Author Archives: legallysociable

A new off-Broadway play criticizes making the American Dream about buying mini-McMansions

Posted on by

It has become common in recent years to link the economic crisis to the purchases of McMansions. Here are a few lines from the new off-Broadway play “Heresy” illustrate this:

Chris’ college roommate, Pedro (Danny Rivera), and tarty call girl lady friend Lena (Ariel Woodiwiss) appear as witnesses for the persecuted campus radical. With the help of Pontius’ blowsy socialite wife, Phyllis (Kathy Najimy), the negotiation for Chris’ freedom devolves into a boozy cocktail party and a well-meaning but exasperating political debate. The characters spout off arguments like, ”The American Dream has been reduced to mean a mini-McMansion bought with an unaffordable mortgage,” and ”The American dream has dwindled into a vulgar, materialistic view of life.” And so on.

A lot of commentators have argued that the American Dream has become equated with consumerism. I remarked recently to one of my classes that this seems to be an odd interpretation of the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” suggested in the Declaration of Independence.

But, there is little doubt that owning property was an important consideration for the American colonists and that owning a home today is one key marker of “making it” in America. I suspect the real issue here could be two things:

1. Buying and consuming more than one needs. It is one thing to be self-sufficient or comfortable and another to be excessive.

2. There are issues when individuals care more about acquiring and protecting their own possessions as opposed to caring about and contributing to the larger community. This has been a tension throughout American history.

Another note of interest: what exactly is a mini-McMansion and how does it differ from a McMansion? McMansions are usually thought to be quite large, probably somewhere between 3-10,000 square feet. Thus, a mini-McMansion would be smaller but the average new home in the United States is around 2,500 square feet so is this typical new home automatically a mini-McMansion?

Hard to get green homes appraised as there is a lack of knowledge, comparables

Posted on by

Interest in green homes, exemplified by net zero energy homes, may be growing but there is an issue: because there is a lack of comparable homes, appraisals for green homes are more difficult to do:

Last year, single-family green home construction represented 17 percent of the homebuilding market, in effect doubling since 2008, according to a report by McGraw-Hill Construction. Researchers predict that by 2016, green home construction could comprise 29 percent to 38 percent of the market, as builders devote more time to green projects. The share of remodeling projects labeled as green is expected to rise as well…

Appraisers are slowly getting up to speed. Since 2008, almost 4,900 appraisers nationally have participated in 275 courses on green and energy-efficient valuation conducted by the Appraisal Institute trade group. Still, green home appraisals continue to be difficult, in part because there are few comparable sales but also because the building technology is changing. That makes it hard for appraisers to value — and for lenders to accept those higher values — home features that can run the gamut from rain barrels to a tankless water heater to a whole-house geothermal heating system…

In the Chicago area, Midwest Real Estate Data LLC added “green” fields to its multiple listing service so sellers can highlight environmentally friendly features of their homes to potential buyers. The Appraisal Institute created an addendum to appraiser forms to help analyze the value of green features. And lenders are starting to track so-called green mortgages to see if defaults are lower than on traditional home…

To increase the chances that improvements that go above and beyond what’s required by local building codes is correctly valued, experts recommend documenting green features added to a home.

They also urge builders and consumers to consider obtaining third-party certification about the home’s energy efficiency.

Put another way, there is more cultural and economic interest in green homes. People want to both reduce their energy costs but also want homes that are “responsible” and not seen as energy-hogging McMansions. However, it takes some time for the whole market to catch up to the perceived higher values of these new homes. This is the real issue here: while extra money and time may be spent on green features, appraisers aren’t yet “rewarding” builders and homeowners with the increase in housing value they think a more efficient and green-conscious home deserves.

Thinking more broadly about this, I wonder about the motivations of builders who are constructing more green homes. Are they motivated more by wanting to be green or by the knowledge there is a growing market for such homes? Of course, being green and making money can go together and perhaps this is how it should work in a perfect world. But, this might matter for some who are more concerned about being green and who wonder if being green is currently about being trendy which could endanger such causes down the road when the cultural and economic winds change.

Planning for floating cities

Posted on by

A Dutch architect is taking inspiration from designing houseboats and thinking about cities built to float on the water:

Olthuis, who along with building partner Dutch Docklands, designed a section of floating islands for Dubai’s man-made Palm Islands development project, has also created a patent which scales up the technology used for a houseboat to floating structures big enough to hold cars, roads and houses.

“Water is a workable building layer or a floating foundation and if you turn water into space, which is a dramatic change of mindset, there’s a whole new world of possibilities,” Olthuis told Reuters…

“It is just a floating foundation, mostly made of concrete and foam which is quite stable, heavy, and goes up and down with waves and up and down with the sea level,” he said.

The floating city of the future is still a dream, but Olthuis’s firm, WaterStudio, which he started a decade ago, designs buildings and floating structures which try to combat the challenges posed by rising sea levels.

Sounds interesting but I imagine it is a ways away from being used for large-scale development.

The article suggests it is currently being used in one setting and is envisioned for another key use: it is currently for the wealthy but could be used in the future to help combat the rise of the oceans due to global warming. I wonder if it might have more practical uses today: imagine new tourist, residential, and commercial destinations built in major cities like New York or Chicago that are out over the water (not just in the water or relatively close to shore). What about relieving overcrowding in some cities by building out over the water? What about being able to put essential infrastructure out on the water (power plants, water treatment facilities, etc.)? If cities weren’t as limited by land and could utilize the water surface as well, this would encourage new opportunities.

In buyer’s market, some skipping the starter home and buying the big home first

Posted on by

With lower mortgage rates and housing prices, some young buyers are buying the big home as their first home:

Real estate agents say more twentysomething, childless buyers are snapping up sprawling homes instead of starting out small. It’s a trend that’s gaining momentum as young buyers seize on some of the best housing deals in history. While the shift is unlikely to kick-start construction of new subdivisions filled with McMansions, it’s helping to revive sales of midpriced and upper-bracket houses. The Simonses, for instance, initially planned to spend about $200,000 on a townhouse, but ended up spending tens of thousands more once they started shopping…

Clearly, most first-timers don’t have the financial muscle to buy their dream house, but with rents on the rise, the Simonses and other young buyers face stiff competition from investors who can pay cash for inexpensive properties they can use for rentals. During August, the inventory of houses priced at less than $140,000 fell 40 percent, while those priced at more than $300,000 fell half as much, according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors…

This shift to larger homes runs counter to buying trends in recent years that showed higher demand for smaller houses. When the recession hit, many builders decreased square footage and touted their homes as more efficient and economical for buyers.

But Walter Maloney, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, said many of today’s buyers are realizing that it could take many years to gain enough equity to trade up to a costlier house, so many are planning to stay longer. Last year, the typical buyer expected to be in their house 15 years compared with 10 years in 2010, he said.

So is this a good decision or not? As we are still trying to recover from a housing crash, it may be easier to now buy a larger house. However, these purchases echo two ideas that are often credited for getting us into this housing situation in the first place: people spending more money on houses than they should (even if they are more “affordable”) and people buying unnecessarily large houses. Indeed, there are some who would argue these two things should be avoided even in the best of times.

The last part of the quote above is also interesting: are we settling into a period where Americans are expecting to be less mobile? Some data from recent years suggests the recession has slowed mobility but people are making certain decisions now as well as developing mindsets that could change mobility for years to come.

NYT lays out three options for how personal religious faith could influence sociological work

Posted on by

At the end of a column looking at this summer’s public debate over research findings from sociologist Mark Regnerus, the writer suggests there are three ways personal religious faith could influence a sociologist’s work:

So if there is not really a Christian method in sociology, but there is a role for a self-described Christian in sociology, as Dr. Regnerus once averred, then what is that role? One can imagine several answers.

First, the religious — or atheist, for that matter — sociologist might have a set of topics that she finds particularly relevant to her beliefs. Given their traditions’ emphasis on traditional family, for example, a conservative Catholic or evangelical Protestant could reasonably gravitate toward the study of family structure.

Second, a scholar might have faith that good research ultimately brings people to God or furthers his plans. A Christian historian might trust that even a modest study of the Spanish-American War, or of Rhode Island history, would do a small part to reveal the providential nature of all history.

Finally, a scholar might be a “Christian scholar” by virtue of the pride he takes in his faith, especially in the secular academy. Dr. Regnerus was a proud Christian witness, once upon a time. But these days he won’t discuss his faith, even with a Christian magazine. Two weeks ago, Christianity Today ran a lengthy interview with Dr. Regnerus in which he said nothing about his religious beliefs.

Option one presented here seems to be the one that would probably be most acceptable to the broader scientific community. Lots of researchers have personal interests that help guide them to particular areas of study but then we tend to assume (or hope), a la Weber’s arguments about value-free sociology, that the findings will not necessarily be influenced by these personal interests. At the same time, some might argue that completely separating personal life and research results may be a modernist dream.

I suspect options two and three wouldn’t get as much broad support.

It would also be interesting to see how this would play out if we weren’t talking about personal religious beliefs but other personal beliefs. For example, Jonathan Haidt has been looking at politics within social psychology and thinking about how these personal (and more collective) beliefs might influence a whole field.

Why Asian immigrants moved to the American suburbs

Posted on by

There has been a flurry of research in the last few decades on the movement of Asian immigrants to the American suburbs, notably looking at the suburbs of Los Angeles and working with the concepts of “ethnoburbs.” Here is a fresh take on the topic from a researcher looking at what has happened in some of these Los Angeles suburbs:

The homeowners I spoke to who settled in the now-Asian ethnoburbs of Diamond Bar, Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, or Walnut, said that they were drawn to the country lifestyle. As one white interviewee says, “our house was backed into the wilderness… Diamond Bar looked like a ranch… a nice place to live, to raise children, (and) a clean healthy environment.” Asian American interviewees – many of whom originate from dense metropolitan areas in East and Southeast Asia, and settled in the east Valley in the mid-1980s and beyond – also sought the east Valley’s country lifestyle since the term implied wholesomeness, the setting suggested order and harmony, and the image accompanied with a single-family home connoted the actualization of the American Dream.

While scholars and researchers rightfully problematize political economies, migration patterns, and social dynamics between different racial and class groups in the contemporary ethnoburb, oftentimes post-1965 Asian immigrants moved to these neighborhoods for tangible and banal reasons. Interviewees provided various mundane and frank motives as to why the east Valley sold them twenty or thirty years ago: inexpensive new housing, reputable school districts, easy access to work, distance from urban crime and racial “others,” and by the late 1980s and 1990s, conveniences to ethnic commodities. Though classism, neatly planned neighborhoods, and country living were pivotal aspects in residents’ decisions to settle, “everyday” matters and concerns also informed how a community grew, struggled, and changed. The Asianization of the greater San Gabriel Valley is not slowing down anytime soon as Merlin Chowkwanyun and Jordan Segall demonstrate.

The contemporary emergence of California’s majority-Asian suburb, then, is not solely about Pacific Rim capital, immigrant family reunification, or Asian Americans’ “Model Minority” status allowing them to enter these formerly elite white neighborhoods. It is deeply linked to how immigrants and non-immigrants imagine, absorb, construct, and reinforce popular discourse and imagery of the American Dream, rosy suburbia, and the U.S. West. The salience of these themes influences how individuals or groups envision and build community throughout the U.S. and across generations.

It sounds like the argument here is about adding the lure of suburban culture to the structural arguments. Like others who moved to the suburbs, the cultural values and ideals attached to the American suburbs proved attractive to Asian immigrants even as some of the larger structural forces, like class, made it more possible.

A comparative element might be helpful here: were Asian immigrants more drawn to the American suburbs than immigrants from other places? If so, why?

Plans for purchase of Wheaton Grand Theater; hope for larger economic impact

Posted on by

Many older American downtowns are looking for ways to bring in new business and revenues. One way to achieve this is to pursue entertainment opportunities. Here is how this is currently playing out in Wheaton, Illinois where there is a perspective buyer for the Wheaton Theater:

Downtown property owner and lifelong Wheaton resident Jim Atten said he has “verbally agreed” to buy the theater, constructed in 1925, from Elmhurst-based Suburban Bank and Trust.

“It’s going to take a while to do, but our plan is to turn it into a performing arts and movie theater,” Atten said…

Atten said, if the purchase goes through, an extensive fundraising effort will be launched to make a dent in the necessary repairs and remodeling in the building, which he estimated could be about $5 million…

The theater closed in the 1990s and after an unsuccessful attempt by the Wheaton Grand Theater Corp. to revive it by hosting concerts, the deed was given up to the bank after coming up short on a loan payment.

Last year, Wheaton voters rejected a proposal to let the city use $150,000 in public funds each year to renovate the building…

Still, [Wheaton mayor] Gresk said the expected purchase is a “wonderful, huge first step.”

We’ll see how this moves forward. The benefits of a theater for a smaller downtown could be large: theaters can generate money themselves but can also attract other business as theater goers eat and shop nearby, festivals could make use of the space (think film, music, art, and theater festivals), and this building could serve as an example of how to effectively remodel and utilize older spaces. Smaller downtowns need spaces like this to succeed, partly to help provide energy and people for all of the downtown but also to make good use of storefront space that might be difficult to fill with other uses.

The first laptop met with distaste because it was associated with the gendered job of secretary

Posted on by

The “first recognizable laptop” created in 1982 ran into some problems such as its hefty price tag and its association with typing and who did the typing in many offices:

But Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm and Handspring (makers of the Treo), was there in 1982 and he told a different story at the Computer History Museum a few years ago during a panel on the laptop. For him, the problems were not exclusively in the harder domains of currency and form factor. No, sociological and psychological reasons made the GRiD Compass hard to sell to businessmen…

This is an amazing fact. We had this product. It was designed for business executives. And the biggest obstacle, one of the biggest obstacles, we had for selling the product was the fact — believe it or not — that it had a keyboard. I was in sales and marketing. I saw this first-hand. At that time, 1982, business people, who were in their 40s and 50s, did not have any computer or keyboard in their offices. And it was associated with being part of the secretarial pool or the word processing (remember that industry?) department. And so you’d put this thing in their office and they’d say, “Get that out of here.” It was like getting a demotion. They really were uncomfortable with it…

The second reason they were uncomfortable with it is that none of them knew how to type. And it wasn’t like they said, “Oh, I’ll have to learn how to type.” They were very afraid — I saw this first-hand — they were very afraid of appearing inept. Like, “You give me this thing, and I’m gonna push the wrong keys. I’m gonna fail.”

In Hawkins telling at least, there was no way around these obstacles. “We couldn’t solve this problem. It took a generational change, for the next younger group who had been exposed to terminals and computers to grow up,” he continued. “That was an amazing technology adoption problem you would have never thought about.”

This is a great example of underlying sociological issues that might not be considered fully when making and marketing a new product. On one hand, this was an exciting new technology but on the other hand, existing social factors made it difficult for businessmen to grab the opportunity this technology represented. Ideas about gender and who was supposed to be a typist, viewed as a lower status position, influenced technology adaptation.

Also, this story could lead into the history of secretaries and typists. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the field of secretaries started turning away from men to women. Like other gendered occupations with a majority of women, secretary became a lower status position with relatively lower pay.

A lot of web traffic comes through the “dark social,” not through social network sites

Posted on by

Alexis Madrigal argues that while social network sites like Facebook get a lot of attention, a lot of web traffic is influenced by social processes that are much more difficult to see and measure:

Here’s a pocket history of the web, according to many people. In the early days, the web was just pages of information linked to each other. Then along came web crawlers that helped you find what you wanted among all that information. Some time around 2003 or maybe 2004, the social web really kicked into gear, and thereafter the web’s users began to connect with each other more and more often. Hence Web 2.0, Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m not strawmanning here. This is the dominant history of the web as seen, for example, in this Wikipedia entry on the ‘Social Web.’…

There are circumstances, however, when there is no referrer data. You show up at our doorstep and we have no idea how you got here. The main situations in which this happens are email programs, instant messages, some mobile applications*, and whenever someone is moving from a secure site (“https://mail.google.com/blahblahblah“) to a non-secure site (http://www.theatlantic.com).
This means that this vast trove of social traffic is essentially invisible to most analytics programs. I call it DARK SOCIAL. It shows up variously in programs as “direct” or “typed/bookmarked” traffic, which implies to many site owners that you actually have a bookmark or typed in www.theatlantic.com into your browser. But that’s not actually what’s happening a lot of the time. Most of the time, someone Gchatted someone a link, or it came in on a big email distribution list, or your dad sent it to you…
Just look at that graph. On the one hand, you have all the social networks that you know. They’re about 43.5 percent of our social traffic. On the other, you have this previously unmeasured darknet that’s delivering 56.5 percent of people to individual stories. This is not a niche phenomenon! It’s more than 2.5x Facebook’s impact on the site…
If what I’m saying is true, then the tradeoffs we make on social networks is not the one that we’re told we’re making. We’re not giving our personal data in exchange for the ability to share links with friends. Massive numbers of people — a larger set than exists on any social network — already do that outside the social networks. Rather, we’re exchanging our personal data in exchange for the ability to publish and archive a record of our sharing. That may be a transaction you want to make, but it might not be the one you’ve been told you made.

Two thoughts about this:

1. Here is how I might interpret this argument from a sociological point of view: Internet traffic is heavily dependent on social connections. Whether this is done on sites like Facebook, which are more publicly social, or through email, which is restricted from public view but is still quite social, the interactions people have influence where they go on the web. In this sense, the Internet is an important social domain that may have some of its own norms and rules as well as its own advantages and disadvantages but it is built around human connections.

2. This sounds like a fantastic business and/or research opportunity; what is going on in this “dark social” realm? Could there be ways at getting at these activities that would help us better understand and analyze the importance of social connections and interactions and could this information be monetized as well?

McMansions in Zion National Park?

Posted on by

McMansions are often associated with sprawl but what happens when such homes are proposed for national park land?

There are 11,640 pieces of private land inside U.S. national parks. From Yosemite to Yellowstone, many have homes either built or being built on them. The land was owned before the national parks existed or ended up inside them as the parks expanded, according to the National Park Service.

Will Rogers, president of The Trust for Public Land, asked how big of an issue this is, he said, “It’s a really big deal. It’s like putting a fast food chain in the middle of the National Mall.”

He’s particularly concerned about what critics call a “McMansion” being built on a bluff overlooking a valley in Zion. Julie Hamilton was shocked to see it during a hike. “All of a sudden there’s this big house up on hill,” she said. “It’s like, are they going to build more? What’s happening here?”

What’s happening is budget cuts. In the 1960s, Congress established the Land and Water Conservation Fund — $900 million a year paid for with offshore drilling royalties from oil companies. That money was historically used to buy up private lands in national parks when landowners decide to sell. But two-thirds of the oil money is now routinely spent by Congress on other programs, leaving the parks unable to compete with wealthy buyers.

What if the homes being built weren’t McMansions but more modest structures? How about a green McMansion? Would these be more acceptable or is this really about any private development at all within national parks?

I suspect this is one of those cases where McMansion is a very effective to term to use because it contrasts strongly with the image of national parks. National parks equal pristine, rural land. McMansions evoke the idea of sprawl and SUVs. It is one thing to talk about homes or perhaps cottages, a term that might evoke images of Thomas Kinkade-like residences, but another to call them McMansions.