Author Archives: legallysociable

The increasing sadness in pop music songs

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A psychologist and sociologist looked at Billboard pop music hits since 1965 and found that the songs have become more sad:

“As the lyrics of popular music became more self-focused and negative over time, the music itself became sadder-sounding and more emotionally ambiguous,” according to psychologist E. Glenn Schellenberg and sociologist Christian von Scheve.

Analyzing Top 40 hits from the mid-1960s through the first decade of the 2000s, they find an increasing percentage of pop songs are written using minor modes, which most listeners—including children—associate with gloom and despair. In what may or may not be a coincidence, they also found the percentage of female artists at the top of the charts rose steadily through the 1990s before retreating a bit in the 2000s…

Strikingly, they found “the proportion of minor songs doubled over five decades.” In the second half of the 1960s, 85 percent of songs that made it to the top of the pop charts were written in a major mode. By the second half of the 2000s, that figure was down to 43.5 percent…

“The present findings have striking parallels to the evolution of classical music from 1600 to 1900,” Schellenberg and von Scheve write. “Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries …. Pieces tended to sound unambiguously happy or sad. By the 1800s, and the middle of the Romantic era, tempo and mode cues were more likely to conflict,” which allowed composers to express a wide range of emotions within a single piece.

I would be interested to hear how they relate these changes to larger social forces: does this line up with a greater sadness in society or perhaps the ability or proclivity to express negative emotions? I also wonder if the data is skewed at all by only looking at Top 40 songs – does all music reflect this or only the most popular songs (which then reflect the influence of musical gatekeepers such as radio stations, journalists, critics, and music labels)?

Also: could we have a period where we return to more major mode music? Can a musical genre, whether classical or pop music, recover from an extended period of “sadness”?

Study: American “multiethnic neighborhoods are populated mainly by Latino and Asian families,” not by Whites and Blacks

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A new study in American Sociological Review shows that residential segregation still endures as “multiethnic neighborhoods are populated mainly by Latino and Asian families”:

Researchers who analyzed the mobility trends of more than 100,000 families in metropolitan areas over nearly three decades found that the majority of blacks and whites continue to live in neighborhoods with high concentrations of residents of their own race…

Sixty percent of families leaving black neighborhoods moved to a similar community and nearly 75 percent of whites transitioned from a mostly white neighborhood to another white area.

Only about 19 percent of blacks and 2.4 percent of whites moved to a multiethnic neighborhood.

Both whites and blacks were more likely to move to diverse areas with new housing, while there was more of the churning effect in older neighborhoods.

While recent figures might suggest that residential segregation has decreased in recent years, there are still some stark differences. The three most interesting findings to me:

1. The long-standing black-white differences continue to matter but the positions of Latinos and Asians within American society are more fluid (partially due to more immigration in the last half-century).

2. The summary also suggested the study found that there is more diversity in neighborhoods with newer housing as compared to neighborhoods with older housing stock. A couple of things could be happening here: this could be referring to more suburban neighborhoods and it could also be the result of class differences (newer housing often being more expensive to purchase).

3. I like the emphasis in this study on tracking where people move from and move to. In other words, do people move to similar kinds of neighborhoods over time or do they move up some sort of socioeconomic ladder? It sounds like there isn’t as much movement as people might think.

Diamond grinding to reduce highway noise

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One Lake County community is paying out of its own pocket to reduce noise on I-294 by diamond grinding the road:

The village [of Green Oak] will pay nearly $338,000 for a process called diamond grinding to hopefully reduce the racket along that stretch of road.

“The idea here was to grind it and produce a quieter pavement and pavement noise in the lower frequency range so it wasn’t so obnoxious,” Village Engineer Bill Rickert said.

That sound also described as “singing” by Rickert spurred several complaints after the tollway widening was completed about three years ago, and sent village leaders on a quest for a solution…

In the simplest terms, the concrete road surface had been tined or grooved perpendicular to the road surface, he said. The diamond grinding changed the grooves to run parallel, evoking “more of a corduroy-type feel,” and theoretically producing lower noise levels in frequencies less noticeable to the human ear.

While diamond grinding emerged as the village’s proposed solution, it isn’t used by the tollway as a noise reducing technique.

It would be interesting to see how this solution compares with building sound barriers – is diamond grinding cheaper or more effective? If this is an effective technique and people agree about this, why doesn’t the Tollway use it?

I have had some more interest in this lately because our neighborhood borders a busy arterial road that is being expanded from 2 to 4 lanes. Because of this, sound barriers have been installed. I don’t think they look too bad with a sort of faux beige brick look. Granted, I don’t live in a house that backs up to these walls and I assume there is a price (in housing value) to pay for backing up to these walls. Going further, at night we can faintly hear the nearby highway that is 1.5 miles away – it is a sort of background noise. But having grown up close to a railroad track which produced more sporadic but louder noise, can’t you simply get used to these things? Perhaps the difference here is that people in these neighborhoods near the Tri-State haven’t had this level of noise until the highway was expanded.

Walmart increases nearby home values

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The Atlantic reports on a University of Chicago working paper (subscription req.) that having a Walmart nearby noticeably affects housing prices:

Home values within a half mile of a new store got a 2 and 3 percent boost. Within a mile, the store pushed up values 1 to 2 percent. That translated to a $7,000 average bump for nearby homes and $4,000 for houses a little further away.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a subscription and thus cannot look at the paper directly, but I have a few questions:

1.  Do other big-box retailers (e.g., Target) similarly boost nearby housing prices?
1a.  Is Walmart’s boost larger?

2.  Is there a corresponding drop in housing prices if/when a particular Walmart closes (often only to reopen at a new location a few miles away)?
2a.  If yes, is the drop greater than the boost?

Upcoming film about a unconstructed 90,000 square foot mansion

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I’ve seen several references to the film The Queen of Versailles which comes out later this summer. Here is what the movie is about:

A Florida real-estate tycoon and his appealing, immensely flawed wife try to build the country’s biggest McMansion in photographer-turned-filmmaker Lauren Greenfield’s documentary, which is stranger than any work of fiction. Surrounded by controversy since well before its Sundance premiere (when subject David Siegel tried to sue the festival), “Queen of Versailles” veers from profound human compassion to domestic horror as Siegel’s wife Jackie wanders through her enormous but trashed home scraping dog crap off the carpets. It’s like a Theodore Dreiser novel for our time, infused with the vivid, vulgar spirit of reality TV. (Opens in theaters July 20; VOD release is likely but has not been announced.)

There is one problem with this: the home at the center of this film is not just a regular American McMansion.

At 90,000 square feet, it will be America’s largest single residence, boasting ten kitchens, a private ice-skating rink, and enough tacky antiques to make Michael Jackson blush. It’s telling that while the couple’s dream house was inspired by the famed palace, it was most directly modeled on a Las Vegas theme-park imitation of French grandeur.

A home that is 90,000 square feet is far beyond a McMansion. There are not many homes in the United States that are 90,000 square feet so it is difficult to argue that this home is mass produced. The home is named “Versailles,” referring not to some builder’s model but rather the well-known French palace. The home may be tacky and not have a lot of architectural merit but this is home is way beyond the size of anything that can be reasonably called a McMansion.

In reading several early reviews of this film, it seems like critics think this film is about more than just the vanity of a few wealthy people: the uncompleted mansion serves as a metaphor for the excesses of the early 2000s.

Chicago region home prices back to April 2000 levels

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Data from the S&P/Case-Shiller suggest that Chicago area home prices have returned to levels from early 2000:

Home prices in the Chicago area hit a new post-housing crisis low in March, falling to levels not seen locally since April 2000, according to the widely watched S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, released Tuesday.

With the most recent decline, average  home prices in the Chicago area have fallen 39 percent since they peaked in September 2006, according to the index…

Much of the pricing pressure was on homes that sold for less than $139,182, as the average selling prices for those properties in March fell 3.4 percent from February and were down 9 percent from a year ago and reflects the impact of distressed homes on the market. That puts the pricing environment for lower-priced homes akin to where it was in April 1995…

“We’re beginning to see more stability in the overall numbers,” Blitzer said. “The housing situation in the United States, while certainly not booming, is seeing some stability and possibly some gains going forward. Prices will be the last thing to go up.”

As the article notes, economist Robert Shiller has expressed skepticism that housing prices will rise anytime soon.

While there may be a lot of worry about foreclosures (and Illinois ranks poorly here as well), the issue of depressed housing prices might linger even longer. The wealth that people expected to incur through their house has, on average, been reduced to 2000 levels. Another way to interpret the data above is that on average, people who have bought a home since April 2000 can’t expect to make any money on selling their home now. This could limit people’s abilities to move and purchase homes as well as change how they think about homebuying.

 Zillow just put together a new map of the United States based on what % of homeowners are underwater. The map has more people in the red than one might hope:

The real estate information website Zillow has compiled its data from the first quarter of 2012 to build this map, showing just how much negative equity there is among the homes in many counties. Deep red along the west coast, throughout Florida and in the Great Lakes region serve as a harsh reminder of the chronic troubles these areas are still struggling to control…

In the worst hit counties, more than half of the homes are underwater. Clark County, Nevada – home to Las Vegas – is among those in the unfortunate top 1 percent, with 71 percent of homes underwater. For the vast majority of homes here, the amount owed is more than 200 percent of the value. Clayton County, Georgia, part of metro Atlanta, has an astounding 85 percent of its homes underwater.

This article from 24/7 Wall St. breaks Zillow data down even further to name the ten cities with the highest rates of homes with negative equity. Las Vegas, Reno, and Bakersfield are the worst performing cities in the country, with rates above 60 percent.

While the situation is certainly bad in many, many parts of the country, four-fifths of all counties in America have fewer than 35 percent of their homes underwater, according to the map. But it’s still a widespread problem – and one that seems to be growing. More than 31 percent of all homes in the country are underwater, according to these first quarter 2012 numbers from Zillow, a jump from the 28 percent the company noted a year earlier and the 22 percent the year before that.

It could take a long time to reverse these trends.

TV programmer: Real Housewives series is “sociology of the rich”

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The programmer behind the Real Housewives shows suggests they might have some sociological value:

Andy Cohen should know as the programmer behind “Top Chef,” the various “Real Housewives” series and his own “Watch What Happens Live.” Cohen, a former producer at CBS News, weighed in on the Bravo success story in an interview with Howard Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday morning.

In picking programs, Cohen said he looks for “something that hasn’t been done before” and a personality different from what viewers have seen…

“In the case of ‘The Housewives,’ I call the ‘Housewives’ sociology of the rich,” Cohen told Kurtz. “I think it’s just fun to watch. It’s guilt-free gossiping that you can have. It’s like the modern-day soap opera, in my mind.”

I would be interested to have a sociologist chime in about whether shows like these reflect an increased interest in the lives of the wealthy and famous say compared to thirty, fifty, or one hundred years ago. When sociological studies like The Gold Coast and the Slum were written in the late 1920s, lower- or working-class residents may have known about the rich or run into them occasionally (and part of the intrigue of this study is that the wealthiest and poorest residents of Chicago lived within blocks of each other) but did they have the kind of vicarious interest in the rich that TV shows today try to promote?

Also: I imagine there are plenty of wealthy people who would argue that these shows only display a small segment of the wealthy lifestyle. What about shows about the millionaires next door or about people who scrimp and save to get their money? These shows seem to encourage people to live a more “wealthy lifestyle,” combining spending (conspicuous consumption, anyone?) and celebrity status.

A second note: it is hard to argue that an edited show about the wealth, a modern-day soap opera, can impart a whole lot about reality or a sociological understanding of the world. It can tell you something…but perhaps more about what Americans like in entertainment than about how people really live.

Delta shows you how your airline luggage travels

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Delta Airlines put together an interesting 2:34 video about what happens to your luggage from check-in to coming off the luggage belt at your destination.

I know plenty of people have lost luggage (it has happened once to me as well, delivered by UPS two days later) but this video brought an idea to mind: large systems like this which require a large number of employees and machines across cities around the world might also be considered quite efficient and remarkable. Perhaps we could argue about what constitutes an acceptable rate of error or delivering luggage to your final destination and weigh this against alternative forms of delivery such as paying to ship the luggage by private companies. More broadly, we could ask whether it is fair or realistic to expect mechanized/large-scale systems of today to be perfect 100% of the time (or perhaps we don’t mind until it is our luggage that is lost). Indeed, the luggage delivery systems of today for the tens of millions of airline passengers might have been unimaginable even 60 years ago.

Could someone design a better and cheaper system?

Also: is an app for tracking your luggage simply a means to help reassure passengers and to show them that most of their luggage does indeed make it to the right place?

Weeds, lawns, and “turfgrass subjects”

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A review of a new book about weeds mentions the work of a geographer who calls lawn-happy Americans “turfgrass subjects”:

Mabey shows how attitudes to “weeds” reveals so much about human society, most notably perhaps in the nightmare of the American lawn – a toxic monocultural sward, saturated with chemical weedkiller and fertilser (more used per acre than on any crop) that occupies from 50,000 square miles (about the size of Iowa) and on which more than $30billion a year is spent. Mabey explains the origins of suburbia with Frederick Law Olmsted, a landscape architect established one of the first planned communities in 1868, laying out rules saying that each house had to be set 30 feet back from the road, and any exterior divisions were banned. Mabey notes: “The sociologist Paul Robbins has coined a term for the suburban victims of the combined pressures of national tradition, neighbourly prissiness, commercial gardening pressures, and the insistent identity, the integrity, of the lawn itself. He calls them ‘Turfgrass Subjects’.” Mabey notes how this is taken to extremes in Houston, Texas, where by-laws make any weeds “illegal”, defined as “‘any uncultivated vegetable growth taller than nine inches’ – which makes about two-thirds of the entire United States’ indigenous flora illegal in a Houston yard”.

We subject ourselves to tending our lawns, through thick and thin. Is it all really about feeling like we have some mastery over (a very very small piece) of nature?

It would be interesting to consider further the war metaphor that is used regarding weeds: we wage war on weeds in order to emerge victorious. In the long run, can we win the war on weeds? This may not really matter for our lawns but it could have a huge effect on agriculture…

Robbins has a full book about the lawn: Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are.

Urban differences: Portland, Oregon has only one doorman

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Here is an example of differences between cities: New York City is well known for its doormen but Portland, Oregon has only one.

[Richard] Littledyke, a tall, fair-skinned blonde of 28 years, has held doors open for Burlington residents for eight months. The previous doorman, Auggie Contreras, reluctantly vacated the position for a higher-paying bellhop gig at the Nines Hotel…

The Burlington Tower is Portland’s only residential building with a doorman. Other apartments have concierges and several hotels have bellhops at the front doors, but Littledyke is unique. Visitors to the area often use him as a landmark to find their parked car…

Both men said Portland’s lack of doormen probably comes down to the city’s size, age and housing stock.

In Portland, where far fewer people are cramped into limited space, people with extra money achieve status with a nice house and a well-groomed yard, Bearman says. New York’s cramped real estate requires doormen to serve the same purpose.

“They are tied into how to create elegance and luxury in apartment buildings, where space is limited,” Bearman says. “They also provide a bridge between the outside and the inside of a building that a yard serves to provide in a house.”

The explanation: when you have higher residential densities, more high-rise apartments or condos, and wealthier residents, doormen become more common as residents want to clearly signal their status and keep the outside world beyond the doors of their building. The suggestion here is that certain kinds of buildings lead to having doormen – I wonder if this is necessarily the case. Could there also be regional differences, places where it might be considered gauche to have a doorman? The article suggests several apartment buildings in Portland have concierges – how does this differ in the eyes of residents and others?