Monthly Archives: November 2012

Solar panels are not just only for McMansions

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Solar panels are apparently not just for McMansions; they can even be used on Habitat for Humanity homes:

It’s solar Friday around these parts (job growth! innovation! sabotage!), with the news getting more and more awesome. Solar isn’t just for the rich, and it doesn’t only belong on skyscrapers and McMansions, but also on homes for families who qualify for Habitat for Humanity.

PG&E has donated about $1.7 million in the form of solar panels for 64 Habitat homes in the Bay Area. The solar paneled homes generate about 300 kilowatt hours a month and cause a yearly reduction in utility bills of about $500.

Overall, Habitat for Humanity is no environmental slouch these days, recently registering its 100th LEED certified home in Michigan.

I don’t know if this was the intention of the article but this seems to be highlighting the relatively high price of solar panels. The suggestion at the beginning is that one can only find solar panels on wealthy houses, like McMansions. (There might also be room here to debate whether McMansions could truly be green, even with plenty of solar panels.) Thus, we need to look at the example of Habitat for Humanity where they have found ways to be green even while providing cheaper new house for those who need it. If Habitat for Humanity can make this happen, can other builders?

I wouldn’t be surprised if solar panels become very common on new houses in the next few decades. Not only are they green, it could help homes become more self-sufficient, something I think plenty of homeowners would like in the wake of disasters like Hurricane Sandy. Yet, we have been hearing for years how solar panels are supposed to become cheaper and thus more accessible to more Americans but it hasn’t happened yet…

Correlation and not causation: Redskins games predict results of presidential election

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Big events like presidential elections tend to bring out some crazy data patterns. Here is my nomination for the oddest one of this election season: how the Washington Redskins do in their final game before the election predicts the presidential election.

Since 1940 — when the Redskins moved to D.C. — the team’s outcome in its final game before the presidential election has predicted which party would win the White House each time but once.

When the Redskins win their game before the election, the incumbent party wins the presidential vote. If the Redskins lose, the non-incumbent wins.

The only exception was in 2004, when Washington fell to Green Bay, but George W. Bush still went on to win the election over John Kerry.

This is simply a quirk of data: how the Redskins do should have little to no effect on voting in other states. This is exactly what correlation without causation is about; there may be a clear pattern ut it doesn’t necessarily mean the two related facts cause each other. There may be some spurious association here, some variable that predicts both outcomes, but even that is hard to imagine. Yet, the Redskins Rule has garnered a lot of attention in recent days. Why? A few possible reasons:

1. It connects two American obsessions: presidential elections and the NFL. A sidelight: both may involve a lot of betting.

2. So much reporting has been done on the 2012 elections that this adds a more whimsical and mysterious element.

3. Humans like to find patterns, even if these patterns don’t make much sense.

What’s next, an American octopus who can predict presidential elections?

Maryland couple intentionally designs teardown home so that it isn’t a McMansion

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Here is a story of a Kensington, Maryland couple who tore down a 1930s Cape Cod, built a new 1,800 square foot home, but deliberately avoided making it a McMansion:

Call it empty-nester economy: The couple’s contemporary house in Kensington has no grand entrance hall, no family room, no breakfast area in the kitchen, no mud room or a finished basement.

Instead, the main level is simply treated as a big open room for living, dining and cooking. “One of my favorite things about it is being able to stand in the kitchen and see the fireplace in the opposite corner 40 feet away,” Kurylas says.

Upstairs are three bedrooms, with one of them now serving as an office. Another is used as a guest room for visiting friends and relatives, including Lann’s sons, Ben, 32, and Nathan, 26, from a previous marriage. The couple considered adding a fourth bedroom for resale but decided to enlarge the master suite instead.

“We didn’t want a McMansion,” says Lann, co-owner of Stroba, a contracting and cabinetry business in Hyattsville. “We wanted a nice, open space where we could live and entertain, a small house that met our needs.”

While the house does sound unique, I am most interested by the idea that the house was deliberately designed not to be a McMansion. Several possible reasons are cited for this:

1. The couple was looking for a smaller house since there are only two members of the household.

2. The home as it was designed and built better fits with the older homes of the neighborhood.

3. The interior and exterior design is unique and not cookie-cutter or mass-produced.

4. Having a new house that could be labeled a “McMansion” is a negative thing that certain homeowners don’t want.

The idea of building a non-McMansion played some role in the construction of this home and this demonstrates the power the term has to influence perceptions about houses. I suspect the fact one of the couple is an architect and designed the home also played into wanting to avoid the negative label of McMansion.

Sociologist defends statistical predictions for elections and other important information

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Political polling has come under a lot of recent fire but a sociologist defends these predictions and reminds us that we rely on many such predictions:

We rely on statistical models for many decisions every single day, including, crucially: weather, medicine, and pretty much any complex system in which there’s an element of uncertainty to the outcome. In fact, these are the same methods by which scientists could tell Hurricane Sandy was about to hit the United States many days in advance…

This isn’t wizardry, this is the sound science of complex systems. Uncertainty is an integral part of it. But that uncertainty shouldn’t suggest that we don’t know anything, that we’re completely in the dark, that everything’s a toss-up.

Polls tell you the likely outcome with some uncertainty and some sources of (both known and unknown) error. Statistical models take a bunch of factors and run lots of simulations of elections by varying those outcomes according to what we know (such as other polls, structural factors like the economy, what we know about turnout, demographics, etc.) and what we can reasonably infer about the range of uncertainty (given historical precedents and our logical models). These models then produce probability distributions…

Refusing to run statistical models simply because they produce probability distributions rather than absolute certainty is irresponsible. For many important issues (climate change!), statistical models are all we have and all we can have. We still need to take them seriously and act on them (well, if you care about life on Earth as we know it, blah, blah, blah).

A key point here: statistical models have uncertainty (we are making inferences about larger populations or systems from samples that we can collect) but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are flawed.

A second key point: because of what I stated above, we should expect that some statistical predictions will be wrong. But this is how science works: you tweak models, take in more information, perhaps change your data collection, perhaps use different methods of analysis, and hope to get better. While it may not be exciting, confirming what we don’t know does help us get to an outcome.

I’ve become more convinced in recent years that one of the reasons polls are not used effectively in reporting is that many in the media don’t know exactly how they work. Journalists need to be trained in how to read, interpret, and report on data. This could also be a time issue; how much time to those in the media have to pore over the details of research findings or do they simply have to scan for new findings? Scientists can pump out study after study but part of the dissemination of this information to the public requires a media who understands how scientific research and the scientific process work. This includes understanding how models are consistently refined, collecting the right data to answer the questions we want to answer, and looking at the accumulated scientific research rather than just grabbing the latest attention-getting finding.

An alternative to this idea about media statistical illiteracy is presented in the article: perhaps the media perhaps knows how polls work but likes a political horse race. This may also be true but there is a lot of reporting on statistics on data outside of political elections that also needs work.

Chicago’s Prentice Hospital building gone via an economic report

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Chicago’s landmark commission pulled the plug on the distinctive former Prentice Hospital building designed by Bertrand Goldberg:

The final action came after a six-hour meeting during which some 120 speakers came to the microphone to either praise old Prentice or support Northwestern’s position. Allan Mellis, on the preservationists’ side, urged the commission not to take the unusual step of voting a building up and down in the same session…

The four-page economic impact report essentially repeated Northwestern’s argument that the Prentice site was the only viable piece of property for a new research facility.

In the 33-page report on the preliminary landmark designation, the commission staff hailed old Prentice as “a boldly sculptural building.” It called Goldberg “a Chicago architect and engineer who rejected the rigid glass-box that had become the dominant form of modern architecture.”

The vote to give Prentice preliminary landmark status was unanimous; the subsequent vote to strike it down was opposed only by Commissioner Christopher Reed.

This is an interesting “fancy bit of parliamentary footwork” in that the commission will be able to say it thought the building was unique and was worth saving but the economic report made it clear Northwestern’s new use was more important. In other words, they wanted to save the building but Northwestern’s case was more compelling. But, in the end, I don’t think anyone is too surprised by this ruling; Mayor Emanuel came out against the building earlier this week, Northwestern is a powerful entity and a new facility offers new jobs and prestige alongside improved medical care, and the building is unique but not exactly endearing.

Thinking about this more, I wonder if the style of the building itself was its main downfall. It is certainly different and comes from an architect that made a mark in Chicago. Yet, it is not as conventional as many other buildings. It features a lot of concrete for a building meant for more public use and viewing. The concrete doesn’t look so great after the wear and tear of Chicago weather. The exterior is not warm. Its shape is irregular. The windows are a different shape than normal. Americans like some kind of modernism, such as the steel and glass skyscraper which signifies business and progress, but they don’t tend to like modern houses or brutalism. Additionally, it was only constructed in 1975 so it doesn’t have a long history, and it is in a desirable area so even if Northwestern didn’t want the land, others might.

How one woman helped make preventable injuries an American public health issue

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The epidemiologist Susan P. Baker devoted her career to making preventable injuries a public health issue. Here is part of the story:

She embarked on an independent research project — a comparison of drivers who were not responsible for their fatal crashes with drivers who were — and in 1968 she sent Haddon a letter seeking federal financing for her study. He came through with $10,000 and continued to finance her research after he became president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety a year later…

Among Baker’s most important legacies is the widespread use of the infant car seat. By examining data from car crashes, she demonstrated that the passengers most likely to die were those younger than 6 months. They were killed at double the rate of 1-year-olds and triple the rate for ages 6 to 12. Why? Because babies rested in their mothers’ arms or laps, often in the front passenger seat, and because their still-fragile bodies were more susceptible to fatal injury than those of older children. Baker published her study in the journal Pediatrics in 1979, making headlines in newspapers across the country…

Around that time, Baker was one of the main authors of a report calling for the creation of a federal injury-prevention agency. Today the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control coordinates with state programs and underwrites research projects aimed at preventing injury, ranging from the intentional (rape, homicide, suicide) to the unintentional (falls, residential fires, drownings)…

Of course, Baker knows that we can’t make the world completely injury-proof. But her decades of research show how fairly simple preventive measures — fences around swimming pools, bike helmets, childproof caps on medicine containers — can save thousands of lives.

I couldn’t help thinking while reading this story that it demonstrates the interplay between science, culture, and government. The first paragraph of the article argues that in the 1960s that few people worried about preventable injuries but this has clearly changed since. Aiding this process was new scientific findings about injuries as well as presentable statistics that captured people’s attention. This reminds me of sociologist Joel Best’s explanation in Damned Lies and Statistics that the use of statistics emerged in the mid 1800s because reformers wanted to attach numbers and science to social problems they cared about. But for these numbers to matter and the science to be taken seriously, you need a culture as well as institutions that see science as a viable way of knowing about the world. Similarly, the numbers themselves are not enough to immediately lead to change; social problems such as automobile deaths go through a process by which the public becomes aware, a critical mass starts pressing the issue, and leaders respond by changing regulations. Is it a coincidence that these concerns about public health began to emerge in the 1960s at the same time of American ascendency in the scientific realm, the growth of the welfare state, the continued development of the mass media as well as mass consumption, and an era of more movements calling for human rights and governmental protections? Probably not.

h/t Instapundit

The three issues behind an incorporation vote in a Utah suburb

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After writing earlier this week about the decisions of The Woodlands, Texas to not incorporate, here is the story of the Salt Lake City suburb of Millcreek that is considering incorporation on election day:

To supporters, a city would cobble together a few suburban neighborhoods into a more perfect union. After years of living at the whims of county codes and tax rates, residents of Millcreek said they would, for the first time, be able to keep their tax dollars inside their own borders and write their own future…

Opponents say the status quo works fine. Forming a city would heap municipal rules and expenses atop existing layers of county, state and federal bureaucracy. They say a new city would need money for lawyers, accountants, city buildings and other services now provided by the county, and ultimately be forced to raise taxes.

In 2011, an independent study said that Millcreek’s economics, population and geography would make it a “viable and sustainable” new city. But it also said the area was mostly built-out and had few new opportunities for development, raising the prospect that its expenses would outstrip the money it takes in. If Millcreek goes its own way, the surrounding county would also stand to lose $30 million in annual revenues from one of its wealthiest areas, and be forced to cut services or raise taxes on other residents.
If the measure fails, some residents say they are worried the community will be torn apart. At a time when city budgets are strained, they say that Millcreek’s Home Depot, its for-profit hospital and supermarkets would make ripe targets for annexation by nearby cities.

It sounds like there are a few issues present. First is the issue of revenues. Could an incorporated community afford the services it would be expected to provide? Would it increase the local tax burden, something many suburbanites abhor. Second is the issue of annexation. Incorporation typically provides a community more protection against adjacent communities annexing land. this article suggests what is most at stake are revenue sources such as retail and commercial establishments and perhaps job providers as well.

Though not stated here, I imagine there is also a third issue: the tension between individualism and communitarianism that is often present in American suburbs. On one hand, the suburbs offer homeownership, small parcels of land, the idea that individuals have a little space in which to live their own lives. On the other hand, suburbs, even unincorporated ones, require services such as roads, sewers, schools, police and fire protection, and more that is more easily realized when people pool their resources (tax dollars). Can you have a fully developed community life if individualism wins out? Is community, not just services but also strong and weak ties to neighbors and others in the community, desired by a majority of American suburban residents?

Quickly, some Census statistics about Millcreek: it has just over 62,000 residents; the median household income is $57,385 (about $1,000 above the median for Utah), is 87.2% white and 8.4% Latino, and 41.9% of adults have a bachelor’s degree.

One other note: the article suggests “the election here next Tuesday is a fight about what happens as America’s suburbs grow up.” This is a typical phase that many suburbs go through though it is a bit unusual, as it is for The Woodlands, for a community to grow so large and still not be incorporated.

Another call for the need for theory when working with big data

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Big data is not just about allowing researchers to look at really large samples or lots of information at once. It also requires the use of theory and asking new kinds of questions:

Like many other researchers, sociologist and Microsoft researcher Duncan Watts performs experiments using Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace that allows users to pay others to complete tasks. Used largely to fill in gaps in applications where human intelligence is required, social scientists are increasingly turning to the platform to test their hypotheses…

This is a point political forecaster and author Nate Silver discusses in his recent book The Signal and the Noise. After discussing economic forecasters who simply gather as much data as possible and then make inferences without respect for theory, he writes:

This kind of statement is becoming more common in the age of Big Data. Who needs theory when you have so much information? But this is categorically the wrong attitude to take toward forecasting, especially in a field like economics, where the data is so noisy. Statistical inferences are much stronger when backed up by theory or at least some deeper thinking about their root causes…

The value of big data isn’t simply in the answers it provides, but rather in the questions it suggests that we ask.

This follows a similar recent argument made on the Harvard Business Review website.

I like the emphasis here on the new kinds of questions that might be possible with big data. There are a couple of ways these could happen:

1. Uniquely large datasets might allow for different comparisons, particularly among smaller groups, that are more difficult to look at even with nationally representative samples.

2. The speed at which the experiments can be conducted through means like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk means more can be done more quickly. Additionally, I wonder if this could help alleviate some of the replication issues that pop up with scientific research.

3. Instead of having to be constrained by data limitations, big data might give researchers creative space to think on a larger scale and more outside of the box.

Of course, lots of topics are not well-suited for looking at through big data but such information does offer unique opportunities for researchers and theories.

Building more resilient cities

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Constructing cities and social and political institutions that are resilient in response to disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, is not an easy task:

An article from The New York Times this past September explored New York City’s vulnerability from flooding, casting an eerie hindsight over this week’s storm. Dr. Klaus H. Jacob, a research scientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and an adviser to the city on climate change (also author of this predictive study), told the Times that subway tunnels would have flooded during Hurricane Irene had the storm surge been one foot higher. “We’ve been extremely lucky,” he told the paper. “I’m disappointed that the political process hasn’t recognized that we’re playing Russian roulette.” Today, repairs and service restoration are only just beginning in New York’s flooded subway system.

The opportunity is to rethink infrastructure in terms of resilience, and not just rebuild it as it was (as this post in Scientific American points out). As University of Toronto professor Christopher Kennedy points out in his important book on The Evolution of Great World Cities, the definition of infrastructure goes far beyond roads, airports, tunnels, rail systems, subways and bridges and includes the rules, code and norms which govern how cities are built. His research points out that London’s rise to global commercial dominance in the 17th century was fueled by its response to the catastrophic fires of 1666. These led to sweeping changes in the city’s building codes and widening of its streets, which in turn led to increased densities, the adoption of new building technologies, and ultimately remade the city in ways that put it on a new growth trajectory.
The roadblock to building resilient cities, quite simply, has less to do with science and more to do with institutions and politics, as Steve Nash pointed out a couple of years ago in The New Republic.

For one thing, the politics of sea-level rise are still hazy—no one seems to agree on whether it’s a local, state, or federal responsibility. And Congress is not doing much to resolve these issues. The climate bill that passed the House last year merely calls for more research, even though more blue-ribbon panels seem superfluous at this point. “Do you need cost-benefit analysis to know that you’re going to protect Manhattan?” asks [Jim Titus of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency]. “That you’re not going to allow the Jefferson Memorial to go underwater? That Miami is going to continue to exist?” Those aren’t trick questions. But, for now, they’re going unanswered.

In other words, it isn’t just about rebuilding the same thing over and over again. Cities, and countries, need to develop plans by which the new construction is better suited to possible future disasters. The response to massive fires is cited above (and it reminds me of the changes in building after the Chicago Fire in 1871) but this has also occurred in response to earthquakes by setting codes so that buildings are better suited to face future threats. And being able to develop forward-thinking plans requires more flexible institutions that can respond to whatever changes come along. What worked in the past won’t necessarily work in the future so only changing after a major event or disaster is not a good thing. At the same time, such major events also may allow for a more sweeping reaction and change to take place in cities.

Seeing low-density Nashville as well as its revived core on TV

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Nashville may be about country music but it also provides some views of sprawling Nashville:

Nashville remains one of the lowest density cities in the United States, and both film and series rove widely over its suburban homes and scattered music venues. ABC’s principle location, the Bluebird Cafe, occupies a strip mall in traffic-snarled Green Hills, surrounded by chain retail and McMansions. Reyna James lives in snobbish Beale Meade, a former plantation turned moneyed bastion that pointedly excluded the music community in the 1970s. Then country was considered the music of loud and ugly bumpkins. But as legendary Nashville producer Tony Brown observes: “Money can kinda pretty you up.”

Sprawl now competes with new urban designs in Nashville. Employing soaring aerial views, the series’ opening sequence scans acres of wooded hills and pasture, within which are carved oases of development, including the Opryland Hotel, the Mall in Green Hills and the Belle Meade estates. But no longer is Nashville a city without a center. The camera circles the downtown’s middling skyscrapers, zeroing in on Nashville’s resuscitated heart, the 120 year-old Ryman Auditorium, a former tabernacle and “the Mother Church of Country Music.”

The rest of the article provides some interesting insight into how Nashville has been viewed in movies and on TV.

One thought while reading about the changes in Nashville and how it is portrayed on Nashville: TV and movies tend to show the “high points” of urban and suburban life. In other words, we tend to get sweeping shots of urban cores that show off tall buildings and lights. When showing suburbs, we tend to see big houses and well-kept lawns. Both sets of images tend to promote a more glitzy image. What we tend not to see is the more mundane aspects of suburban and urban life. In the suburbs, you don’t see much of the big box stores or strip malls or fast food joints or local institutions like churches, schools, and civic buildings. (I’m also thinking here of Modern Family – we don’t see much of their actual community as most of the action takes place inside of several large houses.) In the city, we don’t see “normal” neighborhoods but tend to see neighborhood hangouts, which always tend to look like nice bars or coffee shops, as well as cool apartments or condos. Perhaps “normal life” is too boring for these story lines but movies and TV shows aren’t exactly providing an honest image of places.