Monthly Archives: July 2011

Further details on proposed Illinois toll hike; Illinois tolls rather low

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The Chicago Tribune reports today that the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority wants to raise toll rates in order to raise money for several new projects, including a reconstruction of I-90 (the Jane Addams), adding an interchange between I-294 and I-57 (one of the few places in the US where two interstates do not have an interchange), extending the Elgin-O’Hare, and undertaking several studies for possible new roads (extending Route 53, the Illiana Expressway).

But there is more to this story. While the Authority wants money to undertake these projects, there is another defense for raising rates: Illinois toll rates are lower than other states.

The council urged that tolls on the existing tollway system be raised to levels “consistent with national averages” to generate revenue for the EOWB [Elgin-O’Hare West Bypass]. Currently, Illinois Tollway users pay the equivalent of 3 cents per mile, while the national average is 7 cents per mile, officials say. Using that model could result in a systemwide doubling of the current rate, to 80 cents from 40 cents for passenger vehicles using I-PASS, and to $1.60 from 80 cents for cash customers…

The report also said tolls on the EOWB itself should be “consistent with the level of other new toll projects nationwide,” or about 20 cents a mile. This suggests that tolls on the new highway could be as much as seven times the current rate, or $2.80 for passenger vehicles using I-PASS and $5.60 for cash customers…

In addition, the council’s report recommends that future toll increases be indexed to inflation. The last time the tollway hiked car tolls was 2005, but that was the cash rate. Cars with I-PASS pay the same rate as they did in 1983, the tollway says…
The report also urges consideration of so-called congestion pricing strategies, in which vehicles pay higher tolls during peak hours or for express lanes; extending the tollway’s bond maturity term up to 40 years; and giving further study to tolling adjacent freeways. That could mean imposing tolls on I-290.

I’m guessing Chicago area residents will not like this as it makes driving more expensive (particularly with the price of gas) and there will general grumbling about how the tolls were supposed to disappear at some point. But, roads have to be paid for somehow and whether motorists pay through tolls or gas taxes, they will pay for the privilege of using roads. If anything, perhaps Chicago area residents should be surprised that tolls have stayed so low when other states have raised them. Since we can probably assume that the cost of road building has gone up like everything else, it sounds like tolls should increase.

If there is a larger issue to be concerned about, we could ask about the planning undertaken by the state. A road like the Illiana Expressway has been discussed for decades and waiting this long to undergo a major study and then go through with the construction will cost more now than it would have years ago. The Elgin-O’Hare has been a running joke for a while. Additionally, it would be interesting to see how close or far planners were in estimating the number of vehicles that would use the highways each day. The early expressways in the area, I-294 and I-290 are two examples, have seen much more traffic than was initially anticipated, driving up costs. Overall, more foresight could have saved money.

More difficulty with housing vacancy data

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I’ve written about this before but here is some more evidence that one should be careful in looking at housing vacancy data:

In early 2009 the Richmond, Virginia press wrote numerous articles after quarterly HVS data on metro area rental vacancy rates “showed” that the rental vacancy rate in the Richmond, Virginia metro area in the fourth quarter of 2008 was 23.7%, the highest in the country. This shocked local real estate folks, including folks who tracked rental vacancy rates in apartment buildings in the area. The Central Virginia Apartment Association, e.g., found that the rental vacancy rate based on a survey of 52 multi-family properties in the Richmond, VA metro area was around 8% — above a more “normal” 5%, but no where close to 23.7%. And while the HVS attempts to measure the overall rental vacancy rate (and not just MF apartments for rent), the data seemed “whacky.”

When I talked to Census folks back then, they said that there quarterly metro area vacancy rates were extremely volatile and had extremely high standard errors, and that folks should focus on annual data.

However, “annual average” data from the HVS showed MASSIVELY different rental vacancy rates in Richmond, Virginia than did the American Community Survey, which also produces estimates of the vacancy rate in the overall rental market…

There are several other MSAs where the HVS rental vacancy rates just look plain “silly.” Some Census analysts agree that the HVS MSA data aren’t reliable, and even that several state data aren’t reliable, but, well, er, the national data are probably “ok” – which they are not.

If you want to read more on the issue, there are a number of links at the bottom of the story.

If the estimates are so far off from other estimates generally regarded as being reliable like the American Community Survey or the decennial Census, it would look like a new system is needed to calculate the quarterly vacancy rates.

I wonder how much these figures could hurt a particular community. Take the case of Richmond: if data suggests the vacancy rate is the highest in the country even though it is not, is this simply bad publicity or would it actually affect decisions made by residents, businesses, and local governments?

“Ugly houses” dragging down the housing market

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Here’s an interesting possible explanation for the problems of the housing market: buyers don’t want “ugly houses.”

Maybe Americans aren’t avoiding buying homes right now — maybe they’re just avoiding buying ugly homes. The housing market may be splitting into two sub-sectors: well-kept, good-looking homes and run-down, torn-up homes. Could the latter group be preventing the housing market from stabilizing?…

The disparity between these two groups of homes matters, because Lichtenstein has seen prices of the good properties remain relatively strong recently, as prices of worse properties have declined. This means that it’s those run-down, dilapidated foreclosed homes and short sales that will disproportionally bring down aggregate home prices, while well-kept homes should see much smaller price declines, or even appreciation.

Based on his experience, Lichtenstein asserts staging homes is more important than ever, as sellers need their house to appear as pristine as possible to appear to buyers. But his observation could have another logical conclusion: the market could be ripe for some renovate-and-flip business…

This gives investors two options: revitalize the foreclosures that have sale potential and rent out the others. If the inventory is tackled through these strategies, then price aren’t going to suddenly soar, but they could begin to stabilize sooner.

Would it take all that much work for someone to crunch some numbers to test this idea? As a rough proxy measure, one could use the year the structure was built as a starting point.

Reading this, I wonder if this has been a growing issue for much longer than the current economic crisis. Watch HGTV for a little bit and it seems like most buyers want everything in their new home: great appliances, updates (granite countertops! hardwood floors!), and all in move-in condition. How many homebuyers, whether they are younger and will work a lot of hours each week or older and want to downsize and not spend as much time maintaining a house, want to take on the time and expense of fixing up or updating a home?

In the long run, this could lead to some issues if no one is really interested in dilapidated homes. Communities might then have to make decisions about what to do with empty homes and how to best use the land. As an example, I’m thinking of the areas west and northwest of downtown South Bend, Indiana: the homes aren’t worth the time of investors because prices aren’t going up and few people would want to fix them all up. While this issue might commonly be tied to Rustbelt cities like South Bend or Detroit or Cleveland, perhaps it will be coming to more communities.

A growing interest in acquiring property through “adverse possession”?

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I highlighted a story last week about a Texas man who hoped to become the owner of a $350,000 McMansion through “adverse possession.” One writer suggests there is a growing interest in this method of acquiring land:

People have been making adverse possession claims for decades. The most famous cases happened on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1980s and ’90s, when artists, punks and homeless people squatted in vacant buildings and brownstones.

Under the law at the time in New York State, people could take possession of a property if they lived there for ten years and made efforts to “cultivate and improve” the property, says Kathy Zalantis, a real estate lawyer with Silverberg Zalantis in White Plains, NY. That’s why you saw people who did this during the 1980s and ’90s mowing the grass, planting trees and gardens, and making structural improvements to the buildings themselves, Zalantis says.

Now, interest in adverse possession is growing again. Across America, hundreds of thousands of homes are sitting empty. If you live in New York or have visited since 2008, you’ve probably noticed all those big empty buildings that were constructed during the housing boom but never quite finished, and are now sitting empty. Zalantis says she’s receiving a big surge in phone calls from people who have taken up residence in empty spaces (yes, squatting), including one just this Wednesday.

Most of the calls are from people taking advantage of the foreclosure crisis by moving into vacant houses, apartments and condominiums where the foreclosure process has stalled in the courts, Zalantis says. Now they’re living rent-free. And they’re checking to see if they can take permanent ownership of the place.

It seems like two things are key then to acquiring property by this method: being in the building for a certain amount of time (which appears to vary by state) and doing something to maintain/improve the property. I assume, however, that the rightful owners can come back to the property and kick out the squatters. Therefore, shouldn’t someone who pursues this be pretty sure that the current owners have such little interest in the property that they are willing to lose ownership?

In the case of a lot of single-family foreclosures, I can’t imagine banks would be willing to simply write off their losses and lose these properties. However, if housing prices continue to drop, perhaps some institutions will be willing to lose properties rather than devote resources to trying to squeeze some money out of these homes.

Vacant urban Borders stores and “no net loss”

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There are a variety of perspectives one can hold on the closing of bookstores like Borders. Monday, I noted how the loss of chain bookstores can affect a local economy and its tax base. On the same subject, another commentator suggests cities need to be concerned about replacing these “third places”:

“Third place” is a decades-old term championed by sociologist Ray Oldenburg for venues which bring people together in the tradition of the American colonial tavern or general store. The idea remains central to urbanist thinking, and describes those places, other than home or work, where we gather, debate and trade. “No net loss” is a term borrowed from the vocabulary of wetland conservation, and allows for replacement of lost assets with equivalent resources…

In response to the Borders news, some pundits, like Josh Stephens in Planetizen, have called for a better, non-Walmartian reinvention of the bookstore. In his view, big boxes — even when urban — destroy Mom-and-Pop purveyors. Amazon and Kindle aside, he makes a good case for a new, post-recessionary wave of independent urban bookstore start-ups. For those bookstores, I hope that he is right.

But as to third places — and I am going to assume that “big books” uses can play such a role — there is something bothersome about the final demise of Borders’ urban core locations. While perhaps an opportunity for the independent competitor, what of the potential loss of third place uses in high-value urban downtowns?

Will the prime square footage occupied by Borders have similar third place potential once reclaimed? Will replacement uses provide the equivalent fusion business purposes of books, coffee, lecture and song?

In most cities and suburbs, is there really an acceptable “third place” alternative? Coffee shops tend to be small (and standardized – see Starbucks) and bars/taverns can be seen as attracting a certain crowd. Independent bookstores may be something to hope for but are difficult to pull off.

If communities are simply concerned with their tax base, filling these Borders sites with retail or restaurant uses would likely be just fine. In this perspective, any empty space is bad. On the other hand, this commentator is suggesting that communities should encourage (and incentivize?) certain uses that will at least maintain and perhaps build upon the “third place” nature of bookstores.

On another track, the commentator suggests bookstores offer the “fusion business purposes of books, coffee, lecture and song.” These functions sound more like entertainment or “culture” than “sociality.” Certainly, people can get to know each other while drinking coffee or listening to musicians but the “third place” is about something larger: providing safe, familiar spaces between work and home where citizens can talk with old friends, meet new people, and talk about important issues including society and politics. Third places should be where citizens can develop “bridging ties” as they step outside the realms of home and work. Does this really happen in bookstores like Borders?

Rise in single father families

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The number of families led by a single father has grown in the last decade:

Joe Cioffi, a physician from Fairfield, Connecticut, settled for visitation rights to his son after he and the boy’s mother split up. Soon, he decided that wasn’t enough, so he spent four years struggling to win primary custody…

Cioffi’s custody victory and living arrangement encapsulate two distinct changes driving a 27.3 percent jump in U.S. families led by single fathers in the past decade, according to figures released from the 2010 census. While the number of single dads remains small, greater acceptance of shared custody and more unmarried couples have altered traditional ideas of child rearing, demographic experts said.

“It’s time for us to stop assuming that single parents are always women,” said Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “There is a visible presence now of single men caring for their kids. We didn’t see that a few decades ago.”…

The growth in single fathers remains a small percentage of the larger shift away from the traditional family. The majority of single parents are still mothers. They head 7.2 percent of all American households, not just those with kids, compared with 2.4 percent of those households led by single fathers, according to census figures.

The illustration from this story suggests that men tend to become single fathers as the result of a court case. I would be interested to know whether younger men ever really envision or aim to be single fathers or whether this is usually the result of unplanned events. This would be a great question to ask today’s college students to see how they envision their future families.

Additionally, as the number of single father families grow, how are the fathers and kids treated – socially, it is an advantage or disadvantage to be a child in a single father family versus a single mother family?

Back to the burbs

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I usually leave the demographic articles to Brian, but one of my Brooklyn-dwelling friends (and a new father) pointed me to Joel Kotkin’s post at Forbes making the case that “America’s young and restless will abandon cities for suburbs”:

Some demographers claim that “white flight” from the city is declining, replaced by a “bright flight” to the urban core from the suburbs. “Suburbs lose young whites to cities,” crowed one Associated Press headline last year.

Yet evidence from the last Census show the opposite: a marked acceleration of movement not into cities but toward suburban and exurban locations. The simple, usually inexorable effects of maturation may be one reason for this surprising result. Simply put, when 20-somethings get older, they do things like marry, start businesses, settle down and maybe start having kids.

Kotkin also doesn’t think there’s much chance of substantially increasing suburban density (for reasons that long time readers of Legally Sociable have heard before):

[T]he notion of mass suburban densification is likely to meet strong resistance from local residents. This will be particularly marked in attractive, affluent “progressive” areas like the Bay Area’s Marin County, Chicago’s North Shore suburbs and New York’s Hudson Valley. People who move to these places are attracted by their leafy, single-family-home-dominated neighborhoods and village-like shopping streets. Nothing short of economic catastrophe or government diktat would make them accept any intense program of densification.

Quick Review: American Grace

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I recently wrote about a small section of American Grace but I have had a chance to complete the full book. Here are my thoughts about this broad-ranging book about religion in America:

1. On one hand, I like the broad overview. There is a lot of data and analysis here about American religion. If someone had to pick up one book about the topic, this wouldn’t be a bad one to choose. I also liked some of the historical insights, including the idea that what we see now in American religion is a fallout of action in the 1960s and two counteractions that followed.

2. On the other hand, I’m not sure this book provides much new information. There is a lot of research contained in this book but much of it is already out there. The authors try to produce new insights from their own survey but I this is an issue in itself: after reading the full book, it was somewhat unclear why the authors undertook two waves of the Faith Matters Survey. The questions led to some new insights (like feelings toward the construction of a large religious building nearby) but much of it seemed duplicated and the short period between the waves didn’t help.

3. There is a lot of talk about data analysis and interpretation in this book. While it is aimed for a more general audience, the authors are careful in their explanations. For example, they are careful to explain what exactly a correlation means, it indicates a relationship between variables but causation is unclear, over and over again. Elsewhere, the authors explain exactly why they asked the questions they did and discuss the quality of this data. Some of these little descriptions would be useful in basic statistics or research classes. On the whole, they do a nice job in explaining how they interpret the data though I wonder how this might play with a general public that might just want the takeaway points. Perhaps this is why one reviewer thought this text was so readable!

4. Perhaps as a counterpoint to the discussions of data, the book includes a number of vignettes regarding religious congregations. These could be quite lengthy and I’m not sure that they added much to the book. They don’t pack the same punch as the representative characters of a book like Habits of the Heart and sometimes seem like filler.

5. The book ends with the conclusion that Americans can be both religiously diverse and devoted because of the many relationships between people of different faiths and denominations. On the whole, the authors suggest most people are in the middle regarding religion, not too confident in the idea that their religion is the only way but unwilling to say that having no religion is the way to go. I would like to have read more about how this plays out within religious congregations: how do religious leaders then talk doctrine or has everyone simply shifted to a more accomodating approach? Additionally, why doesn’t this lead down the path of secularization? From a societal perspective, religious pluralism may be desirable but is it also desirable for smaller groups?

On the whole, this book is a good place to start if one is looking for an overview of American religion. But, if one is looking for more detailed research and discussion regarding a particular topic, one would be better served going to those conducting research within these specific areas.

Comparing the treatment of prisoners in Norway and the US

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If I was teaching Intro to Sociology right now, the stories about Norway’s treatment of prisoners presents a fascinating contrast with the United States:

Norway “takes the mantra of rehabilitation to an extreme,” Foreign Policy’s Robert Zeliger explains. “The Norwegian prison system takes seriously the philosophy that inmates should be treated as humanely as possible and that jail sentences should be seen less as punishment than as an opportunity to reintegrate troubled people back into society.”

Norwegians tend to see “acts of extreme violence … as aberrant events, not symptoms of national decay,” Time Magazine’s William Lee Adams reported last year. Norwegian prison guards undergo two years of training, “don’t carry guns … and call prisoners by their first names and play sports and eat meals with them,” Adams reported.

That approach — and its underlying premise that people who commit crimes are troubled who should be given a second chance and prepared to live again amongst society — can perhaps be credited with Norway’s extremely low prison-recidivism rate—only about 20 percent of those imprisoned in Norway commit a repeat crime that sends them back to prison. Recidivism figures in the United States and the United Kingdom, by contrast, are much higher– 50 to 60 percent, Time reported.

Indeed, Norway, a country of 5 million people, only has about 3,300 prison inmates, according to Time. That gives Norway a ratio of prison inmates to the country’s overall population roughly ten times lower than that of the United States.

Since the figures in this story suggest Norway’s system works (fewer prisoners return to prison, saving money down the road and improving society), why doesn’t the United States pursue similar policies? Here are a few possible reasons:

1. The United States is not as innocent. Perhaps this could be tied to the violent American culture and history.

2. The United States has a lot more people than Norway. It could be more difficult to maintain order with more than 300 million people than just under 5 million people.

3. The United States has a wider gap, wealth and status, between different groups, leading to more violence and more repression.

4. The United States is more individualistic and therefore puts more emphasis on punishment rather than restoring someone back to society.

Put together, these reasons suggest a significantly different cultural outlook between these two nations: one wants to lock up prisoners and throw away the key while the other has only a 21-year maximum sentence and wants to restore prisoners to society. Such cultural perspectives are not easy to change. Think of how US politicians are punished by pundits and voters if they happen to release a prisoner who then goes on commit futher crimes. But perhaps the pragmatic nature of budget deficits might push some more US groups to advocate for rehabilitation over retribution?

(For a more detailed description of a low-security Norwegian prison, read this.)