Monthly Archives: August 2013

Long tail: 17% of the seven foot tall men between ages 20 and 40 in the US play in the NBA

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As part of dissecting whether Shaq can really fit in a Buick Lacrosse (I’ve asked this myself when watching the commercial), Car & Driver drops in this little statistic about men in the United States who are seven feet tall:

The population of seven-footers is infinitesimal. In 2011, Sports Illustrated estimated that there are fewer than 70 men between the ages of 20 and 40 in the United States who stand seven feet or taller. A shocking 17 percent of them play in the NBA.

In the distribution of heights in the United States, being at least seven feet tall is quite unusual and at the far right side of a fairly normal distribution. But, being that tall increases the odds of playing in the NBA by quite a lot. As a Forbes post suggests, “Being 7 Feet Tall [may be] the Fastest Way To Get Rich in America“:

Drawing on Centers for Disease Control data, Sports Illustrated‘s Pablo Torre estimated that no more than 70 American men are between the ages of 20 and 40 and at least 7 feet tall. “While the probability of, say, an American between 6’6? and 6’8? being an NBA player today stands at a mere 0.07%, it’s a staggering 17% for someone 7 feet or taller,” Torre writes.

(While that claim might seem like a tall tale, more than 42 U.S.-born players listed at 7 feet did debut in NBA games between 1993 and 2013. Even accounting for the typical 1-inch inflation in players’ listed heights would still mean that 15 “true” 7-footers made it to the NBA, out of Torre’s hypothetical pool of about 70 men.)…

And given the market need for players who can protect the rim, there are extra rewards for this extra height. The league’s median player last season was 6 feet 7 inches tall, and paid about $2.5 million for his service. But consider the rarified air of the 7-footer-and-up club. The average salary of those 35 NBA players: $6.1 million.

(How much does one more inch matter? The 39 players listed at 6 feet 11 inches were paid an average of $4.9 million, or about 20% less than the 7 footers.)

Standing as an outlier at the far end of the distribution seems to pay off in this case.

Homelessness went down in last decade but not much coverage of this policy success

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Here is a story you may not have heard: homelessness in the United States has gone down in the last decade.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a leader in homelessness service and research, estimates a 17% decrease in total homelessness from 2005 to 2012. As a refresher: this covers a period when unemployment doubled (2007-2010) and foreclosure proceedings quadrupled (2005-2009)…And what about the presidents responsible for this feat? General anti-poverty measures – for example, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit — have helped to raise post-tax income for the poorest families. But our last two presidents have made targeted efforts, as well. President George W. Bush’s “housing first” program helped reduce chronic homelessness by around 30% from 2005 to 2007. The “housing first” approach put emphasis on permanent housing for individuals before treatment for disability and addiction.

The Great Recession threatened to undo this progress, but the stimulus package of 2009 created a new $1.5 billion dollar program, the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program. This furthered what the National Alliance called “ground-breaking work at the federal level…to improve the homelessness system by adopting evidence-based, cost effective interventions.” The program is thought to have aided 700,000 at-risk or homeless people in its first year alone, “preventing a significant increase in homelessness.”

Since then, the Obama administration also quietly announced in 2010 a 10-year federal plan to end homelessness. This is all to say that the control of homelessness, in spite of countervailing forces, can be traced directly to Washington—a fact openly admitted by independent organizations like the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

The article goes on to suggest why there hasn’t been much coverage of this success: homelessness is not much of a social problem in Washington or the national media. The social construction of homelessness as a social problem that should receive a lot of public attention either hasn’t been very successful, was never really attempted, or other social problems (like various wars on crime, poverty, terrorism, etc.) have captured more attention.

But, if all the numbers cited above are correct, it seems a shame that a positive effect of public policies regarding a difficult problem is going relatively unnoticed…

“The McMansion Man” builds larger houses in the Hamptons

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The Hamptons have long been known as a retreat for the wealthy but the recent actions of one builder suggest the houses are getting bigger and nicer:

“We’re as busy as we’ve ever been,” said Joe Farrell, the president of Farrell Building, during a recent interview and tour of his $43 million, 17,000-square-foot home here. The estate, called the Sandcastle, features two bowling lanes, a skate ramp, onyx window frames and, just for fun, an A.T.M. regularly restocked with $20,000 in $10 bills…

With a customer base composed largely of Wall Street financiers, Mr. Farrell has more than 20 new homes under construction, or slated for construction, at a time, making him the biggest builder here by far. He has plans for more, many of them speculative homes built before they have buyers…

“Houses have gotten smaller over all but not entirely: 8,000 square feet was the norm, now 6,500 is,” Mr. Farrell said. “Everyone wants six or seven bedrooms and their pool and their tennis.”

Where Mr. Farrell built speculative homes that sold for as much as $20 million before the recession, he now specializes in properties that sell for between $3 million and $10 million. “Mostly, though, $3 million to $6,” he said. “I love that market — there are probably 10 times as many people in that market than to buy an eight- or nine-million-dollar house, right?”

I’m not quite sure what the issue is. The Hamptons are for the wealthy and this man builds houses for the wealthy (though they are smaller and cheaper than a short time ago). But, the article suggests there might be several things going on:

1. Even the wealthy in the United States have to be careful to not completely flaunt their wealth. In particular, when economic times are bad it doesn’t look great to keep spending at high levels when other people are struggling.

2. There is an ongoing tension between old money and new money. The older homes, associated with older money, have more character and have been part of the community for decades. The new homes, associated with new money from the finance sector or from celebrities, are seen as gauche.

3. The construction of more spec/mass housing means the whole area will suffer by appearing more generic. Any historic architecture will disappear under a flood of mass-produced McMansions.

These are interesting arguments in themselves but I suspect (1) many Americans can’t relate and (2) there is enough money involved that it doesn’t really matter – just help pave over the issues with some more money. In other words, this provides a small window into how the wealthy view change within their own neighborhoods.

Four reasons more Americans are downsizing

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Pollster John Zogby gives four reasons he thinks more Americans are downsizing:

“There is a downsizing and downscaling and re-evaluation of values,” asserts John Zogby, a pollster and author of The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream. “It’s not always taking people down to a 600 square foot apartment and wearing a loin cloth, quitting their job and growing your own organic food.”…

• A growing number of Americans are working for less, voluntarily or involuntarily — but mainly involuntarily. In 1991, 14 percent told Zogby’s survey that someone in their household was earning less. By 2007, it was up to 27 percent and it reached 37 percent last year. “Suffice it to say, there is a sort of enforced simplification. People can’t afford to chase that whole American Dream.”

• Upwards of 11 million Americans in the higher income brackets are saying that conspicuous consumption “isn’t what cracked up to be, it’s not producing the satisfaction that I want my life to be about.”

• Baby Boomers, who are coming of age, “are looking for a second act in their lives, those who can’t retire and those who want to make a difference. In effect, they’re saying I want my life to be about something larger than me. I call it secular spiritualism.”

• And the fourth source of this cultural shift, Zogby maintains, is the latest iteration of a tendency among Americans that he says doesn’t get enough attention: “Our tendency to sacrifice to a higher cause.”

There are a variety of reasons here, suggesting this isn’t a monolithic movement. Some people might want more but can’t afford it. Others have lived into middle age and want more. It is one thing to downsize because of economic scarcity or an economic downturn; it is quite another thing to do so because of “secular spiritualism.”

Zogby isn’t alone with this fascination with this trend. This seems to be a popular topic, particularly when contrasted with American materialism and consumption. In a country where people generally want more and the accompanying hyperbole about everyone wanting McMansions, SUVs, and super-sized meals, people who try to make do with less are often looked at positively, especially by vocal critics of consumerism. For example, see the coverage of tiny houses.

Wealthy homebuyers don’t want McMansions; they want large, expensive homes with custom finishes

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Wealthy homebuyers may not just want McMansions; they are also willing to pay for interior upgrades.

So long McMansion, hello lifestyle. These days buyers who can afford to pay millions of dollars for a house expect plenty of room for living, but they also expect rooms that fit the way they live…

Granite, marble and hardwoods are expected, but homes in that price range have to offer comfort and livability “beyond the finishes,” said Fridrich & Clark Realtor Richard Bryan…

The 6,500-square-foot home, created as a rustic retreat, balances livability and fine design in a way that Allen believes is becoming a requirement for luxury homes…

The house features an infinity pool, a hot tub and lush landscaping. An open floor plan is designed for entertaining, as are the two outdoor kitchens and three expansive covered porches. The home will be sold with custom furniture and drapes, lighting fixtures and potted plants.

Hidden features, out of sight or at least not readily noticeable, enhance the home’s livability.

Rain gardens that capture water for use in watering the lawn are popular in Nashville’s neighborhoods. Allen took the concept further and installed an underground cistern that collects thousands of gallons of rainwater.

When I saw the headline for the article, I thought it was about people not buying large houses but buying smaller houses with nicer features. In other words, the money that once went for more square footage would instead go for nicer features.

However, the story is about wealthy people still buying big houses but with custom finishes or new kinds of features. Does it matter much if instead of buying an 8,000 square foot home, someone purchases a 6,500 square foot home and stuffs it to the gills with add-on options? Does having a rain garden make the large and expensive house more palatable?

I suspect builders would like this quite a bit. No builder wants to be known for constructing McMansions, mass produced large houses. If they can offer plenty of custom features, they can still make a lot of profit and escape claims they are simply building cavernous homes. This echoes the techniques used by big builders like Toll Brothers; they don’t make McMansions, they make luxury homes.

Jobs available for those who can analyze big data

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Now that there is plenty of big data available, companies are looking for employees to analyze the data:

By 2018, the United States might face a shortfall of about 35 percent in the number of people with advanced training in statistics and other disciplines who can help companies realize the potential of digital information generated from their own operations as well as from suppliers and customers, according to McKinsey & Co…

Workers in big data are hard to come by in the short term. A recent survey by CareerBuilder, an affiliate of Tribune Co., which also owns the Chicago Tribune, found that “jobs tied to managing and interpreting big data” were among the “hot areas for hiring” in the second half of 2013…

Dhingra pointed out that the McKinsey report, in addition to citing a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 qualified data scientists in coming years, also said there will be a need for 1.5 million executives and support staff who understand data.

Mu Sigma’s entry-level trainee professionals go through “an intense recruitment program” that includes aptitude tests to determine who has a “quantitative bent of mind”; group discussion, to spot individuals who can present and back their views and listen to feedback; and a “synthesis” test in which a candidate is shown a video and then asked to identify the key message. If they make it through those rounds, they undergo several personal interviews, a process that includes “props and interesting puzzles and case studies.”

Once a decision scientist trainee is recruited, they go through Mu Sigma University, where they learn such skills as the basics of consulting, the “art of problem solving” and the “art of insight generation.” They also take advanced statistics and are taught about machine learning, natural language processing and visualization, along with behavioral sciences and such big data technologies as Hadoop, Mahout and Cassandra.

The numbers don’t just interpret themselves. It is amazing how much data is available these days but people are still needed to figure out what it all means. Being able to do the conceptual and software work that goes into analyzing data can go a long ways these days…

Looking at inequality in NYC by translating wealth differences into building heights

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It can be difficult to visualize inequality but here is an innovative way of doing so: imagining wealth as buildings in New York City.

In his most recent visualization project, the Pittsburgh-based artist and researcher re-imagines what the city’s skyline would look like if building height were a direct reflection of a neighborhood’s net household wealth. “I was inspired to create this project after standing atop Mt. Washington in my hometown of Pittsburgh and looking at the Pittsburgh skyline,” he explains. “I thought to myself, ‘What if you could actually see inequality?’ This relatively even landscape would look much different.”

Lamm, who is responsible for other viral visualizations like Normal Barbie, translated Esri’s map of median household net worth in New York City (based on 2010 Census data) into the bright green 3-D bars you’re looking at. Every $100,000 of net worth in a section on Esri’s map equals one centimeter in height on Lamm’s visualization. So if one section (which appears to consist of multiple blocks) had a net worth of $500,000, Lamm’s rendering would measure 5 cm high. Similarly, if another section had a net worth of $80,000, the green would appear at a much flatter 0.8 cm.

Of the maps/visualizations available here, the best one is probably the first one that shows much of Manhattan from the northwest looking southeast.

Choosing to visualize wealth rather than income is a strategic choice. Much talk about inequality involves income but this may be the wrong metric. Income is more about short-term access to money but wealth may be more important for longer-term outcomes (purchasing a house, etc.) and the wealth differences between groups are quite a big larger. For example, the differences in wealth between the top 5% and the rest of America are astounding as are the differences between whites and blacks as well as Latinos.

Additionally, singling out New York, particularly Manhattan, is an interesting choice. The differences here are indeed stark. Manhattan is the seat of the financial sector. But, few places in the United States would have this much wealth inequality.

LA’s modernist homes threatened by hot housing market and McMansions

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The modernist homes Los Angeles are in danger of being replaced by McMansions and other big homes:

The Backus House still hovers on the same Bel Air hillside where Grossman built it. But because of the sprawling megamansions that have sprung up around the property, and because of the increasingly overheated state of the Southern California real estate market, Grossman’s elegant modernist creation—one of the few surviving examples of residential architecture by a groundbreaking woman now ranked among the finest designers of her era—may not survive much longer.

There’s an irony here. Starting in the 1920s, the combination of climate, terrain, and a young, progressive community of (largely European) architects and clients triggered an efflorescence of modern residential design in Los Angeles that culminated in the famous Case Study House Program (1945–66)—a series of experimental model homes sponsored by the local magazine Arts & Architecture and designed by some of the period’s greatest architects. The modern single-family dwelling may have been invented in Europe, at the Bauhaus and elsewhere, but many believe it was perfected in Southern California…

But a certain kind of modernist property—namely, a lesser-known house situated on a prime lot in an expensive neighborhood—is still at risk, and may be especially imperiled in Los Angeles’s current residential market, which has posted the nation’s largest increase in average sale price (20.7 percent) over the last year. “An economic downturn is always a good thing for preservation,” says Regina O’Brien, chairperson of the Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “A lot fewer developers are making a lot less money, and therefore they have a lot less motivation to pursue these profit-oriented flips. But the problem is that the opposite is true when the market picks back up.”…

“Most modernist homes are considered very modest by the standards of these neighborhoods, where people want far more house than they need,” says Nate Cole of Unique California Property, a Long Beach brokerage specializing in modernist architecture. “Buyers see anything that they deem a compromise, and out come the bulldozers.”

There are several issues at work:

1. It sounds like there are questions about individual property rights versus community-wide preservation efforts. Should property owners be able to cash in during a good housing market? This is a common issue across all sorts of communities debating teardowns and historic preservation.

2. These modernist homes are part of southern California’s image. Elsewhere, modernist homes might elicit more negative reactions but they are part of LA’s coming of age narrative. Part of the argument here is that the replacement homes don’t really add much to LA’s character.

3. Who exactly is supposed to pay to preserve these houses? As if often the case with preserving homes, supporters of the modernist homes are hoping for buyers who want to preserve and fix-up the homes. But, if those people don’t come, it is less clear what might be done.

4. The irony: a down real estate market is good for historic preservation. Not only might the old buildings survive, it might be easier for those interested in preservation to purchase the homes. But, who would wish for leaner economic times simply in order to preserve buildings? All of this suggests historic preservation might be partly about timing and having the opportunity to purchase property that might not be as marketable.

Is Chicago’s flag “a much bigger deal than” the flags of other big cities?

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Here is an argument for “why Chicago’s flag is a much bigger deal than any other city’s flag“:

As reporter Elliott Ramos suggested in a 2011 post for WBEZ, Chicago’s love affair with its flag seems to have taken off in the 1990s, with an influx of young adults into the city. Michael, a kickball player featured on the Chicago Flag Tattoos website, explains why he felt compelled to have the flag permanently emblazoned on his arm: “After moving to Chicago and living here for a few years, Chicago really kind of took a place in my heart, so I thought it’d be a good thing to do.”…

Symbolism aside, the flag’s simple, bold design is the reason it caught on. On his Urbanophile blog, Aaron M. Renn wrote: “In the United States, I’d have to rate Chicago far and away #1 in the use of official civic symbols (maybe the best in the world for all I know), and also note the overall high level of design quality of these objects … If you come to Chicago, you’ll notice that the city flag is ubiquitous.”

It’s enough to make you wonder: Is this a unique local thing? How do other cities’ flags stack up against Chicago’s?

Turns out, many are bland, and a few are downright appalling. Even the good flags aren’t necessarily well-known by the people of their cities.

When the North American Vexillological Association (vexillology is the study of flags) conducted a survey in 2004 ranking the nation’s best city flags, Chicago’s flag received a stellar 9.03 out of 10 possible points. But that was only good enough to land Chicago in the No. 2 spot. No. 2? Who could possibly beat us?

There is some limited evidence here: anecdotal tales that Chicagoans seem to display the flag often and the flag is rated highly by a flag group. But, there are several issues at work here. One, Chicago’s flag might be “better” than other flags. This is more of an aethestic or design consideration. This is where you want to appeal to outside, impartial groups like the North American Vexillological Association. Second, Chicagoans might like their flag or identify with it more than residents of other cities. Perhaps it indicates that Chicagoans have some decent levels of civic pride. This could be addressed by survey research. Third, Chicagoans might display the flag more often. This is probably the easiest to quantify and observational data could provide better evidence (perhaps easier to do these days with Google Street View).

Given the evidence presented in this piece, I’m not convinced any of these three options are true…

Saskia Sassen on three possible futures for cities: optimistic, dystopian, articulation

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Sociologist Saskia Sassen shares three possible visions for cities in the future:

ArchDaily: What will cities be like in the future?

Saskia Sassen: Well I have two scenarios: a very optimistic one and a very dystopian one. The dystopian scenario is that we will have a lot of private cities. Abuja is de facto a private city. It is how not to be in Lagos in Nigeria. The mechanism is very simple. Everything is super expensive. The milk, the houses, everything. It de facto eliminates all kinds of people. But I think we’re going to take it further. Songdo is sort of a private city. There are now big firms that sell you a city. They will build you a city. And some of them will rent you the city. So that’s the dystopian scenario. That’s the dystopian scenario; in other words we will have vast settlements with probably many toxic conditions, where a lot of people—modest, middle-class people—will be living in slums. In a country like Brazil, many people who are in the civil service of the government live in the slums. Same thing in India. This is contrasted with these brand new perfect cities that aren’t really cities in that full robust sense of the term.

At this end, my utopia is that when so many new people come to cities there is going to be a lot of making—making of sub-economies, not the economy. Making of urban agriculture, making of buildings that work with the environment. People of modest means will use their imaginations; they will understand how to make air circulate so that mosquitos are less likely to come in. They will work and have that knowledge—that is my optimistic scenario. So even a modest, poor slum will have people that know that the shack that they are building is part of larger systems. Then of course, the rich will be the rich and the upper-middle class will be the upper-middle classes. I think the modest middle-classes will keep on splitting up. The splitting up of the middle class has been happening for 25 years. I wrote about it in the late 1980s and people didn’t believe me. They said, “That’s not happening. We’re all becoming richer.” Well, no. Now we know that.

On a larger systemic map about cities, I think that the desirable, optimistic format is multiple articulations of the territory—not one endless metropolitan zone. I think we will have understood that the vast metropolitan area does not work.

The option is articulations. China is building all of these cities so they build nine small cities around Shanghai rather than letting Shanghai become an endless stretch. In my optimistic view, I see a different way of articulating the urban with territory. Moving away from metropolitanization.  Now, my Dutch, practical sense tells me that we’re not going to be able to do that. We’ll build something unmanageable and then the elites will move out and build a new private city.

The three visions: private cities where the wealthy can control everything versus cities where all, or most, people will be able to make things that improve their lives (though the scales of these improvements will likely differ) versus smaller big cities that are more manageable. To some degree, all of these are happening now so its unfortunate Sassen doesn’t go on to explain how these three scenarios might play out and under what conditions.

Something refreshing in this brief analysis: it sounds like Sassen is thinking about cities around the world and not really thinking about American cities. American urban sociology would do well to keep considering the changes to major cities elsewhere in the world…