Monthly Archives: November 2010

Six reasons for living in the country versus in cities

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The Yahoo Green blog provides a list of “six amazing things city dwellers miss out on.” Here are the six items on the list: stars, fresh air, peace and quiet, greenery, sounds of nature, and animals and wildlife.

It is interesting to think how many cities have created spaces where city dwellers can get glimpses of these things. Many large cities have large parks (think Central Park or Grant Park or the Golden Gate National Recreational Area) where some of these things are possible. However, as this blog suggests, seeing the stars even in the suburbs or thinking about city wildlife versus country wildlife is quite different.

To have all six of these things, how far would this blog suggest one has to move from the city? And for most Americans, how would these six amenities rate against the amenities that cities offer?

The globalization of scientific research

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A recent report from the United Nations suggests that while the West (and the United States, in particular) still dominate scientific work, other countries are gaining ground. Here are some of the measures from the UNESCO report:

In 2007 Japan spent 3.4% of its GDP on R&D, America 2.7%, the European Union (EU) collectively 1.8% and China 1.4% (see chart 1). Many countries seeking to improve their global scientific standing want to increase these figures. China plans to push on to 2.5% and Barack Obama would like to nudge America up to 3%. The number of researchers has also grown everywhere. China is on the verge of overtaking both America and the EU in the quantity of its scientists. Each had roughly 1.5m researchers out of a global total of 7.2m in 2007…

One indicator of prowess is how much a country’s researchers publish. As an individual country, America still leads the world by some distance. Yet America’s share of world publications, at 28% in 2007, is slipping. In 2002 it was 31%. The EU’s collective share also fell, from 40% to 37%, whereas China’s has more than doubled to 10% and Brazil’s grew by 60%, from 1.7% of the world’s output to 2.7%…

UNESCO’s latest attempt to look at patents has therefore focused on the offices of America, Europe and Japan, as these are deemed of “high quality”. In these patent offices, America dominated, with 41.8% of the world’s patents in 2006, a share that had fallen only slightly over the previous our years. Japan had 27.9%, the EU 26.4%, South Korea 2.2% and China 0.5%.

Even though the United States still dominates a number of measures, UNESCO concluded Asia is the “dominant scientific continent in the coming years.”

A couple of things are interesting here:

1. Even if jobs have left the United States for cheaper locales, the US still has advantages in scientific research. How long this advantage holds up remains to be seen.

2. These are just three possible measures of scientific output. Other ones, such as journal citations, could be used but this seems fairly effective to quickly look at several measures.

3. It is interesting to think about how science itself will change based on increased research roles in non-Western nations.

h/t Instapundit

Making big money in real estate in the online world

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A number of stories in recent years have highlighted the increasing amount of real money changing hands in online games or environments. A recent example comes from the Entropia Universe where a gamer sold his property for over $600,000:

Take, for instance, what just went down on Planet Calypso, where one of Entropia’s wealthier players has sold off his interests in a “resort asteroid” for an eye-popping $635,000.

The seller is Jon Jacobs, also known as the character ‘Neverdie’. He originally purchased the asteroid in 2005 — eventually converting it into the extravagant resort ‘Club Neverdie’ — for the then-record price of $100,000. For those keeping score, that’s a gain of over $500,000 in just five years. In nerdier terms, that’s an ROI of 535%. Match that, Citibank.

And we’re not talking about Monopoly money here. Launched by Swedish developer MindArk in 2003, Entropia Universe features a real-world, fixed-rate currency exchange that works just like chips at a casino: players trade real cash for in-game funds called PEDs (Project Entropia Dollars), which can at any point be redeemed back for real, spendable cash — minus a transaction fee, of course.

Jacobs was making money from the get-go, however, having earned back his initial hundred-grand investment in just eight months. How? By selling rights to hunt and mine on the asteroid, as well as selling off bits of real estate. He worked it much like any real world landlord, really, but with a lot less red tape and a lot more graphics.

With that kind of a return on investment, will more people flock to these realms to make money? How many people in the world make a steady income based on online gaming?

There has to be a good sociological study being done out there about these types of transactions…

Mapping the most gerrymandered districts

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Buried in some of the election coverage this season was the story that this class of legislators will play an important role in the redistricting process. I love maps and here is a collection of maps of the “top ten most gerrymandered political districts in the United States.”

While there are some short descriptions of how these particular districts came to be defined, I’m sure there are some interesting stories about each case. If more voters knew that this is what districts could look like in the hands of legislators, would there be any outcry?

Losing a data source: the white pages of the phone book

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A number of phone companies have recently made requests of states that they stop publishing white pages. With this information available online and few people using the thick phone books, it looks like the phone book is on the way out. We might say “good riddance” but then briefly reflect on the usefulness of residential phone listings as data sources:

If the white pages are nearing their end, then Emily Goodmann hopes the directories would be archived for historical, genealogical or sociological purposes.

“The telephone directory stands as the original sort of information network that not only worked as kind of a social network in a sense, but it served as one of the first information resources,” said Goodmann, a doctoral student at Northwestern University who is writing her dissertation on the history of phone books as information technology. “It’s sort of heartbreaking … even though these books are essentially made to be destroyed.”

Particularly in studying communities in the late 1800s and early 1900s, phone listings can be an important source of data. In fact, they may be the only common source that lists a majority of residents.

(Interestingly, the article also notes that the Yellow Pages are doing just fine – and will continue to be printed.)

The CTA makes it official: will sell naming rights to almost anything

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This has been in the works for a while (particularly with the revamped Apple stop at North and Clybourn on the Red Line) but the CTA officially announced today that it will solicit “bids soon to sell naming rights to just about anything it owns.”

The transit agency expects to award corporate sponsorships by next spring, officials said. Rodriguez said the CTA will go out for bids next week to hire a corporate adviser who will help package the sponsorship opportunities.

“We want to find new ways to generate revenue, and we want to do so in a way that will enhance the experience of our riders for improvements, services and amenities,” Rodriguez said.

But he and other CTA officials declined to offer any estimates on how much money the venture might generate.

“Providing 1.7 million rides every single day is a value to somebody someplace,” Rodriguez said. “The question is, What’s it worth?”

Savvy marketers will want some idea of how much bang they’re getting for their investment, experts say. Marketers also would have to look past the “what-ifs” of having their brand name associated with the unpleasant realities of public transportation, which include unkempt stations, rail line breakdowns and potential crashes.

A couple of things seem remarkable about this:

1. Sociologists are often concerned with the lack of true public spaces in cities (and suburbs). This is bound to have some effect on what were previously public spaces; now there were be even more reminders about corporations.

2. The CTA is going forward with this without being able to say publicly how much money they might be able to raise? This seems foolish. Will they still go forward if bids end up being lower than expected? Might it have been better to line up some more deals before going public with this?

3. How exactly will these new revenues be used within the CTA?

4. What are the next steps for expanding the CTA budget if these deals do not bring in as much money as expected or costs continue to rise and these new revenues are not enough?

5. The agency said it “will be sensitive to avoid naming rights that are in poor taste or at all questionable.” This could lead to some interesting battles over which companies can purchase naming rights and which cannot. What may be responsible to one neighborhood is not necessarily responsible to another.

Don’t just ban Happy Meal toys; American food culture needs to be changed

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After San Francisco recently moved to ban the toys in Happy Meals (by tying the ability to include toys to certain nutrition benchmarks),  Josh Ozersky argues that more than just banning Happy Meals is needed: American food culture and what foods it says are good needs to be changed.

No, the problem with the ban is that it doesn’t go far enough. America’s tots aren’t getting supersized simply by eating Happy Meals…University of São Paulo professor Carlos Monteiro makes the case that “the rapid rise in consumption of ultra-processed food and drink products, especially since the 1980s, is the main dietary cause of the concurrent rapid rise in obesity and related diseases throughout the world.” And reversing that trend will be a lot harder than making Happy Meals a little less happy.

But still, you have to start somewhere, and I understand why the San Francisco supervisors picked Happy Meals as their beachhead…

Again and again, efforts to promote fresh fruit and produce in low-income urban areas have failed for the simple reason that Americans have been brainwashed. We have been conditioned, starting in utero, to prefer high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar concoctions rather than their less exciting, more natural culinary cousins…

Why? Because as Americans, we like highly processed food. It was invented to please us. Cheap flavor bombs will always trump healthier alternatives. Dangling a Transformer or Beanie Baby or some other toy du jour in front of a kid may help balance the playing field at least a little. But why can’t cheap, processed food be made healthier? Is that really impossible? Or is it just too expensive?

Ozersky doesn’t quite come out and say it but he is suggesting that Americans need to radically rethink their diets and food choices. This is not a matter of just eating less fast food but thinking about all processed food and why we eat it rather than more natural food. As other writers like Michael Pollan have pointed out, other cultures make different food choices where natural is the norm and meals are events that then five or ten minute periods where Americans try to relieve their hunger while also getting essential nutrients. American food habits are tied to a whole host of other phenomenon including cars (fast food), ideas about efficiency, technology (eating in front of the TV, microwaved food), ideas about how expensive food should be, and more. And these are patterns that start young.

The question of whether all of this could be changed through governmental intervention or through other means is another controversy for another day.

(Another thought: how come McDonald’s is the most common target of such actions? It is kind of like the attention that Walmart draws – neither McDonalds or Walmart are the only games in town and yet their size and reputation tends to draw the most attention.)

A recent experiment in human history: living alone

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Sociologist Eric Klinenberg recently spoke in Boston about a relatively recent trend in human history: living alone.

The stats are arresting. In this country, approximately 31 million people live alone, and one-person households make up 28 percent of the total, tying with childless couples as the most common residential type — “more common,’’ Klinenberg pointed out, “than the nuclear family, the multigenerational family, and the roommate or group home.’’

Those who live alone are mostly middle-age, with young adults the fastest-growing segment, and there are more women than men. No longer a transitional stage, living alone is one of the most stable household arrangements. And while one-person households were once scattered in low-density rural settings, they’re now concentrated in cities. “In Manhattan,’’ he said, “more than half of all residences are one-person dwellings.’’

You’d think that the United States, with its cult of individualism, would be the world leader in living alone, but it’s not. Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, among others, come in ahead of us…

But despite a chapter that expands his examination of dying alone in the city, Klinenberg’s new work, based on a study of hundreds of one-person households in several cities and forthcoming as a book next year, takes a much more positive view of living alone. He treats it as an important rite of passage, our emergent standard measure of full adulthood, one for which our society begins preparing us from infancy onward — by making it normal to teach babies to sleep alone and for middle-class children to have their own rooms, and by making it convenient for young adults to carry on full and rewarding lives while living alone.

Klinenberg makes an interesting point about how this idea of being alone is one that many families stress from a young age. This trend of living alone as adults may just be a logical consequence of socializing children with these ideas.

Additionally, it sounds like Klinenberg is not as pessimistic as some who argue that American society has become more fragmented in recent decades. Indeed, Klinenberg makes it sound like living alone could provide people the ability to be even more social.

One way this could change society is in how people understand themselves. Living with other people is revealing in that it demonstrates how others operate in day-to-day life and also reveals individual’s faults and positive traits. This sort of interaction is hard to duplicate outside of the home.

This trend could also raise questions about traditional understandings of families and adulthood. People who choose to have families or live with others may become those who have to explain themselves. Social policy might need to be altered to limit privileges for families or provide new privileges for those living alone.

In the end, what would Klinenberg say about accumulated thoughts over the centuries about communal life, such as Donne’s suggestion that “no man is an island”? Have we simply moved on to a better understanding of our lives as individuals and a society? How will “community” be redefined?

Plans to revamp Navy Pier

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Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin takes a look at new plans to revamp Navy Pier. Overall, Kamin argues the plans lack coherence even as they offer a few nice ideas:

That’s what’s missing from the new report: A bold design framework for the future of the 3,300-foot-long pier (above, in its current state), which was envisioned by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, completed in 1916, and remains Chicago’s top tourist attraction, even if it’s not as popular as it used to be.

Drawn up for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority by the Urban Land Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate developers’ group, the report unveiled Wednesday has a certain urgency because Navy Pier’s annual attendance has fallen to 8 million from a peak of 9 million in 2000.

But the report’s principal recommendations lack flashes of insight about the great public work, which originally consisted of classically-inspired buildings framing freight and passenger sheds. The sheds disappeared as part of the pier’s $225 million makeover, completed in 1995.

My complaints about the space would be a little different and not focus so much on the design. My main issue is that it is primarily a tourist attraction that has little revisit value and is not connected enough to other Chicago attractions like Michigan Avenue or the Chicago River. As a tourist destination, it doesn’t actually offer much to do – the stores are limited, there are limited eating opportunities, attractions like the Ferris Wheel aren’t something you would come back to several times a year, and the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre is a great performing space but doesn’t add much to the atmosphere. Additionally, Navy Pier is a bit of a walk from Michigan Avenue which features much more interesting shops and restaurants.

The contrast I would draw with Navy Pier is Millennium Park. The park doesn’t cost anything (outside of some concerts, ice skating, and food) but has attractive elements: interesting design, some great gardens to walk through, and great people-watching opportunities, as people converge from the train stations, State Street, Michigan Avenue, and the lakefront. Most of all, the park is not a mall or amusement park, which Navy Pier can often feel like. Millennium Park feels and operates like a real public space, not a controlled commercial environment.

What might be helpful are some low-cost options for boasting interest. Why not have revolving (and interesting) art displays or themes? Why not have more street performances? Why not work on connecting the Navy Pier streetscape with Michigan Avenue so it doesn’t require a drive to the overpriced Navy Pier garage? Navy Pier needs to offer more unique and cheap features that tourists and others can’t find elsewhere in Chicago.

The importance of perceptions: thinking about the golden age of flying

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There seems to be a lot of grousing about air travel these days, particularly with a flood of recent stories about full-body scanners and more aggressive pat-downs. These complaints raise a question: is flying today more troublesome and less glamorous than in the past? Some experts say today is actually the golden age for flying:

Whether it’s fees, crowded planes, no food or surly service, people will complain about the current state of air travel.

They’ll talk wistfully about the good old days of flying, of a bygone era when a glamorous stewardess delivered white-glove service with a smile, they had meals with real silverware and a courtesy cocktail was offered free on such carriers as Pan Am, TWA, Braniff or Eastern.

The so-called golden age of air travel in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s has passed, they’ll say, just as those airlines have.

But has it? No, say some veteran fliers and industry analysts. With historically affordable fares to nearly everywhere, greater options for service if you’re willing to pay, and new information and entertainment technology, there’s never been a better time to fly, they say.

So some experts that suggest by some objective measures, such as price and service level, flying is now better than it was in the past. But the issue really seems to be whether passengers feel that this is the case. And this is what matters for airlines – if potential customers perceive that flying is difficult and then choose other forms of travel, these perceptions are real indeed.

What could be going on here? A few thoughts:

1. Memories and nostalgia are tricky things. People can romanticize the past and forget the troubles they experienced then.

2. Some of the security procedures instituted after 9/11 seem to irritate people. It adds an extra level of hassle and can make people feel like they are not trusted. On the other hand, there has not been a major airline incident in the US since 9/11.

3. Service and entertainment options may have increased but perhaps passengers expect even more. Does having more entertainment options offset sitting in cramped airplane seats?

4. I would be curious to know how many people actually enjoy flying versus feeling that it is the best, or perhaps only, transportation option to get them where they want to go.

h/t The Infrastructurist