Author Archives: legallysociable

“Black flight” to Charles County, Maryland?

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Charles County, a suburban county south of Washington D.C. has experienced population growth in recent years, possibly as the result of “black flight”:

From 2000 to 2010, Charles County’s population rose by 21.6 percent, going from 120,546 to 146,551, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. At the same time, non-Hispanic whites dropped as a proportion of the county’s total population from 67.3 percent to 48.4 percent.

In a decade, the county went from being whiter than the state of Maryland to being a minority-majority jurisdiction.

“You think about the notion of white flight, there’s also the notion of black flight, or Latino flight,” said Kris Marsh, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland who specializes in the study of the black middle class.

“As Prince George’s County moves from a white-dominated county to a black-dominated county, there could be some black households that decide that they don’t want to live in a black-dominated community, so they move out to Howard County … or out to Charles County,” Marsh explained.

“White flight” is a well-known phenomenon that covers the movement of whites away from growing minority populations, particularly in large cities or denser suburbs. I’ve never heard the term “black flight” before though conversation about the movement of the black middle class has generated academic discussion for several decades now. It would be interesting to know how the communities in Charles County, and in some of the other nearby counties which are also mentioned in this story, are adjusting to new populations in areas that still have relatively few people.

Overall, this is a reminder that minority and immigrant populations are growing in suburban areas even though many still think of the suburbs as homogenous white, middle- to upper-class areas.

The “gravity law” vs. the “radiation model” in predicting intercity mobility

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Here is an overview of two ways to model intercity mobility: the “gravity law” and the “radiation model” which was just recently proposed in Nature:

The reigning model of intercity mobility, used to predict patterns of movement from commuting to the spread of infectious disease, is called the “gravity law.” It was developed in the early 1940s by a Harvard lecturer named George Zipf and is, of course, based on Newton’s law, which says gravitational force increases when the mass of two objects is great and the distance between them is minimal.

In that same spirit, Zipf’s “gravity law” of mobility assumed that movement between two cities would be most frequent when their populations were large and their separation small. In reality, however, the “gravity law” doesn’t do a great job estimating the intercity movement it was intended to predict. While Zipf’s law frowns on the notion that people travel frequently between distant cities, recent research on so-called “super-commuters,” outlined by our own Richard Florida, shows that a considerable subset of urban populations is actually willing to commute quite far…

The “radiation model,” as the new idea is called, makes several assumptions the gravity model does not. For starters, it downplays the distance between two cities and emphasizes not only the cities themselves but the density of the areas surrounding them. That enables the model to estimate the number of jobs in a region more accurately. It also accounts a bit more for actual human behavior: while the radiation model presumes that people choose a job based on a balance of proximity and benefits, it recognizes that they’re willing to make long commutes if few jobs in their region satisfy their requirements.

As a result, the radiation model out-predicts the “gravity law” in direct competition. As an example, the researchers looked at mobility between two pairs of counties in Utah and Alabama. Both counties of origin had similar populations, as did both destination counties, and both pairs are more or less equidistant from one another. Actual Census data shows that 44 people make the commute in Utah, while six do in Alabama.

This sounds very interesting and required advances in data collection on this topic as well as modeling social networks and demographics. The main finding seems to be this: distance is not the only factor that matters in looking at trips between cities. As the case of the super-commuters suggests, people will live one place and work in another place far away in the right circumstances. Perhaps we should have already known this because of the relative importance of different cities: world-class cities or cultural centers or centers for certain industries (New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, respectively) would draw people from longer distances compared to “average” big cities (St. Louis? Denver?). Or, if we put this in world systems theory terms, certain cities sit at the center of American urban life and businesses and industries tend to concentrate within them while other cities are in more peripheral positions.

I would be interested to know whether the “radiation model” can suggest whether the number of super commuters will increase in the long-term and how this is affected by the strength of the overall economy and housing market.

Three and a half shelves of sociology books at Barnes & Noble

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While browsing at a local Barnes & Noble store, I again noted something of interest: they have three and a half shelves of sociology books.

This is fairly common as sociology is lumped in with sections like Cultural Studies and Criminology. Just across the aisle to the left was fifteen shelves of Current Affairs and just behind this was at least 15 shelves of History.

I’m not surprised by this: sociology in the public’s eye has a low profile. If you look closely at the books in the sociology section, you can find a number on sociological topics that are not written by sociologists such as Nickel and Dimed, There Are No Children Here, The Social Animal, Triumph of the City, and The Better Angels of Our Nature. So there is really less than three shelves of books by sociologists. This is the case even with several books on the shelf that have received recent attention such as Going Solo and The Cosmopolitan Canopy. Along with anthropology, I can’t think of any of the big academic disciplines from which you could find fewer books at your average chain bookstore.

Is this simply indicative of the small number of people who go into a Barnes & Noble and purchase sociology titles or does it illustrate the broader profile of sociology in American life?

A new world where weak social ties can spread videos like Kony 2012

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The Kony 2012 video has been watched over 65 million times on YouTube. While there has been much commentary about how the video lacks nuance, there is another interesting issue to consider: how exactly did it spread so quickly? One columnist suggests the sociological idea of weak ties provides some insights:

Many years ago, the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter published a seminal article in the American Journal of Sociology on the special role of “weak ties” in networks – links among people who are not closely bonded – as being critical for spreading ideas and for helping people join together for action.

An examination of the spread of the Kony video suggests that one weak tie in particular may have been critical in launching it to its present eminence. Her name is Oprah Winfrey and she tweeted: “Have watched the film. Had them on show last year” on 6 March, after which the graph of YouTube views of the video switches to the trajectory of a bat out of hell. Winfrey, it turns out, has 9.7 million followers on Twitter…

In this online world of weak ties, famous tweeters like Oprah Winfrey have more influence than they have ever had before. Even though television shows or movies might be larger cultural works, new developments like Twitter and Facebook allow anyone with some influence to reach a large number of people quickly. With Winfrey located closer to the middle of a global cultural network, her suggestion can resound throughout the world.

The same columnist also considers what might happen as the result of these weak ties. In other words, what does it matter that over 65 million people saw this video?

The really interesting question, though, is whether this kind of development will further ratchet up the pressure on democratic politicians. The last two decades have shown how 24/7 media coverage of foreign atrocities can lead western leaders to morally driven interventionism.

We’ll have to see how this plays out. The Kony video itself claims that these sorts of media efforts work as they already pushed the United States to send 100 military advisers to central Africa. Additionally, they say this happened “because the people demanded it.” But they also suggest their viral efforts are not enough: the video talks about targeting a collection of political and cultural leaders, “20 culture-makers and 12 policy-makers.” Take these figures, such as Oprah Winfrey or Condoleezza Rice, out of the campaign and would as many people, in the public or on Capitol Hill, pay attention? Could just the public put enough pressure on governments through social media or viral videos? Also, the video itself is quite a production (a number of people involved in making it, per the credits on the YouTube video) from an established organization. This is a little different from a 10 year making a video in her bedroom.

This is not to take away from the fact that this videos has reached a tremendous amount of people. But if we want to understand why all those people paid attention, the story is much more complicated. Mass numbers can have an influence but powerful people are more centrally located within social networks and have more influential ties. If Kony 2012 is going to have legs and lead to lasting change, weak ties may not be enough.

Banks are foreclosing on more churches

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Houses aren’t the only structures being foreclosed on during this economic crisis. Churches have been hit hard in recent years:

Since 2010, 270 churches have been sold after defaulting on their loans, with 90 percent of those sales coming after a lender-triggered foreclosure, according to the real estate information company CoStar Group.

In 2011, 138 churches were sold by banks, an annual record, with no sign that these religious foreclosures are abating, according to CoStar. That compares to just 24 sales in 2008 and only a handful in the decade before…

“Churches are among the final institutions to get foreclosed upon because banks have not wanted to look like they are being heavy handed with the churches,” said Scott Rolfs, managing director of Religious and Education finance at the investment bank Ziegler…

Church defaults differ from residential foreclosures. Most of the loans in question are not 30-year mortgages but rather commercial loans that typically mature after just five years when the full balance becomes due immediately.

Its common practice for banks to refinance such loans when they come due. But banks have become increasingly reluctant to do that because of pressure from regulators to clean up their balance sheets, said Rolfs.

Several things strike me here:

1. It would be interesting to talk with banks about how they negotiate this situation where they don’t want to appear heavy-handed with churches and yet still need to profit off their mortgages. Where is the line – is it just about the amount of money involved or does the possible response from the congregation also factor in? The article hints that these aren’t strictly business decisions but include consideration of cultural and moral values.

2. While the article suggests these foreclosed on churches are often bought by other churches, what kind of market is there for people to buy former churches who want to use the existing building? I’ve seen some interesting pictures over the years of churches that are converted into residential spaces (either large homes or multi-family units) but this requires the extra time and resources for rehab. I assume newer, auditorium-type churches might be more attractive here.

3. Will there be any extra indignation about churches outspending their means and not being able to meet their mortgage obligations?

Thoughts on the fact that 35% of four-year degree students finish college in four years

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Several low statistics about college completion tend to startle my students when I share them in class:

Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will graduate within six years. Students who haven’t graduated within six years probably never will. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 40 percent, the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world.

When I’ve shared these figures with my students, they tend to be incredulous: most people they know go to college and complete it. Figures have gone up over the years but only about 30% of American adults have a college degree. For my students, they have never really known a world where they weren’t expected to go to college. While we might hold up figures like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as model entrepreneurs who were able to drop out of college, I would guess few people would counsel young adults to not go to college.

These figures can be taken in two directions. One option: these statistics are cited in an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education that calls for rethinking “our obsessive focus on college schooling” and moving toward an educational system like Germany that funnels students into different tracks, college being one of them, after high school. Proponents of this plan like to note that this would increase vocational and technical training, providing the skilled workers than a post-industrial economy needs.

On the other hand, one could argue that there needs to be a lot more support for completing college. This doesn’t necessarily just happen once a student arrives on campus though I think there is much colleges could do to foster a more academic atmosphere that is focused on learning and training as opposed to “having an experience” and jumping on the credentialism train (having a college degree simply so you can get certain kinds of jobs). Aspiring to go to college can be very good but it requires a conducive environment and much work before one gets to college. This whole matter glosses over a bunch of other social inequalities that then play out at the college level. Asking colleges to solve all of these problems is very difficult – one, education is not necessarily the magic bullet we as a culture can solve everything and two, college comes at the end of a long chain of previous experiences.

Another argument to be made in favor of college is that it isn’t just about getting a job. While some will argue this is a luxury, college should be a place where students learn to think and encounter the big ideas that make the world go round. For many students, this will be the only time in life where they will have the time to truly engage with the issues they will then face for the rest of their lives. I do teach at a liberal arts school so I’m betraying some bias here but there is plenty to be gained in terms of human flourishing at college as well as being trained in particular fields or disciplines and I don’t think this should just be available to the wealthy or those who have the time. (Granted, this sort of learning doesn’t have to happen in college but there are few other social institutions that provide this in adult life. And self-learning can be a great thing but you will would want to interact with others in meaningful ways about what you have learned.)

Of course, college can be quite expensive and this influences the debate quite a bit.

h/t Instapundit

Forming historic districts in the Los Angeles suburbs

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Los Angeles is often considered the prototypical suburban city: the city and the suburbs sprawl over a wide expanse of land, the population of the region boomed from the 1920s on, and the region has a car culture (see my thoughts about last year’s “carmageddon” as an example). So it may sound strange to talk about historic preservation districts in the Los Angeles suburbs but a historic preservationist provides a quick overview of efforts in the region:

A representative from the Los Angeles Conservancy this week said Burbank’s efforts to preserve its architecture has been at about the C- level. But that will likely improve as the city’s Heritage Commission moves closer to adopting a process for forming historic districts…

While not many homes have been submitted for the historical registry, there has been more interest in the past several months because of increased outreach efforts by the commission, which may improve Burbank’s standing in the preservation community, Vavala said.

Besides, he added, “half the cities in Los Angeles County get an F.”…

“Certainly, there are a lot of great homes scattered through cities throughout the county, but there’s no assurance that five years after you move in, a ‘McMansion’ might go up across the street, which will perhaps lower property values,” Vavala said.

Historic preservation efforts are well known in many other places in the United States so it is interesting to note that it hasn’t quite caught on in the same way in the Los Angeles region. I would want to know what homes in Burbank, Glendale, and other suburbs are ripe for historic preservation: are these homes from the 1920s, 1940s, or later? Is it more difficult to convince Los Angeles area residents that historic preservation is needed? Would the average American know that there are even homes in southern California that are worthy of historic preservation?

Changes to American housing going to come from Hispanics and echo boomers?

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At a recent conference, several experts talked about how two demographic groups are influential for American housing trends in the coming years:

Most of the country’s population growth is happening in minority populations – the same groups hit the hardest by the housing downturn in terms of lost household wealth and declines in homeownership rates.

“That is where housing issues will be addressed or not addressed,” demographer Steve Murdock of Rice University said. “Hispanics are the key to this growth.”

And echo boomers – members of another group hit hard by the recession as they’ve struggled to start careers – will be the generation driving the next wave of household formation.

“In the next 10 years, the echo boomers are almost the entire story,” said Rolf Pendall, director of the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing & Communities Policy Center…

Cisneros said a Hispanic affinity for owning a home may help moderate some of the drive toward renting. “Somewhere deep in our DNA as Latinos is homeownership,” Cisneros said.

Baby boomers, the group that’s long driven trends, still is doing so, but instead of creating McMansions, they will start to influence building of nursing homes.

I assume Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bill Clinton, means that Latinos have a cultural affinity for homeownership. Thus far, this has not happened so much in the United States: for example, in 2008 the homeownership rate for Latinos was 48.9% and 47.5% for blacks compared to 74.9%. However, in Mexico, the homeownership rate is between 80-90% (2004 figures here, 1999 figures here).

Add this to suggestions from some that Generation Y also wants new kinds of housing (previous posts here, here, and here) and it looks like there might be quite a bit of change in the American housing market in the future. Our current system isn’t too different in houses and layout than it was decades ago.