Monthly Archives: December 2012

“The downside of retirement downsizing in a McMansion world”

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Downsizing has its challenges:

Anne Tergesen at The Wall Street Journal explored the problems of moving from a larger home to a smaller home at retirement: “But downsizing isn’t always simple, painless — or even all that beneficial financially. With the real-estate market still fragile, many baby boomers are getting a lot less than they expected for the old homestead. All too often, they have little cash left over after buying a new place, and their monthly expenses don’t fall as much as they thought — or may even rise instead.”

Tergesen also wrote about the emotional pain downsizing might cause: “They can’t bear to sort through or part with all those boxes in the basement, or argue with the adult children who want to keep the house where they grew up. Sometimes they downsize only to find they miss their old lifestyle and stuff.”…

Of course, downsizing doesn’t necessarily mean a scaling back in comfort. Architect Sarah Susanka, author of the best selling “Not So Big House” series of books, writes about how people can live in smaller homes that seem bigger because the design eliminates the wasted space in homes — such as dining rooms and formal living rooms.

Buying and selling homes, though, has its own challenges. Jacob Goldstein with NPR looked at the question of whether homes are cheap right now: “Houses are much cheaper than they were six years ago. Of course, six years ago was the peak of the biggest housing bubble in the history of America. So does ‘much cheaper than they were six years ago’ mean cheap? Does it mean ‘cheaper, but still overpriced’? Or does it mean ‘about right?’ ”

Moving can be difficult. But, downsizing can be viewed as a good thing: it gets people out of unnecessarily large homes that take up too much space in the first space; it could help people get rid of stuff they accumulated over the years (American consumerism at work) as well as begin a lifestyle where they can’t accumulate as much because they have less room to store it (though there could be problems with passing down heirlooms); and it might reduce housing and utility payments.

So, if downsizing is a good thing, can’t someone figure out how to make it easier? How about some sort of company or program that matches people who want a larger house with people who want to downsize? How about communities or perhaps governments that would guarantee people a certain value for their home if they live there a certain amount of time and then leave for downsizing purposes? What if a company promised to buy a downsizer’s home if they purchase an somewhat equally priced new Not So Big House? These ideas might be out there but if we wanted to promote downsizing, there are things companies or governments could do help the process along rather than just leave the process to the twists and turns of the real estate market.

The danger of railroad crossing accidents in the Chicago region

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The Chicago region is a railroad hub. While this may be good for business, it is not great for accidents between trains, vehicles, and pedestrians. Here are figures on the number of accidents from recent years and what might be done to reduce them:

From 2006 through 2011 in the Chicago region, there were 641 collisions with trains involving vehicles or pedestrians, a Daily Herald analysis found. A total of 253 people in the six-county area died coming into contact with trains in that time period and an additional 267 were injured, according to Illinois Commerce Commission data…

A total of 9.5 million people live in Chicago and the suburbs, where nearly 500 freight and 700 Metra trains chug through daily. But the design of some crossings and stations makes that coexistence treacherous, expert Ian Savage explained.

Mid-platform pedestrian crossings at train stations, angled streets intersecting with tracks so drivers “can easily come around the gates,” and platforms transitioning into streets are everyday hazards, he said.

“Some of the designs of the stations are strange and bizarre,” said Savage, a Northwestern University economics and transportation professor. For example, “when you have the street merge with the platform, it signals to people that ‘you can just stroll around aimlessly.'”

As the article notes, there are a number of solutions to this problem. The most effective would be to limit the number of at-grade crossings, of which the Chicago region has many. Of course, this is an expensive option:

The ultimate protection comes in the form of grade separations — overpasses or underpasses that keep the public and railways apart. Chicago and some older communities such as Naperville boast such structures that were built decades ago.

But constructing a grade separation is an exorbitant proposition. One structure dedicated in Downers Grove this fall on the BNSF Railway cost about $60 million. Another planned for West Chicago at Roosevelt Road and the Union Pacific Railway will cost $26 million.

The solution to this is likely a long-term one since new devices cost both money and time. Communities that took care of some of this far in the past are quite fortunate. The article mentions underpasses in Naperville. The suburb has two underpasses, one at Washington Street and one at Mill Road. Both are nearly a century old and were probably easier to construct even then because both of the crossings are away from the downtown and denser areas, an issue for many suburban communities. For example, Wheaton has had multiple discussions in the past about an overpass or underpass in the downtown but such a structure would overwhelm the quaint core.

I wonder if one possible solution to this issue would be to run fewer trains through the denser areas of the Chicago region and route more along the outer edges. This has been an issue in recent years as regional planners and others have looked for ways to move freight through or around the region more quickly. What if this was also promoted as a safety issue?

What if education can’t level the playing field for Americans?

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American society often suggests education is the way to level out social inequalities. But, what if education isn’t playing that role in society? Three investigative journalists argue those getting the bigger payoff from education are wealthier Americans:

Yet over the past 20 years, America’s best-educated state [Massachusetts] also has experienced the country’s second-biggest increase in income inequality, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. Census data. As the gap between rich and poor widens in the world’s richest nation, America’s best-educated state is among those leading the way…

If the great equalizer’s ability to equalize America is dwindling, it’s not because education is growing less important in the modern economy. Paradoxically, it’s precisely because schooling is now even more important…

Just to stay even, poorer Americans need to obtain better credentials. But that points to another rich-poor divide in the United States. Educators call it the scholastic “achievement gap.” It has been around forever, but it’s getting wider. Lower-class children are getting better educations than before. But richer kids are outpacing their gains, which in turn is stoking the widening income gap.

Across the country, a Stanford University study found last year, the achievement gap between rich and poor students on standardized tests is 30 to 40 percent wider than it was a quarter-century ago. Because excellent students are more likely to grow rich, the authors argued, income inequality risks becoming more entrenched.

This is a complicated matter and, as the article suggests, it is a politicized topic. Trying to sort this out would be very difficult, particularly since it is tied to where people live and how they can use their own resources to help their children succeed.

The closer look at how the Obama campaign used big data to wage an intimate and winning campaign

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In MIT Technology Review, Sasha Issenberg has a three-part look at how the Obama campaign was effectively able to harness big data. Here are the concluding paragraphs from Part Three:

A few days after the election, as Florida authorities continued to count provisional ballots, a few staff members were directed, as four years before, to remain in Chicago. Their instructions were to produce another post-mortem report summing up the lessons of the past year and a half. The undertaking was called the Legacy Project, a grandiose title inspired by the idea that the innovations of Obama 2012 should be translated not only to the campaign of the next Democratic candidate for president but also to governance. Obama had succeeded in convincing some citizens that a modest adjustment to their behavior would affect, however marginally, the result of an election. Could he make them feel the same way about Congress?

Simas, who had served in the White House before joining the team, marveled at the intimacy of the campaign. Perhaps more than anyone else at headquarters, he appreciated the human aspect of politics. This had been his first presidential election, but before he became a political operative, Simas had been a politician himself, serving on the city council and school board in his hometown of Taunton, Massachusetts. He ran for office by knocking on doors and interacting individually with constituents (or those he hoped would become constituents), trying to track their moods and expectations.

In many respects, analytics had made it possible for the Obama campaign to recapture that style of politics. Though the old guard may have viewed such techniques as a disruptive force in campaigns, they enabled a presidential candidate to view the electorate the way local candidates do: as a collection of people who make up a more perfect union, each of them approachable on his or her terms, their changing levels of support and enthusiasm open to measurement and, thus, to respect. “What that gave us was the ability to run a national presidential campaign the way you’d do a local ward campaign,” Simas says. “You know the people on your block. People have relationships with one another, and you leverage them so you know the way they talk about issues, what they’re discussing at the coffee shop.”

Few events in American life other than a presidential election touch 126 million adults, or even a significant fraction that many, on a single day. Certainly no corporation, no civic institution, and very few government agencies ever do. Obama did so by reducing every American to a series of numbers. Yet those numbers somehow captured the individuality of each voter, and they were not demographic classifications. The scores measured the ability of people to change politics—and to be changed by it.

Combining numbers and a personal appeal made for a winning campaign. Part Two has more on how the Romney campaign watched what the Obama campaign was doing and tried to react and yet couldn’t quite figure it out.

Since this appears to have been the winning formula in 2012, I imagine there will be plenty of others who will try to duplicate it. One way would be to get the Obama campaign database and information and it is not clear who might be able to access that in the future. Another way would be to hire some of the Obama campaign people who made this happen – I imagine they will get some lucrative offers moving forward. A third option would be to try to find another way but this could be tedious, require a lot of resources, and may not come to the same conclusion.

Sears hopes Moneyball addition to its board can help revive the company

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Here is an odd mixing of the data, sports, and business worlds: Sears recently named Paul Podesta to its board.

Paul DePodesta, one of the heroes of Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” a great 2003 baseball book (and later a movie) about the 2002 A’s that’s more about business and epistemology than baseball, has been named to the board of Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings Corp.

To be sure, he’s an unconventional choice for the parent of Sears and Kmart. But Chairman Edward Lampert is thinking outside the box score, welcoming the New York Mets’ vice president of player development and amateur scouting into his clubhouse…

“What Paul DePodesta … did to bring analytics into the world of baseball is absolutely parallel to what needs to happen — and is happening — in retail,” said Greg Girard, program director of merchandising strategies and retail analytics for Framingham, Mass.-based IDC Retail Insights.

“It’s a big cultural change, but that’s something a board member can effect,” Girard said. “And he’s got street cred to take it down to the line of business guys who need to change, who need to bring analytics and analysis into retail decisions.”…

“Analytics has been something folks in retail have talked about for quite some time, but they’re redoubling their efforts now,” Girard said. “Drowning in data and not knowing what data’s relevant, which data to retain and for how long, is the No. 1 challenge retailers are having as they move into what we call Big Data.”

Fascinating. People like Podesta are credited with starting a revolution in sports by developing new statistics and then using that information to outwit the market. For example, Podesta and a host of others before him (possibly with Bill James at the beginning), found that certain traits like on-base percentage were undervalued and teams, like the small-market Oakland Athletics, could build decent teams without overpaying for the biggest free agents. Of course, once other teams caught on to this idea, on-base percentage was no longer undervalued. The Boston Red Sox, one of the biggest spending baseball teams, picked up this idea and paid handsomely for such skills and went on to win two World Series championships. So teams now have to look at other undervalued areas. One recent area that Major League Baseball shut down was spending more on overseas talent and draft picks to build up a farm system quickly. These ideas are now spreading to other sports as some NBA teams are making use of such data and new precise data will soon be collected with soccer players while they are on the pitch.

The same thought process could apply to business. If so, the process might look like this: find new ways to measure retail activity or hone in on less understood data that is out there. Then maximize a response to these lesser-known concepts and move around competitors. When they start to catch on, keep innovating and stay ahead a step or two. Sears could use a lot of this moving forward as they have struggled in recent years. Even if Podesta is able to identify trends others have not, he would still have to convince a board and company to change course.

It will be interesting to see how Podesta comes out of this. If Sears continues to lose ground, how much of that will rub off on him? If there is a turnaround, how much credit would he get?

The sociology of literature and looking for data and insights in the margins of books

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As a big reader, I was interested to see this review of research built on data about readers left behind in books:

Price’s work perches at the leading edge of a growing body of investigations into the history of reading. The field draws from many others, including book history and bibliography, literary criticism and social history, and communication studies. It looks backward to the pre-Gutenberg era, back to the clay tablets and scrolls of ancient civilizations, and forward to current debates about how technology is changing the way we read. Although much of the relevant research has centered on Anglo-American culture of the last three or four centuries, the field has expanded its purview, as scholars uncover the hidden reading histories of cultures many used to dismiss as mostly oral.

It’s a tricky business. A bibliographer works with hard physical evidence—a manuscript, a printed book, a copy of the Times of London. A scholar seeking to pin down the readers of the past often has to read between the lines. Marginalia can be a gold mine of information about a book’s owners and readers, but it’s rare. “Most of the time, most readers historically didn’t, and still don’t, write in their books,” Price explains.

But even a book’s apparent lack of use can be read as evidence. “The John F. Kennedy Library here in Boston owns a copy of Ulysses whose pages—other than a few at the very beginning and very end—are completely uncut,” she says. “This tells us something about the owner of the copy—who happens to be Ernest Hemingway.”…

Since Reading the Romance, the ethnography of reading has taken off among scholars. Radway points to Forgotten Readers, Elizabeth McHenry’s study of African-American literary societies, Ellen Gruber Garvey’s Writing With Scissors, about scrapbooking, and David Henkin’s City Reading, about signage in the urban environment, as strong examples. “People have become very creative about trying to figure out how groups of readers interact with the text as it’s embodied in various forms,” she says.

I have wondered in recent years why more sociologists don’t take up the subject of reading. It seems crucial for understanding the development of modern societies as information moved from a highly regulated environment to a diffuse distribution through books, newspapers, and other printed materials.

I’ve enjoyed the work of sociologist Wendy Griswold who studies reading. I’ve used a few of her pieces in class. Here are some of her fascinating works in the “sociology of literature” that I recommend:

1. Bearing Witness published in 2000. Griswold examines the reading culture in Nigeria and why novels, a common genre in Western society, aren’t prevalent in Nigeria. The short version of the story: it takes a lot of work for a society to be at a level where novels can be easily produced and read.

2. “American Character and the American Novel: An Expansion of Reflection Theory in the Sociology of Literature.” American Journal of Sociology 86(4), 1981. Griswold compares American and European novels in the late 1800s and early 1900s and finds the differences in their content is due more to copyright law than “national characters.”

3. With Terry McDonnell and Nathan Wright. “Reading and the Reading Class in the Twenty-First Century.” Annual Review of Sociology 31, 2005. Here is the abstract:

Sociological research on reading, which formerly focused on literacy, now conceptualizes reading as a social practice. This review examines the current state of knowledge on (a) who reads, i.e., the demographic characteristics of readers; (b) how they read, i.e., reading as a form of social practice; (c) how reading relates to electronic media, especially television and the Internet; and (d) the future of reading. We conclude that a reading class is emerging, restricted in size but disproportionate in influence, and that the Internet is facilitating this development.

Some fascinating stuff about the social forces influencing reading in today’s world.

4. With Nathan Wright. “Wired and Well Read.” In Society Online: The Internet in Context, 2004. If I remember correctly, Griswold and Wright argue the Internet doesn’t compete with reading; rather it enhances reading as those who read before the Internet use the Internet to read more.

Trying to explain the declining mobility of Americans

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More recent data suggests American mobility has slowed and we’re not quite sure why:

Historically Americans are an extremely mobile people, but if they keep moving like they did the past five years, they may not keep that reputation for long. This month the U.S. Census released the latest migration data [PDF] from the Current Population Survey, which measures whether or not a person has moved within the past five years (via David King). The 2010 national five-year mobility rate was about 35 percent — the lowest since the Census began to collect data on the question…

The Census has detailed data on who’s moving. People in their late twenties had the highest mobility rate (about 65 percent), while Latinos and African Americans were the most mobile racial groups (each with rates of roughly 43 percent). Households making under $50,000 a year moved a bit more than those with incomes over $75,000. Renters moved much more than homeowners: at a rate of two-thirds to less than a quarter, respectively.

The bureau also knows where they’re moving. Among people who did move, most stayed in the same county (61 percent, an all-time high). The share of Americans who moved from different states (nearly 16 percent) and from different counties within the same state (19 percent) both declined a few points. The South had a statistically significant net mobility gain of 1.1 million people, while the Northeast (832,000) and Midwest (350,000) lost people on net…

But the Census can’t quite say why Americans are moving — or not moving, as the case appears. The obvious culprit is the recession: when it’s hard to get a new job or sell your house, you aren’t likely to move. That explanation doesn’t entirely hold up against the data, however. For one thing, the unemployed moved at a higher five-year rate than people with jobs (48 to 37 percent). Also moving rates having been trending down in recent years for renters and homeowners alike (green and red lines, respectively).

The summary: it is not clear why Americans are moving less. The one answer the article ends with is that Americans may simply be willing to move less. What if we simply have reached a point where fewer Americans are willing to explore, have adventures, take advantage of different opportunities, and other supposed traits of American residents? We are long past the frontier era of American life and perhaps this narrative of mobility simply doesn’t apply any more. The last “frontier” we conquered was putting astronauts on the moon; this was a while ago and it didn’t lead to much mobility to the new frontier.

I wonder if there is any sort of story here about maturing communities or nations where people “settle down” and mobility slows. I could imagine this taking place at the level of a suburb: the early years might be marked by a highly transient population that is moving in and out of new housing but as the community matures fewer new people are moving in to the decreasing amount of new housing.

 

Uptick in bigger homes but with some twists: more infill, multigenerational, and upsized homes

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Some recent evidence suggests big homes might be making a comeback in America but with a few twists:

The average size of a newly built home increased 3.7 percent in 2011 from 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That was the first annual increase since 2007 and indicates that home builders are seeing demand for larger spaces. The demand, however, is not where it used to be. Home buyers are less willing to head out to the so-called “ex-urbs” to get their larger space,” according to the latest findings from the American Institute of Architects.

“In many areas, we are seeing more interest in urban infill locations than in remote exurbs, which is having a pronounced shift in neighborhood design elements,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker. “And regardless of city or suburban dwellers, people are asking more from their communities in terms of access to public transit, walkable areas and close proximity to job centers, retail options and open space.”

Half of residential architecture firms highlight demand for multi-generational housing, up from 44 percent in 2011. Fifty-nine percent said access to public transportation is key, up from 47 percent a year ago.

More homeowners are also upsizing what they have, with 58 percent of architects reporting improvement in additions and alterations, up from just 35 percent a year ago; kitchen and bath, as usual, top the must-have list.

These factors may make new McMansions more appealing. Infill locations might lead into teardown situations but this could be preferable to sprawl. Multigenerational housing makes better use of the large houses and they appear less wasteful. Upsizing helps people build value in their home and not contribute to sprawl. While these are still big homes, they don’t sound like the exurban cookie-cutter McMansions critics love to attack.

Another note from this article: it suggests in the final paragraph that McMansions are usually thought to have between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet. This seems somewhat right to me though this could be on the conservative end. I’ve seen plenty of instances where a home over 5,000 square feet is called a McMansion and sometimes it seems like the upper end, moving into mansion territory, might be more like 8-10,000 square feet.

Converting American churches into housing units

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More American churches are being converted into housing units:

The building is one of a number of church-to-home luxury conversions popping up around the country. As dozens of churches close or move to different quarters each year, they’re finding second lives as condo developments and townhouses.

The conversion process is growing more common as shrinking congregations and shifting demographics have made it difficult for some congregations to stay afloat financially. According to a March report from CoStar Group, a real-estate research firm, 138 church-owned properties across the country were sold by banks last year, compared with 24 three years earlier…

Architects have found creative ways to convert these historic buildings—which often have 40- or 50-foot-high ceilings, few or no interior walls and stained-glass windows—into homes and apartments that will sell for millions of dollars.

But it isn’t an easy process: Not only do the structures need intensive interior reconstruction and upgrades to meet modern building codes, but they often have been granted landmark status, further complicating renovations.

This is a good example of retrofitting. As the article notes, hundreds of churches have closed in recent years and converting the churches generally leaves the outside while making the interior reusable. One irony in this story is that I have read in recent years about growing conservative churches making use of vacant shopping structures, often big box stores, rather than building new churches or megachurches. So, in the suburbs, some churches are sacralizing profane spaces while in cities, new residents are secularizing once-sacred spaces.

It would also be interesting to hear how these new residential units were received in the communities in which they were built. The article profiles individual owners and builders but doesn’t talk much about the zoning process or reactions from neighbors. It sounds like people generally want to save the historic church buildings but there might be concerns about adding new residents. On the other hand, converting the churches means the property can be added to the tax rolls and generate revenue for the community.

Also, the examples of this article include fairly expensive condos and housing units. Has anyone turned churches into truly affordable housing? If so, the mission of the church might continue even if a congregation no longer meets there.

Nielsen and Twitter combine to measure Twittering about television

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With the rise of Twitter messages about television shows and events, Nielsen and Twitter just announced a new project to measure the connection:

“The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating is a significant step forward for the industry, particularly as programmers develop increasingly captivating live TV and new second-screen experiences, and advertisers create integrated ad campaigns that combine paid and earned media,” said Steve Hasker, President, Global Media Products and Advertiser Solutions at Nielsen. “As a media measurement leader we recognize that Twitter is the preeminent source of real-time television engagement data.”…

The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating will enhance the social TV analytics and metrics available today from SocialGuide by adding the first-ever measurement of the total audience for social TV activity – both those participating in the conversation and those who were exposed to the activity –providing the precise size of the audience and effect of social TV to TV programming.

SocialGuide, recently acquired by Nielsen and NM Incite, currently captures Twitter TV activity for all U.S. programming across 234 TV channels in English and Spanish, and more than 36,000 programs.  Through a sophisticated classification process, SocialGuide matches Tweets to TV programs to offer key social TV metrics including the number of unique Tweets associated with a given program and rankings for the most social TV programs.

This may be interesting in itself but the key may just be translating this into information that TV networks can sell to advertisers:

Brad Adgate, an analyst at Horizon Media, said advertisers will view the Twitter ratings as a useful layer of information about a show’s popularity, but it is “not going to be close to the currency” of existing ratings metrics.

“It lets producers and creative directors know if the storyline is working, like a huge focus group,” Adgate said. “But I don’t think you can translate comments to ratings for a show. Right now I think the bark right now is bigger than its bite.”…

Mark Burnett, executive producer of NBC’s hit “The Voice,” argued that advertisers should value programs that can attract a high level of social media engagement from viewers. Deeply embedded social media elements, such as live Twitter polls, were critical in driving “The Voice” to the top of the Tuesday night ratings among viewers between 18 to 49, Burnett said.

“If you’re an advertiser, wouldn’t you want to know whether people are watching this show passively or if they’re actively engaged in the viewing experience?” Burnett said. “Five years from now this will make traditional television ratings seem archaic.”

In other words, if this metric works well, television networks will be able to charge advertisers more based on increased levels of Twitter engagement or find some way to provide more targeted advertising to Twitter users. What will Twitter engaged TV watchers get out of it? I’m not sure. Will any of this measurement and action based on the data enhance the interactive element of TV watching? Theoretically, if TV networks could get more money for advertising based on social media engagement, they might have more money to put into developing quality programming. But, there are few guarantees there.

I’ll be very interested to see in coming years if Twitter and Facebook continue to remain relatively ad-free or if the need to monetize these experiences to make money takes precedence.