08 *	0.09 *	0.07 +	0.08 *	0.06	0.03
50–250 k	0.04	0.07	0.04	0.07	0.07	0.09
gt 250 k	0.16 ***	0.19 ***	0.16 ***	0.18 ***	0.16 **	0.13 *
subjective class identification		0.00		0.00	0.02	0.03
family income in $1986, millions			0.02	−0.34	0.53	0.16
highest year of school completed			0.00	0.01 *	0.01	0.01 +
age					−0.01 **	−0.01 *
age squared					0.00 *	0.00 *
male					0.07 **	0.07 *
married					−0.01	−0.00
number of persons in household					−0.00	0.00
health					−0.03 +	−0.03 +
white					−0.07	−0.11 +
liberal						0.01
conservative						−0.01
how often r attends religious services						−0.01
religious denomination dummies	no	no	no	no	no	yes
census region dummies	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
constant	2.01 ***	1.99 ***	1.95 ***	1.86 ***	2.41 ***	2.24 ***
N	8059	6491	7483	6050	3899	3032

+ 0.10 * 0.05 ** 0.01 *** 0.001; robust std err.

,

Table 3. Materialism: OLS regressions of next to health, money is most important.

	b1	b2a	b2b	b3	b4	b5
urbanism (base: country)
lt 2.5 k	0.01	0.04	0.04	0.05	0.02	0.04
2.5–10 k	0.06 +	0.09 *	0.10 **	0.11 **	0.11 **	0.09 *
10–50 k	0.07*	0.07 *	0.09 **	0.09 *	0.07 *	0.07 +
uninc med	−0.00	0.02	0.05	0.06 +	0.07 *	0.10 *
uninc lrg	0.00	0.02	0.08 *	0.08 *	0.08 *	0.07 +
med sub	0.01	0.04	0.07 +	0.07 +	0.08 +	0.10 *
lrg sub	0.04	0.06 *	0.12 ***	0.12 ***	0.12 ***	0.12 ***
50–250 k	0.05	0.07 *	0.09 **	0.10 **	0.09 **	0.09 **
gt 250 k	0.09 ***	0.12 ***	0.14 ***	0.15 ***	0.11 ***	0.10 **
subjective class identification		−0.04 ***		0.02 +	0.02	0.03 +
family income in $1986, millions			−1.48 ***	−1.56 ***	−1.25 ***	−1.07 *
highest year of school completed			−0.04 ***	−0.04 ***	−0.03 ***	−0.03 ***
age					0.00	0.00
age squared					0.00	0.00
male					0.02	0.03 +
married					0.03 +	0.04 +
number of persons in household					−0.00	−0.00
health					−0.02 +	−0.01
white					−0.23 ***	−0.25 ***
liberal						−0.02
conservative						−0.02
how often r attends religious services						−0.02 ***
religious denomination dummies	no	no	no	no	no	yes
census region dummies	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
constant	0.32 ***	0.41 ***	0.76 ***	0.68 ***	0.69 ***	0.65 ***
N	4463	3694	4120	3410	3395	2573

+ 0.10 * 0.05 ** 0.01 *** 0.001; robust std err.

,

Table 4. Immorality: OLS regressions of r disagrees an immoral person corrupts society.

	e1	e2a	e2b	e3	e4	e5
urbanism (base: country)
lt 2.5 k	0.08	0.08	0.05	0.05	0.14	0.17
2.5–10 k	0.10	0.11 +	0.11 +	0.11 +	0.08	0.10
10–50 k	0.13 *	0.12 *	0.09	0.08	0.10	0.08
uninc med	0.13 **	0.10 *	0.09 +	0.08	0.11	0.12 +
uninc lrg	0.15 **	0.13 *	0.11 *	0.10 +	0.08	0.09
med sub	0.13 *	0.12 *	0.13 *	0.13 *	0.09	0.09
lrg sub	0.17 ***	0.14 ***	0.13 **	0.13 **	0.13 *	0.12 *
50–250 k	0.06	0.06	0.05	0.05	0.02	0.03
gt 250 k	0.11 **	0.11 *	0.12 *	0.12 *	0.11 +	0.10 +
subjective class identification		0.08 ***		0.02	0.02	0.03
family income in $1986, millions			1.38 ***	1.27 **	1.06 +	0.94 +
highest year of school completed			0.02 ***	0.02***	0.02 ***	0.02 ***
age					0.01 **	0.02 ***
age squared					−0.00 **	−0.00 **
male					0.04	0.01
married					−0.11 **	−0.07 *
number of persons in household					−0.01	0.00
health					0.03	0.04 *
white					0.10 **	0.09 *
liberal						0.10 **
conservative						−0.13 ***
how often r attends religious services						−0.04 ***
religious denomination dummies	no	no	no	no	no	yes
census region dummies	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
constant	2.53 ***	2.34 ***	2.24 ***	2.21 ***	1.72 ***	1.60 ***
N	8323	8278	7361	7337	4822	4702

+ 0.10 * 0.05 ** 0.01 *** 0.001; robust std err.

and

Table 5. Materialism: OLS regressions of job is just a way to earn money.

	i1	i2a	i2b	i3	i4	i5
urbanism (base: country)
lt 2.5 k	0.24 *	0.27 *	0.14	0.21 +	0.37 **	0.29 *
2.5–10 k	0.13	0.21 *	0.10	0.24 *	0.39 ***	0.39 **
10–50 k	−0.01	0.06	0.04	0.12	0.12	0.12
uninc med	−0.03	0.00	0.08	0.14	0.15	0.12
uninc lrg	−0.06	0.11	0.14 +	0.25 *	0.28 *	0.28 *
med sub	0.02	0.13	0.11	0.22 *	0.29 **	0.25 *
lrg sub	0.04	0.13	0.21 **	0.26 **	0.25 *	0.21 *
50–250 k	0.08	0.13	0.17 *	0.26 **	0.26 *	0.25 *
gt 250 k	0.17 *	0.21 *	0.26 ***	0.33 ***	0.25 *	0.23 *
subjective class identification		−0.33 ***		−0.15 ***	−0.12 **	−0.09 *
family income in $1986, millions			−4.07 ***	−3.39 ***	−2.90 **	−3.39 ***
highest year of school completed			−0.10 ***	−0.10 ***	−0.09 ***	−0.08 ***
age					0.00	−0.00
age squared					−0.00	0.00
male					0.07 +	0.07
married					−0.05	−0.06
number of persons in household					0.02	0.03
health					−0.04	−0.03
white					−0.43 ***	−0.46 ***
liberal						−0.07
conservative						−0.01
how often r attends religious services						−0.01
religious denomination dummies	no	no	no	no	no	yes
census region dummies	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
constant	2.48 ***	3.27 ***	3.83 ***	4.10 ***	4.28 ***	4.25 ***
N	5567	4040	4958	3657	2781	2644

+ 0.10 * 0.05 ** 0.01 *** 0.001; robust std err.

below. Each table presents several models elaborated sequentially with an increasing number of control variables. Note that there are two models #2: 2a and 2b show alternative measurement of social class as subjective identification in model 2a, and as income and education in model 2b.

In general, larger places (variable urbanism) exhibit more materialism and immorality, most consistently the top category, gt 250 k, except in Table 5, where ‘job is just a way to earn money’ is higher in many places as compared to the base case, country. In general, larger places are more materialistic or immoral, and the largest places, gt 250 k, are most consistently so.

While there is some indication that the largest places, gt 250 k, are most materialistic/immoral, urbanism in general is associated with more materialism/immorality. This agrees with Joye et al. [6]—exposure to nature is arguably one of the key mechanisms, and the smaller the place, the more nature.

The above tables presented predictions of only 4 outcomes. The remaining other 4 measures of materialism and immorality, as defined in Table 1, are left for SOM—urbanicity measures are mostly insignificant in more elaborate models predicting these 4 measures. However, we do note that all measures except r agrees that morality is a personal matter, the coefficient on gt 250 k is positive and significant at least in less elaborated specifications, and is never negative and significant. In sum, 7 out of 8 measures indicate at least some positive relationship between urbanicity and materialism/immorality, and in 4 cases, even in the most elaborated/oversaturated models, results remain significant. In addition, SOM includes results using an alternative measure of urbanicity, srcbelt, rank of MSA—results are similar but weaker, arguably due to lower precision of the measure of urbanicity.

7. Conclusions and Discussion

“In the city [..], only the upper strata, the rich and the cultured, are really active and alive”. “City life [..] down the common people to decay and death”.

Ferdin and Toennies

“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe”. “I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man”.

Thomas Jefferson

Great thinkers such as Toennies, Simmel, and Jefferson have pointed out the materialistic and immoral side of urbanism. The present study has offered a preliminary quantitative test of the classic arguments.

Curiously, it is urbanites who often feel more moral or righteous than rural folks [85,86,87]. However, our findings point to the contrary—we find much support for the thesis that urbanness is associated with higher materialism and immorality. Seven out of eight measures show some evidence of greater materialism/immorality in large cities, and four measures remain significant even in the final most oversaturated model. However, we caution that, as it is one of the first studies in the area, it is provisional evidence; more research is needed in this new research area. While there is much theory, empirical research is virtually nonexistent.

The classic sociological urban literature is remarkably critical of cities. The authors must admit that we could not fully agree with very strong statements that a city intensifies materialism, consumerism, vice, crime, indifference, strangeness, aversion, and repulsion [9,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. However, our results support the thesis that urbanism is associated with materialism and immorality.

In terms of the literature foundation for future research in this area, there could be several directions. One could engage with economic approach, notably that by Ed Glaeser Glaeser et al. (2016), Glaeser (2011b, 2011a, 2007), Glaeser and Gottlieb (2006), Glaeser et al. (2001) [24,39,88,89,90,91] as for instance in Peck [92] and Okulicz-Kozaryn [19]. Then, there is a curious emerging interest in cities by neuroscience Adli et al., Pykett et al., and Lederbogen et al. [21,93,94]. Future research can also build on and engage with contemporary Marxist scholarship such as that by David Harvey [95,96,97,98,99].

We used only US data. While the results may not generalize outside of the US, the results may actually be stronger outside of the US. If materialism/consumerism is accepted anywhere, it is the US [100,101,102,103,104]. However, at the same time, materialism and consumerism are also most rampant in the US, and hence its effects outside of the US may not be that strong.

We use secondary data and hence our results are associative and not causal. An important limitation of the present study is measurement of materialism, especially immorality, and also somewhat limited controls—future research using better data is needed.

Due to the cross-sectional design, there are threats to internal validity. There may be reverse causality and self-selection: materialistic and immoral people may move or chose to stay in cities. As discussed throughout, cities are more welcoming to materialism/immorality, and hence may attract people with such characteristics. However, as discussed throughout, cities are likely to produce or intensify materialism/immorality. Hence, we speculate, that at least some of the effect would still be present in a quasi- or experimental research design. Additionally, see discussion in Joye et al. [6].

The role of the present study is to spark more research in this overlooked area rather than provide definitive evidence. As highlighted in the introduction, urbanism is rampant, and extent of contemporary materialism/consumerism is overlooked and rarely evaluated from a historical perspective. There is clearly a need for more research into rampant urbanism and widespread materialism/consumerism3.

Research into negative effects of urbanism is also important for another reason—those who suffer negative consequences, urbanites, are often urbanites not fully voluntarily. People are often forced into cities than urbanized voluntarily [105].