Monthly Archives: July 2013

Sociologist Charles Tilly honored in Elmhurst, IL

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It is not often that you see renowned sociologists acknowledged by their high schools in the Chicago suburbs: the late Charles Tilly is being honored by York High School in Elmhurst.

York High School finally has its first group of hall of famers—or as they are referred to in District 205, Dukes of Distinction.

This well-deserved group was culled from nominations submitted by Elmhurst community members, District 205 staff, alumni and others early this year. These eight honorees have distinguished themselves through significant and extraordinary accomplishments, service and an outstanding contribution to society…

Dr. Charles Tilly, Class of 1946

Dr. Tilly was a a comparative and historical sociologist, analyst of social movements, and a social theorist, political sociologist and methodological innovator. Dr. Tilly authored 51 books and over 600 articles, as well as directing over 200 doctoral dissertations. He was a member of numerous scientific academies and a lecturer at universities all over the world. He was called “an intellectual global powerhouse,” whose contributions led to the development of seven subfields in sociology. Dr. Tilly died in 2008.

Perhaps I’m alone in this but I would be intrigued to hear how well-known sociologists made it from high school to an academic career in sociology. Is there anything about Lombard and Elmhurst that pushed Tilly toward sociology? I recently saw another suggestion that the lives of adults tend to mirror their lives in high school, which is highly reductionistic and depressing, but perhaps future sociologists were different?

Also, given the history of sociology in Chicago, how many other sociologists are from the Chicago suburbs? How about a per capita look at which major US regions produce the most sociologists?

Projection: US homeownership rate to continue to fall

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One firm projects the homeownership rate in the United States will continue to fall through next year:

The homeownership rate in the second quarter was unchanged from the prior three month period, according to Census Bureau data released today. It will hit bottom at about 64 percent in the next year as families leave the foreclosure pipeline and enter rental homes, according to a May analysis by London-based Capital Economics Inc. It’s currently the lowest in almost 18 years after averaging about 64 percent for 30 years through 1995.

First-time buyers and minorities are among the groups that have seen the sharpest declines since the crash. While property ownership among senior citizens was little changed at about 81 percent, the share below age 35 that own a home fell to about 37 percent from almost 42 percent five years earlier.

The rate for blacks reached almost 50 percent in the second quarter of 2004 from about 43 percent in 1995, Census Bureau data show. By the second quarter of this year, it had dropped to 42.9 percent. The rate for whites fell to 73.3 percent in the second quarter, from 76.2 percent in 2004.

The good news: the projection suggests the bottom is about 64 percent. The bad news: there are still plenty of people caught in the foreclosure pipeline. This is a reminder that foreclosures aren’t just about people having to leave their current home; it also gunks up the market far down the road.

See charts of the trends, with the latest 2013 2Q data, here.

Urban quiz: identify the city solely by its Starbucks locations

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See the Starbucks locations and identify the major city.

The quiz suggests you can see the rough outline of the city but this isn’t quite the case. It is probably more accurate to say that you can name the city from the higher-income neighborhoods where Starbucks are located (or not seeing the lower-income neighborhoods on the map). For example, look at the map of Chicago and the relative lack of locations on the west and south sides:

StarbucksinChicago

In other words, Starbucks acts as a proxy for other important factors in cities.

“Sociological experiment” with children using mobile devices

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An Australian psychologist suggests we don’t quite know what will happen with lots of young children now using tablets and other electronics:

Research indicates that almost half of all toddlers up to two years old have played with a mobile device. It also reveals that 15 per cent of that group can also operate a home entertainment system. That rises to 31 per cent of three- to five-year-olds and a third of six- to eight-year-olds.

The study of 750 adults across Australia who have an internet connection included questions about how children interact with technology and was conducted by media intelligence firm Magna Global.

Most frequently used were iPads (27 per cent for three- to five-year-olds and 43 per cent for six- to eight-year-olds) followed by Wi-Fi-enabled laptops (21 per cent for three- to five-year-olds and 38 per cent for six- to eight-years-olds)…

Jordy Kaufman, a child psychologist and founder of the Swinburne BabyLab, has studied how children interact with devices. ”Given the massive uptake of mobile device use by young kids, we can be said to be engaged in a grand sociological experiment where no one knows what the results will be,” he said.

But he cautions that just because we do not know the outcome, that does not mean the use of devices is negative. There are opportunities for learning from iPads that did not exist before, Dr Kaufman said.

I suppose there are three possible reactions to the situation. Go all in and see the use of mobile electronics as simply part of the progress of the modern world. Americans tend to like progress and new opportunities and these devices certainly fulfill these two requirements. This full usage may occur even with evidence that they don’t contribute much to learning. The opposite reaction is to not allow children access to such devices. To some degree, this is helped by the fact that such devices are not yet completely ubiquitous. But, some may want to wait and see how children respond to mobile devices. And, there is some middle ground where children could use new electronics in moderation alongside more “traditional” activities.

It sounds like we need some sort of randomized experiment to help figure this out. But, we are getting close to a time where it would be really difficult to pull this off.

Audits of Chicago budget reveal behind the scenes information about the city

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In addition to illustrating Chicago’s difficult financial situation, the 2012 budget audits also contain other interesting information about the city. Here are a few examples with some quick commentary:

The number of “physical arrests” by Chicago Police officers declined again — from 152,740 in 2011 to 145,390 in 2012. That continues a six-year trend that coincides with the hiring slowdown that caused a dramatic decline in the number of police officers. Police made 227,576 arrests in 2006. The number of arrests has been dropping like a rock ever since.

The Chicago Police Department has long argued that it doesn’t measure the success of crime-fighting strategies simply by the number of arrests.

Despite the negative media attention about crime in Chicago, arrests are down. So what has happened: less crimes are being committed? Chicago police have adopted different strategies?

Daily refuse collections declined from 3,983 tons in 2011 year ago to 3,763 in 2012. Last year’s 52-ton increase had reversed a five-year trend. The amount of garbage generated by the 600,000 Chicago households was 4,451 tons a day in 2006 to 4,240 in 2008.

Thanks to last year’s record heat and drought conditions, average daily water consumption rose by 23 million gallons — to 793 million gallons — reversing a steady decline. In 2006, Chicago’s 1.04 million households were guzzling 884.9 million gallons-a-day. Operating revenues in the city’s water fund were up by $122.1 million or 29.6 percent, thanks to Emanuel’s 25 percent increase in water rates.

Interesting contrast: less garbage but more water usage. This highlights the behind the scenes stuff that is essential to city life but doesn’t receive much attention (unlike crime). Over 3,700 tons of garbage a day! Where does it all go?

Chicago’s 165 tax-increment-financing districts had a collective balance of $1.5 billion. Most of that money is uncommitted, fueling an aldermanic demand Emanuel has rejected: to declare a TIF surplus and use the money to reduce some of the 3,000 layoffs at Chicago Public Schools.

TIFs are intended to collect money to help encourage new development. If there is such a surplus in the TIF funds, why aren’t they being used for development?

Chicago’s principal private employers were: J.P. Morgan Chase (8,168 workers); United Airlines (7,521); Accenture LLP (5,590); Northern Trust (5,448); Jewel Foods (4,572) and Ford Motor Co. (4,187). The 2012 city payroll was 33,708 — down from 40,297 in 2006.

An interesting list of companies – I was surprised by Chase leading the way and Ford so high on the list.

There are other interesting pieces of these audits including revenues and passengers at the two airports as well as the value of the city’s historical and art collection (if this figure is correct, nothing near what the city of Detroit controls). Such information not only hints at how the city really works but also provides helpful financial indicators for assessing the current state and future direction of the city.

Sociologist receives award in part for one article being cited over 24,000 times

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Mark Granovetter’s 1973 article “The Strength of Weak Ties” is a sociological classic and still is cited frequently in top sociology journals (see 2012 data here). This impressive number of citations contributed to the naming of Granovetter as the recipient of an award:

Cited over 24,000 times, Granovetter’s 1973 paper “The Strength of Weak Ties” is a social science classic and a milestone in network theory. Our close friends are strongly in touch with us and each other, he wrote, but our acquaintances – weak ties – are crucial bridges to other densely knit clumps of close friends. The more weak ties we have, the more in touch we are with ideas, fashions, job openings and whatever else is going on in diverse and far-flung communities.

The award honors the late Everett M. Rogers, a former associate dean at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and an influential communication scholar whose Diffusion of Innovation is the second-most cited book in the social sciences.  Presented since 2007 on behalf of USC Annenberg by its Norman Lear Center, the award recognizes outstanding scholars and practitioners whose work has contributed path-breaking insights in areas of Rogers’s legacy.

At the USC Annenberg School on Wednesday, September 18 at 12 noon, Granovetter will present “The Strength of Weak Ties” Revisited.  He will discuss how he came to write it; where it fits in the history of social network analysis; how its argument has held up over the years; and its significance in recent social revolutions, where it’s often been claimed that social networks are at the core of the new political developments.  The event is free and open to the public but RSVP is required. (RSVP is available online at: http://bit.ly/189ayDM)

There is no doubt that being cited over 24,000 times is impressive. Granovetter’s work has been utilized in multiple disciplines and came at the forefront of an explosion of research on social networks and their effects.
At the same time, the press release makes a big deal about citations twice while also highlighting Granovetter’s specific findings. Which is more important in the world of science today: the number of citations, which is a measure of importance, or about the actual findings and how it pushed science forward? This award can contribute to existing debates about the importance of citations as a measure. What exactly do they tell us and should we recognize those who are cited the most?

Robert Wuthnow on new findings about small town America

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Sociologist Robert Wuthnow discusses his new findings about small town America:

The nation’s 15,000 small towns are sometimes portrayed as idyllic places that are “the real America” and sometimes as dying communities to be escaped at the first opportunity, said Wuthnow, the Gerhard R. Andlinger ’52 Professor of Social Sciences and a professor of sociology. Too often missing from the discussion, he said, are the voices of small-town residents themselves.

That’s part of the reason Wuthnow undertook a research project that included interviews with more than 700 people in small towns around the country and analysis of Census and survey data. Results of the research are detailed in a book, “Small-Town America: Finding Community, Shaping the Future,” released this month by Princeton University Press…

“[This issue] matters mostly because any segment of the population, especially one that includes some 30 million people, is one that we need to understand, whether we are attracted or not attracted to small towns,” Wuthnow said. “My main hope in doing this project was first of all to encourage greater understanding of the variety of small towns, the complexity of small towns and secondly to engender a certain degree of respect so that there was an appreciation of what small towns have to offer.”

Wuthnow said there’s reason for optimism about the future of many of those towns, pointing to the resilience of their residents, opportunities for small-scale economic development and lower cost of living.

“A lot of people have predicted the death of small towns. It is true that many small towns are declining, especially if they have already become quite small or already were declining. My view is a little more mixed than that,” he said. “There is also a social resilience in small towns. A town of anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000, up to 10,000 people is likely to do pretty well. I would predict that in the next 10 years or 20 years there will still be at least 30 million people living in small towns.”

If the population remained around 30 million in small towns, the proportion of Americans living in small towns would still decrease, suggesting small town life is still declining in the United States. Additionally, this means less political representation. At the same time, Wuthnow is right in suggesting that small towns still play a large role in American life. See this earlier post about how American live in an urban society but still are tied to small town values. I still think the suburbs are often about combining the ethos of a small town – smaller population, community participation and volunteering, safe for kids – with the amenities of urban areas which include a range of jobs, access to social and cultural events, and a measure of anonymity or degree of choosing compared to small towns where everyone knows everyone else (also see this earlier post).

Unrest in Paris suburbs highlights changes in suburbs around the world

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Tensions ran high last week in a Paris suburb as immigrants reacted to their economic and social conditions:

Weekend violence outside Paris triggered by France’s controversial veil ban has highlighted how tensions with the Muslim community are adding to an already-volatile mix of poverty and alienation in the country’s blighted suburbs.

The unrest in the Paris suburb of Trappes erupted after a man was arrested for allegedly attacking a police officer who stopped his wife over wearing a full-face veil in public.

Feelings of anti-Muslim discrimination, coupled with unemployment and tensions with police are creating an “explosive” mix in the suburbs, said Veronique Le Goaziou, a sociologist and expert on urban violence in France…

A few kilometres (miles) from the Chateau de Versailles, Trappes is a poor city of 30,000 surrounded by wealthy neighbours. In 2010, half the households lived on less than 13,400 euros ($17,600) a year and unemployment was at 15 percent.

“This is a terrifyingly common situation,” said sociologist Michel Kokoreff. “We are in an area that has problem after problem, where people have a profound feeling of abandonment.”

This is a reminder that the monoculture view of suburbs, that they primarily consist of the middle- to upper-classes around the world living in isolated communities, is simply not the case in many places.  American suburbs are increasingly diverse (recent posts: more poor residents, more aging residents, more immigrants looking for opportunities) and suburbs outside of many European cities have been poorer from the beginning (though the increasing religious diversity is of more recent decades). All together, there are plenty of suburban problems for American and French suburbs to address. The actions taken (or not taken) have the potential to set the course individual suburbs but also suburbs as a whole for decades to come.

Photographing suburban McMansions around the world

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See pictures of large suburban homes around the world as well as read insights about the developments from the photographer:

After six years of travel to five different continents, Adolfsson has published Suburbia Gone Wild, a new photography book that goes in and around the model homes of wealthy cul-de-sacs in cities like Bangalore, Moscow, and Cairo. His discoveries reveal a world that continues to homogenize around emerging clusters of wealth aspiring to a particularly American brand of suburban life.

It wasn’t always easy for Adolfsson to capture these oddly beautiful shots of perfectly arranged kitchen pantries and opulent living rooms. His method was to photograph the model homes inside these developments, hiring locals to pretend to be a significant other who would then distract sales reps as he snuck off to take pictures around the house…

This copy+paste behavior is a result of America’s cultural dominance over the past five decades, exported through soap operas, movies, and magazines. I also think that the “lifestyle” fills a cultural gap as many of these countries didn’t have an upper middle class until recently and haven’t established a strong identity for this growing class yet…

I came to the realization that many of the residents living in these suburbs share a common identity with residents living in similar communities around the world, whether it’s Bangkok, Cairo, Moscow or São Paulo, than they do with their fellow countrymen living outside the gates of these suburbs. I think this is the beginning of a huge global shift where national identity is becoming less relevant.

Another cultural export of the United States of America.

I like the connection to a global/Americanized/suburbanized mentality. At the same time, this is only available to an upper-income section of global society so this is a limited group. It could get a lot more interesting if these people from around the world started gathering and interacting on a more consistent basis. Perhaps this is already happening in tourist spots, conferences, places of consumption (from retail to media), or corporate offices.

There would be a lot of room for research on how this global/suburban identity then meshes with more local identities. Critics have argued that suburbs within America have their own culture, full of everything from conformity to individualism (depending on which critic you listen to over the last six decades). But, the United States is now a suburban nation so the suburban identity is quite common and is expressed all over the place from movies to TV to books to politics. It would be a lot different in countries without an established suburban ethos.

Shift from buying big homes to upgrading fixtures

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I’ve suspected this for quite a while: here is some evidence Americans have moved past purchasing large homes, McMansions if you will, and are instead paying more for the finer touches in their homes.

Beginning next month, Majestic Building Products, a longtime wholesale supplier to companies such as Pulte Homes and Marriott International, is opening its showroom to the public.

Owner Jeff Jenkins said he is expanding the Leesburg-based company to keep up with growing demand for more-customized fixtures — ranging from bathroom mirrors to closet shelves.

“The whole philosophy has changed,” said Jenkins, who founded the company in 1989. “Ten years ago, everybody was out buying McMansions. People don’t care about having an 8,000-square-foot house anymore. They’re more interested in upgrading the little things.”

Those little things — door hinges, towel holders and shower doors — bring in about $9 million in annual revenue for the company. Jenkins said he expects sales to rise an extra 20 percent in the next year.

This could be viewed as a positive sign by those who decry the purchase of unnecessarily large homes: more Americans are paying attention to the interiors of their homes and making them enjoyable. Instead of focusing on size and its impressiveness and functionality, customizing the fixtures allows owners to focus more on their own personal interests and develop a home that more closely reflects their own tastes. This could be viewed as a shift away from mass-production to owners taking more responsibility and interest in their own settings.

On the other hand, focusing on the fixtures simply transfers the consumption from the larger issue of the home to the innumerable upgrades that could be made within a home. Think granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, hundreds of floor options, faucets, paint colors, and on and on. Plenty of money is still being spent on housing but instead of it going for new homes, it goes into new furnishings. As the article suggests later, the company is opening their showroom in part to help counter the fluctuations of the housing market and ensure a steady revenue stream. Can’t purchase the bigger or newer home you dream about? Instead, put that money into your current setting.

If this is all the case – and there is plenty of evidence that the new housing market is still sluggish – this hints at a possible large shift in American housing. Rather than being driven by housing starts and new development, perhaps the future in a tighter economic market is in premium fixtures and more customization of existing homes to the tastes of their current owners.