Monthly Archives: December 2012

Seeing American population density one person at a time

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A MIT graduate student has put together new maps of American population density by plotting each person on a map:

Brandon Martin-Anderson, a graduate student at MIT’s Changing Places lab, was tired of seeing maps of U.S. population density cluttered by roads, bridges, county borders and other impediments.

Fortunately for us, he has the technological expertise to transform block data from the 2010 Census into points on a map. One point per person, and nothing else. (Martin-Anderson explains the process in more depth here.)

At times, the result is clean and beautiful to the point of abstraction, but when you know what you’re looking at, it’s a remarkably legible map. And while it resembles, broadly, Chris Howard’s political map of density that appeared after the presidential election, Martin-Anderon’s map can be magnified at any point. Users can watch each of the country’s metro areas dissolve from black to white. Even stripped of the features (roads, rivers) that shape human settlement, density has its own logic.

The maps show some different spatial patterns. For example, look at the different between some of the Northeast Corridor and the Midwest:

I don’t know that it is right to see density has its own logic; there are underlying factors behind these patterns. Topography is one factor but we could also look into how cities and suburbs expand (and there are a variety of sociological explanations about this including profit-seeking, competition for land, and global forces) and might also think about this in terms of social networks (the Northeast is denser, the Midwest more spread out).

Additionally, what about the flip side of these maps: there is still a decent amount of less dense space in these maps. We tend to focus on the largest population centers, several of which are represented on these maps, but the really dense areas are still limited. I suppose this is a matter of perspective: just how much less dense space do we need or should we have around and between metropolitan areas? Some of this would be affected by land that cannot be used profitably and well or land that is used for farming.

One caveat I have about how these maps were presented: shouldn’t they be at the same scale to really make comparisons?

$2.1 million Chicago McMansion would be worse if it was in “the tacky suburbs”

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Curbed Chicago takes notes of a listing for a $2.1 million, 9,000 square foot McMansion in the Bridgeport neighborhood. Interesting enough but the first comment for the story is more fascinating:

It looks like it belongs in the tacky suburbs like Hinsdale, Barrington, Highland Park, Naperville, and many more suburbs where the new houses look so hideous. More is not always better. Also, many houses in Bridgeport don’t have trees in front of them so they look even worse as the streets aren’t tree-lined in front of many houses. Trees make any area look so much better.

I guess it could be worse with an aluminum-sided facade. It is at least in the city and not the ugly suburbs. It could be worse.

Here we get a concise summary of what is said to be wrong about McMansions: they are too big and they don’t look good (too much siding, not enough trees). But, the overriding concern here is that McMansions contribute to suburban sprawl. “It is at least in the city” is the Bridgeport home’s only redeeming quality as it then is not contributing to “tacky suburbs.” Of course, these suburbs do indeed have McMansions but there is more to these communities than just their garish homes. For example, Hinsdale and Naperville are known for their money and large homes, both in newer subdivisions as well as teardowns, but each suburb has over 100 years of history, a historic downtown core, train stations for commuting into Chicago, and businesses inside the community or nearby that provide thousands of jobs. In other words, these “tacky suburbs” are not just about McMansions though they may look that way from the city.

Applying microsociology to the face of the Mona Lisa

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Sociologist Randall Collins uses microsociology and the concept of microexpressions to examine the Mona Lisa:

The purpose of micro-sociology is not to be an art critic. I only make the venture because so many popular interpretations of the Mona Lisa blunder into social psychology.  But reading the expressions on photos is good training for other pursuits. Paul Ekman holds that knowledge of the facial and bodily expressions of emotions is a practical skill in everyday life, giving some applications in his book Telling Lies. And it is not just a matter of looking for deceptions. We would be better at dealing with other people if we paid more attention to reading their emotional expressions—not to call them on it, but so that we can see better what they are feeling. Persons in abusive relationships—especially the abuser—could use training in recognizing how their own emotional expressions are affecting their victims; and greater such sensitivity could head off violent escalations.

Facial expressions, like all emotions, are not just individual psychology but micro-sociology, because these are signs people send to each other. The age we live in, when images from real-life situations are readily available in photos and videos, has opened a new research tool. I have used it (in Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory) to show that at the moment of face-to-face violence, expressions of anger on the part of the attacker turn into tension and fear; and this discovery leads to a new theory of what makes violence happen, or not.  On the positive side, micro-interactions that build mutual attunement among persons’ emotions are the key to group solidarity, and their lack is what produces indifference or antipathy. And we can read the emotions—a lot more plainly than the smile on Mona Lisa’s face.

Watching for microexpressions definitely makes social interaction more interesting. Ekman’s work suggests telltale signs on people’s faces reveal their true underlying emotions and also people tend to have very quick initial expressions before they put on their face or mask of what they are trying to express. Goffman’s ideas about impression management still apply, we generally are trying to save face and maintain our social status, but it is harder than simply saying the right things or acting in the right way as our facial expressions can still give us away.

Question: “What are some pictures of McMansions that some people find aesthetically pleasing and well designed?”

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In contrast to looking for photos of the most garish McMansions, one Quora user ask the opposite question: “What are some pictures of McMansions that some people find aesthetically pleasing and well designed?”

This is a fascinating question because it assumes such pictures could be found. The definition of the term itself tends to imply something is wrong with the home: it is too big (absolutely or relative to other nearby homes), it is not designed well, or it is tied to other issues (sprawl, excessive consumption). Beyond that, McMansions could be viewed less as a matter of bad taste and more as morally wrong. There are not too many loud defenders of McMansions though it seems like builders like Toll Brothers, who critics have argued have built such homes for years, are doing okay.

So if people can’t bring themselves to suggest a McMansion is well designed, I wonder if tweaking the question might get better results: “are there McMansions that are less problematic?” If phrased this way, we could place McMansions along a continuum of well designed to poorly designed or better to bad and see the range of possibilities.

Lack of black offensive playcallers in the NFL

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The NFL has only one black offensive coordinator:

“We are very, very conscious of this issue, and it’s something that needs to be addressed,” said John Wooten, the chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, an organization charged with promoting equality of job opportunity in NFL coaching and front office staffs. “We have alluded to it and spoken to it directly, and we feel our only course of action is to push more people up the pipeline.”

Complicating matters for Wooten and the legions of aspiring minority offensive coordinators is that the pipeline is also disproportionately dry…

Right now, the NFL’s sole African-American offensive coordinator is the Buffalo Bills’ Curtis Modkins, who doubles as the team’s running backs coach. However, Bills coach Chan Gailey is the team’s de facto offensive coordinator and primary play-caller. Only two African-Americans, the Houston Texans’ Karl Dorrell and the Minnesota Vikings’ Craig Johnson, are quarterbacks coaches, the position-coach job which most frequently leads to offensive-coordinator opportunities.

“This is the biggest travesty that’s taking place in this league, and every black coach is well aware of it,” said one anonymous African-American assistant for an AFC team. “They don’t promote you from running backs coach or receivers coach to offensive coordinator. When guys do get coordinator titles, they have to be position coaches at the same time, and they don’t get paid as much as other coordinators, because they’re not the play-callers. And in a lot of cases, guys believe they’re really there for locker-room reasons, to ‘take care of’ the minority players.”

A classic example in the sociology of sport of how race plays out in sports is to look at the expectations for and portrayal of black and white quarterbacks: black quarterbacks are expected to be more mobile and use their natural ability while white quarterbacks tend to be viewed as tacticians. I wonder if the same thing is going on here. Defense is said to require more reaction ability and athletic skills while offense is about strategy and throwing off the defense. Offensive playcalling is more of a sacred art that requires an intelligent guru to make things happen. Also, it sounds like this is a social network problem: black playcallers need to be able to have access to lower offensive positions, be able to prove themselves there, and then have the opportunity to move up when jobs become available. Without this chain in place, it could be a very similar issue to what might be behind the unemployment gap between whites and blacks.

The article doesn’t say much about this but the NFL has put policies in place for helping to ensure minority candidates are interviewed for head coaching positions so will something similar happen here?

The differences by race in using social networks to find a job

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Unemployment rates are quite different for whites and blacks. Social networks may be the reason why:

But this stubborn fact remains: The African-American jobless rate is about twice that of whites, a disparity that has barely budged since the government began tracking the data in 1972. In last week’s jobs report, the black unemployment rate was 13.2 percent, while the white rate stood at 6.8 percent.

Discrimination has long been seen as the primary reason for this disparity, which is evident among workers from engineers to laborers. But fresh research has led scholars to conclude that African-Americans also suffer in the labor market from having weaker social networks than other groups.

Having friends and relatives who can introduce you to bosses or tell you about ripe opportunities has proved to be one of the most critical factors in getting work. Such connections can also help people hold on to their jobs, researchers say.

“It is surprising to many people how important job networks are to finding work,” said Deirdre Royster, a New York University sociologist. “The information they provide help people make a good first impression, get through screening and get hired.”

Considering sociologist Mark Granovetter’s oft-cited piece on how weak ties help people find jobs, perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising. Social capital can go a long way toward accessing opportunities in society. Also, Royster’s book Race and the Invisible Hand is an interesting look at how this played out in one Baltimore vocational high school as faculty members tended to give white students access to their social networks while not giving the same privileges to black students.

A mid-twentieth century vision of “the future” versus welcome changes to everyday life for average Americans

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Virginia Postrel compares the vision of “the future” decades ago versus the changes that have made the everyday lives of many Americans better:

Forget the big, obvious things like Internet search, GPS, smartphones or molecularly targeted cancer treatments. Compared with the real 21st century, old projections of The Future offered a paucity of fundamentally new technologies. They included no laparoscopic surgery or effective acne treatments or ADHD medications or Lasik or lithotripsy — to name just a few medical advances that don’t significantly affect life expectancy…

Nor was much business innovation evident in those 20th century visions. The glamorous future included no FedEx or Wal- Mart, no Starbucks or Nike or Craigslist — culturally transformative enterprises that use technology but derive their real value from organization and insight. Nobody used shipping containers or optimized supply chains. The manufacturing revolution that began at Toyota never happened. And forget about such complex but quotidian inventions as wickable fabrics or salad in a bag.

The point isn’t that people in the past failed to predict all these innovations. It’s that people in the present take them for granted.

Technologists who lament the “end of the future” are denigrating the decentralized, incremental advances that actually improve everyday life. And they’re promoting a truncated idea of past innovation: economic history with railroads but no department stores, radio but no ready-to-wear apparel, vaccines but no consumer packaged goods, jets but no plastics.

I wonder if another way to categorize this would be to say that many of the changes in recent decades have been more about quality of life, not significantly different way of doing things or viewing the world (outside of the Internet). Quality of life is harder to measure but if we take the long view, the average life of a middle-class American today contains improvements over decades before. Also, is this primarily a history or perspective issue? History tends to be told (and written) by people in charge who often focus on the big people and moments. It is harder to track, understand, and analyze what the “average” person experiences day to day.

I can imagine some might see Postrel’s argument and suggest we are deluded by some of these quality of life improvements and we forget about what we have given up. While some of this might be mythologizing about a golden era that never quite was, it is common to hear such arguments about the Internet and Facebook: it brings new opportunities but fundamentally changes how humans interact with each other and machines (see Alone Together by Sherry Turkle). We now have Amazon and Walmart but have lost any relationships with small business owners and community shops. We may have Starbucks coffee but it may not be good for us.

The “world’s longest fast train line” for the day after Christmas: Beijing to Guangzhou in eight hours

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While high speed rail continues to inch along in the United States, China continues to build. A new line opened yesterday connecting Beijing and Guangzhou:

The opening of the 2,298 kilometer (1,428 mile)-line was commemorated by the 9 a.m. departure of a train from Beijing for Guangzhou. Another train left Guangzhou for Beijing an hour later…

Trains on the latest high-speed line will initially run at 300 kph (186 mph) with a total travel time of about eight hours. Before, the fastest time between the two cities by train was more than 20 hours…

More than 150 pairs of high-speed trains will run on the new line every day, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Ministry of Railways.

Railway is an essential part in China’s transportation system, and the government plans to build a grid of high-speed railways with four east-west lines and four north-south lines by 2020.

When I see stories like this about infrastructure in China, I’m struck by three things:

1. The ability to construct these large infrastructure projects is remarkable. I wonder what China will do next. Faster trains? An even bigger rail network?

2. The contrast with transportation options in the United States is interesting. Our equivalent to high-speed trains is an extensive interstate network that connects all major cities. The interstate option plays on several American traits: it was built in the prosperous era after World War II, it allows more freedom for driving (which requires certain incomes and interest in driving), and it allows for more diffuse living patterns (meaning: suburbs).

3. I wish these stories were accompanied by ridership figures. Over 150 pairs of trains a day is impressive and these are two major population centers: Beijing has over 19 million people and Guangzhou has over 12 million people (and perhaps around 40 million in the Pearl River Delta). So are these trains going to be full? How much does it cost? Can the average Chinese resident ride these trains?

From the parking meters of Blade Runner to the parking meters of the future

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This Observation Deck video tackles the futuristic parking meters in Blade Runner that have come to fruition.

Adam Rogers hints at the end what the parking meters of the future might hold. I’m sure drivers would love to get information on their phones about what spots are available (perhaps for a low app price?). However, I wonder about a world where parking meters are not even needed. With the rise of GPS devices in cars and on car operators (through phones, GPS devices, etc.), couldn’t parking be tracked this way rather than through devices planted in the sidewalk? Imagine a world where you as a driver could pull up to an open spot at the curb and later drive away, all the while paying by a mobile transponder that kept track of the time you spent in that spot.

This also briefly reminds me of the fate of parking meters in many suburban communities. While cities still struggle with how to best raise revenues through parking meters or how to maintain and run the system (like with Chicago’s woes in recent years with the privatization of the parking meters), cheap parking at strip malls, shopping malls, and big box stores effectively killed the parking meter. This is unlikely to happen anytime soon in cities where space is at a premium but the contrast is intriguing.

Fighting over the most expensive Christmas tree lot in New York City

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Prices are higher in New York City. This even extends to the cost of renting Christmas tree lots which has led to a battle between two New York City Christmas tree entrepreneurs:

“SoHo Square,” says Scott Lechner, who pays the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation close to $50,000 a year to sell trees here, “is the most expensive site in the world.” He doesn’t sound proud of it.

But Lechner must bid high to stay ahead of his onetime protégé, George P. Smith, who has been on something of a spending spree since he outbid Lechner and took over his Washington Market space in 2007. Smith has also made waves with a huge takeover bid for the Marine Parkway spot in Brooklyn, and has tried to do the same in SoHo and elsewhere.

Smith now has seven locations; Lechner has nine. The two are bitter enemies. Lechner calls Smith an “unsavory individual,” who was “fired by my organization for malfeasance and dishonorable conduct.” (“He hates my guts,” Smith says.)…

The contested Washington Market space — one of 21 the parks department has auctioned off to vendors for the month — was the site, in 1851, of the first urban tree lot in the United States, for which a Catskill woodsman named Mark Carr paid a silver dollar in rent. Today, Smith says he plays close to $30,000 a year for a mere 33 days of sales.

Even in the nation’s most expensive ZIP codes, these rents are, for the moment, somewhat unusual. Rents for many other tree sales sites in the city remain in the low thousands. In 2011, a space on Central Park West was $1,150. DeWitt Clinton Park on West 44th St. was $2,500. Essex Playground, $3,960.

The rest of the story notes that this has been a good thing for the city’s parks department whose is raising more revenue in the competitive bidding for these lots. With many cities facing fiscal issues, I’m sure New York City is happy to have this extra money. Of course, this has repercussions: people buying trees at these lots now pay higher prices.

This could lead to an interesting discussion about whether Christmas trees should be treated more like public goods that shouldn’t be so expensive. For a resident of Manhattan who has no individual vehicle, acquiring a Christmas tree, real or fake, could be a difficult task. This sounds like a more limited market where the consumer is already behind and may not be able to comparison shop much. The average suburbanite, on the other hand, has more options.

This also reminds me of sociologist Mitchell Duneier’s ethnography Sidewalk. Toward the end of the book, Duneier discusses how a family who comes to the city for a month each year to sell Christmas trees is treated much differently than the homeless black men who are street vendors in the community all year long. The contrast is striking: because the tree vendors are white and respectable, local residents interact with them regularly while having more antagonistic relations with the black street vendors. Apparently, getting into the Christmas tree game in New York City takes some major money and this limits who can can sell such goods and participate in community life.