Monthly Archives: April 2011

How being multiracial affects self-reported health

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It is only in the last 11 years or so that official forms (like the Census) have allowed individuals in America to identify as being from more than one race. A couple of sociologists argue that this multiracial identification impacts self-reported health:

Bratter and Bridget Gorman, associate professor of sociology at Rice, studied nearly 1.8 million cases, including data from more than 27,000 multiracial adults, from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) questionnaire…

The new study found that only 13.5 percent of whites report their health as fair to poor, whereas most other single-race or multiracial groups were more likely to report those health conditions: 24 percent of American Indians, 19.9 percent of blacks and 18.4 percent of others. Single-race Asians were the least likely to report fair-to-poor health – only 8.7 percent did so.

While differences in self-rated health exist between single-race whites and multiracial whites, the percentage of single-race blacks who rated their health as fair to poor is nearly identical to that of multiracial blacks. The same is true for single-race and multiracial Asians.

“Our findings highlight the need for new approaches in understanding how race operates in a landscape where racial categories are no longer mutually exclusive yet racial inequality still exists,” said Bratter, director of Race Scholars at Rice, a program within the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. “This extends beyond health data to other measurements of well-being, income, poverty and so much else.”

The key question here seems to be whether multiracial individuals experience the same health outcomes as single race individuals.  From this description, it sounds like this study suggests that being multiracial and white has different health outcomes compared to whites while being black or multiracial black has the same health outcomes. This would make sense given what we know about health differentials by race (more than genetics and extending to areas like life expectancy).

(I searched the journal Demography for more information about the conclusions of this study but it must not be listed yet.)

Historic Bethlehem, PA has character – but what about McMansions and big box stores?

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The neighborhood of Historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was recently recognized for preserving the community’s more historic buildings. And the mayor drew a contrast between this historic preservation and the (negative) construction of McMansions and big box stores:

Recently chosen by This Old House magazine as a Best Old-House Neighborhood, Bethlehem is one of only 64 communities to receive the honor.

“So much rests on the quality of our neighborhoods,” [Mayor] Callahan said. “We’re incredibly honored to have received this designation.”…

“It’s our character that has been recognized by This Old House magazine which named Historic Bethlehem to its annual list of Best Old House neighborhoods,” he said. “Here in Bethlehem, you’ll find no grids of cookie-cutter McMansions or big box store strip malls. Here…we have character.”

The mayor also took the opportunity to announce that the city’s proposed historic preservation plan has been completed.

The contrast could not be more stark: the community is recognized for preserving homes rather than giving in to sprawl. This Old House quotes a local realtor saying, “You can traverse centuries in eight blocks.” This sounds like a traditional American community where neighborhood character has won out.

But I was intrigued by this particular statement that Bethlehem has no big box stores. Could this really be possible in a decent-sized city (2009 Census estimate population of 73,088)? Bethlehem’s page on Wikipedia (I know, a source fraught with difficulties) suggests this is not the case:

Adjacent to W. Broad Street is the Bethlehem Plaza Mall, a 90,000 square feet (8,400 m2) enclosed shopping mall.

Outside of Downtown there are several other shopping centers.

  • Westgate Mall is an enclosed mall with anchors The Bon-Ton and Weis Markets.
  • Lehigh Center Shopping Center has Marshalls/HomeGoods, Staples, Giant, and Big Lots.
  • Martin Court Shopping Center has Lowe’s and PriceRite.
  • Stefko Boulevard Shopping Center has Valley Farm Market, Dollar Tree, and Radio Shack.

In Bethlehem Township

  • Bethlehem Square is a shopping center with Giant, TJMaxx, Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, and Sears Essentials.

The city’s own website emphasizes the local downtown (and nearby) shops. A quick search of Google Maps (“shopping near bethlehem, pa”) quickly turns up some of the nearby shopping malls and big box stores. The most emblematic big box store, Walmart of Bethlehem, is part of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce (with a link to the Chamber from the Bethlehem website).

Reading the mayor’s statement, I think he is referring to Historic Bethlehem when talking about the lack of McMansions and big box stores. Many communities are interested in preserving older neighborhoods, both commercial and residential, while facing the threat of sprawl. The mayor was likely not referring to Bethlehem, the full city of over 70,000, when saying the community has no big box stores: like many other American communities, Bethlehem has these. And perhaps like other communities, these big box stores are both disliked for their appearance and impact on local businesses and historic neighborhoods while also prized for helping to provide revenue for the city through sales and property taxes.

(Disclaimer: I have never been to Bethlehem. My primary interest here was to think about whether a sizable community could have no big box stores or McMansions. As for McMansions, I suppose one would have to search real estate sites or spend some time with Google Streetview to assess this claim.)

Using cell phone data to research social networks

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Social network analysis is a growing area within sociology and other disciplines. The Wall Street Journal reports on the advantages of examining cell phone data:

As a tool for field research, the cellphone is unique. Unlike a conventional land-line telephone, a mobile phone usually is used by only one person, and it stays with that person everywhere, throughout the day. Phone companies routinely track a handset’s location (in part to connect it to the nearest cellphone tower) along with the timing and duration of phone calls and the user’s billing address…

Advances in statistics, psychology and the science of social networks are giving researchers the tools to find patterns of human dynamics too subtle to detect by other means. At Northeastern University in Boston, network physicists discovered just how predictable people could be by studying the travel routines of 100,000 European mobile-phone users.

After analyzing more than 16 million records of call date, time and position, the researchers determined that, taken together, people’s movements appeared to follow a mathematical pattern. The scientists said that, with enough information about past movements, they could forecast someone’s future whereabouts with 93.6% accuracy.

The pattern held true whether people stayed close to home or traveled widely, and wasn’t affected by the phone user’s age or gender.

The rest of the article then goes on to talk about a lot of interesting research on topics like social contagions (see an example of this research here) and social relationships using this data.

Some may be concerned about privacy, particularly with recent reports about iPhones and iPads containing a file that records the movements of users. I have a few thoughts about this:

1. Compared to other possible data sources (surveys, time diaries, interviews, ethnography), this seems like a treasure trove of information. The article suggests that nearly 75% of people in the world have cell phones – what other data source can compare with that? Could the research potential outweigh individual privacy concerns? In thinking about some of these research questions, it would be very difficult to use more traditional methods to address the same concerns. And just the sheer number of cases a researcher could access and work with is fantastic. In order to build more complex models of human behavior, this is exactly the kind of data one could use.

2. I would be less concerned about researchers using this data than companies. Researchers don’t particularly care about the individual cases in the data but rather are looking for broad patterns. I would also guess that the cell phone data is anonymized so that researchers would have a difficult time pinpointing specific individuals even if they wanted to.

3. How much of a surprise is it that this available data is being used? Don’t cell phone carriers include some sort of statement in their contracts about using data in such ways? One option here would be to not get a smart phone. But if you want a smart phone (and it seems that a lot of Americans do), then this is the tradeoff. This is similar to the tradeoff with Facebook: users willingly give their information to enhance their social lives and then the company can look for ways to profit from this information.

h/t Instapundit

The legality of using unsecured Wi-Fi

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At the end of an article about how it is possibly dangerous to have an open wireless router (watch out for criminals and police who bust down your door at odd hours!), an interesting issue is raised: is it illegal to use someone’s unprotected Wi-Fi?

Luchetti is not charged with using his neighbor’s Wi-Fi without permission. Whether it was illegal is up for debate.

“The question,” said Kerr, “is whether it’s unauthorized access and so you have to say, ‘Is an open wireless point implicitly authorizing users or not?’

“We don’t know,” Kerr said. “The law prohibits unauthorized access and it’s just not clear what’s authorized with an open unsecured wireless.”

In Germany, the country’s top criminal court ruled last year that Internet users must secure their wireless connections to prevent others from illegally downloading data. The court said Internet users could be fined up to $126 if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected line, though it stopped short of holding the users responsible for illegal content downloaded by the third party.

Sounds like an interesting legal area to explore. The article includes comments from one person who intentionally leaves their Wi-Fi unprotected in order to provide a “common good.” And the case from Germany suggests that one could hold the Wi-Fi owner responsible for any issues rather than the person who misused another person’s wireless access.

Exploring the “mail rail” of London

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There seems to be a growing interest in stories about underground spaces below cities. Add another to stories about underground Paris, New York, and Las Vegas: several explorers have documented the “mail rail” system that operated not too long ago beneath London:

Construction of the tunnels began on February 1915 from a series of shaft located along the route. The tunnels were primarily dug in clay using the Greathead shield system, although the connecting tunnels in and around the stations were mined by hand…

It wasn’t until June 1924 that workers began laying the track using 1000 tons of running rail and 160 tons of conductor rail…The line was eventually finished in 1927 with the first letter through the system running on February 1928…

Although initially the system was a success, in its last years of service the line was continually losing money. On the 7th November 2002, Royal Mail announced the line had become uneconomical with losses of £1.2M a day and that they planned to close it should no alternate uses be found. This was to be the death of the Mail Rail with the line from Mount Pleasant to the Eastern Delivery Office closing on the 21st March 2003, the remaining section from the Western District Office to Mount Pleasant following on the 29th. Now it just sits there buried where light cannot reach, rusting away, the trains sleeping silently in and around the stations wanting to be used again. Sadly a dream which we all know will never come true.

I had not known that these sorts of mail systems were in use until so recently. Such systems were not completely unknown in big cities: Chicago had a much more complex system that delivered mail as well as other kinds of freight. In big yet dense cities, these delivery systems could make a lot of sense as it would keep some traffic off the roads and goods could be delivered with little interruption.

I do wonder at times whether current city officials are very knowledgeable about what is underneath their cities. The pictures regarding London’s “mail rail” are quite good and I wonder if they caught anyone off-guard.

With such interesting things underneath so many big cities, it seems that movie and TV writers would have an endless supply of interesting settings where odd things could occur and creatures could roam…

Islamic groups in Chicago suburbs discuss zoning, the building of mosques

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In the last year or so, several proposals to build mosques in the Chicago region have met with zoning resistance (see this example in unincorporated Lombard). In order to ease some of these issues, several Islamic groups in DuPage County met to discuss how to better present their cases for new religious buildings:

Members of several suburban Islamic organizations heard from experts in land use and zoning law Saturday at a convention designed to help groups work together and understand the process of building new religious institutions…

The event comes as the county board recently reviewed five zoning cases from Muslim communities looking to construct worship spaces in unincorporated areas of DuPage County.

A representative of one such group said fostering relationships with elected officials and keeping the public informed are key to improving a mosque construction plan’s chances of success. Bringing up the possibility of religious prejudice or Isalmophobia, is counterproductive, said Hani Atassi of Muslim Educational and Cultural Center of America, which won approval in March to build a mosque along 91st street near Willowbrook…

Many concerns raised by elected officials and prospective mosque neighbors are legitimate ones about parking, noise, extra light and stormwater management, said Kathleen Foley, a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, who spoke at Saturday’s summit.

“Not all opponents are bigots. Not all of them are driven by fear,” Foley said. “Sometimes parking concerns are just parking concerns.”

The suggestion here is that the zoning resistance is not due to fears of mosques or Muslims but rather is typical suburban NIMBYism. And the answer to dealing with this is to try to improve relations with neighbors so that the new building is not seen as a threat to the neighborhood.

Is there some way to better balance local zoning rules with the interests of religious groups? Mosques are not the only buildings that have had difficulty getting past zoning boards; there was a recent article about churches that have encountered similar difficulties, whether in suburban neighborhoods or downtowns that communities would rather space go to tax-generating commercial space. The larger issue here is suburban NIMBYism that often seems resistant to any changes, let alone the construction of more houses or religious buildings. When we hear that “sometimes parking concerns are just parking concerns,” we should be discussing whether these parking concerns are really justified.

Americans buy a lot of stuff they don’t need

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Americans are known for being consumers. In fact, Americans spend quite a bit of money on non-essential goods:

This Easter weekend, Americans will spend a lot of money on items such as marshmallow peeps, plush bunnies and fake hay, begging a question: How much does the U.S. economy depend on purchases of goods and services people don’t absolutely need?

As it turns out, quite a lot. A non-scientific study of Commerce Department data suggests that in February, U.S. consumers spent an annualized $1.2 trillion on non-essential stuff including pleasure boats, jewelry, booze, gambling and candy. That’s 11.2% of total consumer spending, up from 9.3% a decade earlier and only 4% in 1959, adjusted for inflation. In February, spending on non-essential stuff was up an inflation-adjusted 3.3% from a year earlier, compared to 2.4% for essential stuff such as food, housing and medicine.

It would be helpful if this post had more details about the “non-scientific study” and what data is being examined. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see this story at Easter time: isn’t Christmas supposed to be our most commercial holiday? There does seem to be more stories in recent years about the increased spending at Halloween and Easter. Perhaps we just like holidays because they are excuses to spend!

Here are two possible conclusions regarding this data:

The sheer volume of non-essential spending offers fodder for various conclusions. For one, it could be seen as evidence of the triumph of modern capitalism in raising living standards. We enjoy so much leisure and consume so much extra stuff that even a deep depression wouldn’t – in aggregate — cut into the basics.

Alternately, it could be read as a sign that U.S. economic growth relies too heavily on stimulating demand for stuff people don’t really need, to the detriment of public goods such as health and education. By that logic, a consumption tax – like the value-added taxes common throughout Europe—could go a long way toward restoring balance.

Interesting options: we spend so much on these things because we can (conspicuous consumption?) or we frivolously throw our money away at things that don’t really matter while ignoring important issues. Neither sound particularly good. The second one does seem to be at the root of most advertising: make a pitch so that the consumer thinks they “need” a product. Don’t people need iPhones, new cars, and lots of beer?

Ultimately, we might need some more numbers to settle this debate. How does the discretionary spending of the American individual compare to that of other nations? (During this recent recession, we have heard about how Americans had a lower savings rate than past Americans going into this period but how do we compare to other countries?) What are the total costs of living in such an economy (which certainly must help create jobs and generate wealth for someone) vs. one that does put more money into education or infrastructure? How much do average Americans think they should be spending on non-essential items and if given the choice, would they want to spend more?

h/t Instapundit

How to offset the lower gas tax revenues from electric car drivers

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With more electric cars coming to market, more state governments are discussing how to offset the loss of gas tax revenues from electric car drivers:

After years of urging residents to buy fuel-efficient cars and giving them tax breaks to do it, Washington state lawmakers are considering a measure to charge them a $100 annual fee — what would be the nation’s first electric car fee.

State lawmakers grappling with a $5 billion deficit are facing declining gas tax revenue, which means less money to maintain or improve roads.

“Electric vehicles put just as much wear and tear on our roads as gas vehicles,” said Democratic state Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, the bill’s lead sponsor. “This simply ensures that they contribute their fair share to the upkeep of our roads.”

Other states are trying to find solutions to the same problem, as cars become more fuel-efficient and, now, don’t use any gas at all.

The two main options for this are either to impose an annual fee or to base payment on how far the car travels. But the cost-per-mile approach seems to have several disadvantages (including a good amount of opposition) even though it seems like it would be the closest to the gas tax (the more you drive, the more you pay).

The last paragraphs in the article seem to hold the key: this is another instance when government is trying to catch up to the newest technology. On one hand, governments don’t want to discourage the purchase and use of electric vehicles. On the other hand, roads still need to be built and maintained. Additionally, most states are facing large deficits and can’t be going about taking in less revenue.

Regardless of what route is taken, it seems like it would be better to make decisions like these sooner rather than later so that future electric car drivers know what they are getting into.

Negative emotions in the workplace

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A recent Time magazine piece discusses the role, or lack of a role, of negative emotions in the workplace:

In the binary shorthand we use to compartmentalize modern life, we think of home as the realm of emotion and work as the place where rationality rules — a tidy distinction that crumbles in the face of experience. As management scholar Blake Ashforth has written, it is a “convenient fiction that organizations are cool arenas for dispassionate thought and action.” In fact, in the workplace we are bombarded by emotions — our own and everyone else’s. Neuroscientists have demonstrated over and over in empirical ways just how integral emotion is in all aspects of our lives, including our work. But since companies have generally avoided the subject, there are no clear protocols about emotional expression in the office.

The only instance in which we acknowledge emotion is when doing so is seen as obviously beneficial, both personally and professionally…

But we’re still largely clueless about how to display and react to more commonplace emotions such as anger, fear and anxiety, so we handicap ourselves, trying to check our human side at the office door.

As the last paragraph of the article suggests, not being able to express these emotions leaves employees as less than human. It is one thing to be able to act professional or courteous in the workplace but another to suggest that people have to bottle emotions that we all have from time to time. In high stress environments where the personal identity of employees is often closely tied to job performance, negative emotions are bound to come up.

This reminds me of Arlie Hochschild’s concept of “emotion work.” While there are certain professions that require a public performance of cheerfulness (such as a flight attendant or waitress), this article suggests that most employees have to do some form of this. Just as Hochschild suggests, this is also a gendered issue: women are judged differently when expressing emotion.

So how could companies allow employees to express these emotions in positive ways?

The future of McMansions: torn down for smaller homes?

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In a typical teardown situation, an older home, often in a pleasant neighborhood, is torn down and replaced by a larger, modern home. One Greenwich, Connecticut realtor suggests this pattern might be reversed in the future:

Pruner is also detecting a trend away from “McMansions” with massive square footage to smaller-scale well-built homes.

“I can foresee the newspaper headline: ‘McMansion taken down for more modest house,'” he said.

It is not bold to suggest that Americans want smaller homes: a number of sources, including the National Association of Home Builders, have noted this. But to suggest that larger homes will be torn down and replaced with smaller homes seems more unlikely. In order for this to happen, the McMansion would have to be relatively cheap and the property really desirable. Even after the drop in housing values, a big house is going to be relatively expensive and with many critics suggesting McMansions are also built in terrible suburban neighborhoods often made up of a lot of McMansion, I’m not sure there are many locations that fit this bill. And building a “more modest house” doesn’t necessarily mean a cheaper house – small homes can have a lot of features that drive up the price. But to tear down a larger space, whether it is a McMansion or a big box store, it seems like the conditions would have to be perfect and then it would be difficult for this to be a trend.