A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that suicide rates among middle-age Americans have surged over the last decade: an increase of nearly 30 percent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, among ages 35-64.
So, why the jump?
Ross Douthat and Brad Wilcox think it has to do with the growing anomie in society. Men who aren’t employed, didn’t attend college, and aren’t married are more likely than others to stick a gun in their mouth. (Of course, if you’re depressed, you aren’t going to have the energy to go to school or set up a profile on Match.com.)
Nate Cohn, at the New Republic, has other ideas.
If anything correlates with suicide rates, it’s a states’ population density: In populous areas, suicide rates are low; in the sparsely populated hinterlands, suicide rates are high. Perhaps depression and loneliness is particularly harsh in desolate areas, and maybe it’s easier to cope in a major city like D.C. or New York. A more intriguing possibility is gun ownership, which, like suicide rates, is highest in the West and lowest in the Northeast. The relationship between gun ownership and suicide isn’t hard to envision, since more than half of suicides are by firearm. Therefore, accessible firearms could plausibly increase suicide rates. Then again, the South has high levels of gun ownership and higher levels of depression than the inland West, but suicide is rarer in Alabama than Montana.
Apt. 11d 
Just an uneducated guess: there is more likely causation in population density. If you live in a sparse, widely separated community, not only will you perceive your options as more limited, but getting to any option is going to be more expensive than if you life in a high-density population center with lots of options (including more jobs, more free entertainment, and higher likelihood of shared interests leading to friendship or love).
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