Author Archives: legallysociable

Nearly six thousand hours to make the best map of the United States

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Here is some insight into what it takes to create maps and particularly the hard work needed to create the “best American wall map”:

So what makes this map different from the Rand McNally version you can buy at a bookstore? Or from the dusty National Geographic pull-down mounted in your child’s elementary school classroom? Can one paper wall map really outshine all others—so definitively that it becomes award-worthy?…

According to independent cartographers I spoke with, the big mapmaking corporations of the world employ type-positioning software, placing their map labels (names of cities, rivers, etc.) according to an algorithm. For example, preferred placement for city labels is generally to the upper right of the dot that indicates location. But if this spot is already occupied—by the label for a river, say, or by a state boundary line—the city label might be shifted over a few millimeters. Sometimes a town might get deleted entirely in favor of a highway shield or a time zone marker. The result is a rough draft of label placement, still in need of human refinement. Post-computer editing decisions are frequently outsourced—sometimes to India, where teams of cheap workers will hunt for obvious errors and messy label overlaps. The overall goal is often a quick and dirty turnaround, with cost and speed trumping excellence and elegance.

By contrast, David Imus worked alone on his map seven days a week for two full years. Nearly 6,000 hours in total. It would be prohibitively expensive just to outsource that much work. But Imus—a 35-year veteran of cartography who’s designed every kind of map for every kind of client—did it all by himself. He used a computer (not a pencil and paper), but absolutely nothing was left to computer-assisted happenstance. Imus spent eons tweaking label positions. Slaving over font types, kerning, letter thicknesses. Scrutinizing levels of blackness. It’s the kind of personal cartographic touch you might only find these days on the hand-illustrated ski-trail maps available at posh mountain resorts.

A few of his more significant design decisions: Your standard wall map will often paint the U.S. states different colors so their shapes are easily grasped. But Imus’ map uses thick lines to indicate state borders and reserves the color for more important purposes—green for denser forestation, yellow for population centers. Instead of hypsometric tinting (darker colors for lower elevations, lighter colors for higher altitudes), Imus uses relief shading for a more natural portrait of U.S. terrain.

I’ve always loved maps but I can’t imagine spending this much time on hand-crafting a map of the United States. It would be interesting to hear why Imus pursued this: a hobby? Is he a professional cartographer? Did he want to win a prize? Is there money in this? Was he simply irritated with existing maps?

The second half of the article goes on to talk about the continued need for large maps even in an era where many people have maps in their phones and computers. I tend to agree with this view: as a kid, I would spend a lot of time simply browsing through an atlas or looking at a wall map because it is interesting to know where everything is in relation to everywhere else. A close view of the world, say with Google Maps on my phone, has difficulty displaying this interconnectedness. Several features of Imus’ map also add to the imaginative possibilities of maps: the topography and cultural attractions.

One question I have: supposedly map-making companies include little mistakes so that they can tell if someone has simply copied them. Did Imus do something similar or does he even have these same mistakes (this gets at where he got his geographical knowledge from)?

Bonus: Imus responds in the comments section. Here is one interesting comment: “If a map doesn’t depict the uniqueness of the places on it, to me that map is merely a spatial arrangement of data. I wanted to give my readers more than data. I wanted to give them the sense of place that has been missing from our maps. The USA is a place, not a space.”

Thinking about the future of suburbs in Levittown

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At the end of a retrospective article about Levittown, CNN considers the future of the suburbs:

It’s a hot issue in academia to think about what suburbs may become.

An upcoming exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art, called Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, proposes several visions, including one that would integrate nature more sustainably into the suburbs and another that would try to make suburban neighborhoods denser.

Something has to change, said Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s curator for architecture and design, or we will “roll the suburban carpet across all the open land that is left.”

“It’s just irresponsible to have a model that encourages moving out onto green fields and leaving behind decaying rings of an ever-fattening tree,” he said. “I’m interested in not just letting the path of least resistance exist. It’s cheaper for a developer to build on virgin territory, but it’s not cheaper for people to live on it or get to it.”

This year, another group of designers descended on Levittown to imagine “a future suburbia” in the place where the concept was hatched…

For a day, a designer named Claudia Linders turned Dwyer’s Levitt home into an “Attention Clinic.” Patrons sat in her living room and waited for a chance to receive advice, attention and/or hugs from Dwyer and two actors.

The idea was to make suburbia profitable rather than just a place where people live.

“They kept choosing me (for advice), I guess because I was older and wiser,” Dwyer said, cracking a smile. “Because these actresses, they were beautiful.”

All this attention confused Dwyer, who said she was happy to give out advice to strangers but felt somewhat unqualified to make life decisions for them.

There was a real chance here to share with the public what academics forecast for American suburbs. For my six predictions for American suburbs for 2012, read here. But here is what this article went with:

1. A typical critique that suburbs take up too much open land and by focusing resources on suburbs, other locations are impoverished. These opinions aren’t necessarily wrong (indeed, the densification of the suburbs is a popular topic today) but these ideas have been around for decades.

2. This last bit about the “Attention Clinic” seems more like performance art than a viable option for American suburbs. What exactly is this supposed to illustrate?

This is a puzzling selection of “what the suburbs may become.” While the earlier parts of the article hit some key elements that make Levittown unique including its mass production and its race relations, the last part of the article is a missed opportunity.

“Concerted cultivation” in the Chicago Tribune

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A story about how class affects how willing students are able to ask for help ran Wednesday in the Chicago Tribune:

Just as every school principal knows the adults most willing to pipe up about everything from the kids’ class assignments to cafeteria food — by and large, well-educated working professionals — a study published last month in the American Sociological Review found their children showed the same propensity to advocate for themselves in the classroom as early as third grade. The children of working-class parents profiled in the two-year study seemed more reticent in asking teachers to review directions, provide more instruction or even check their work…

“We tend to assume that once you put kids in school, what they get there will help them overcome any differences they bring with them. But what this shows is … children have a meaningful impact on the way schooling is happening and what they are able to get out of it,” said University of Pennsylvania sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco…

The picture that emerged was striking: Middle-class students walked in the door knowing how to get their questions answered and, in turn, spent less time waiting for help and typically completed assignments on time. Many working-class children, meanwhile, had to learn those key skills in class from their teachers and peers.

What’s more, Calarco found many middle-class parents coached their students to speak up — politely but persistently — if they did not understand. They viewed seeking help as a critical skill in a class where more than two dozen students turn to a single teacher.

The article doesn’t mention this but this is the concept of “concerted cultivation” (from Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods) in action. While some might just chalk these differences to personality (some kids are more shy or outgoing), Lareau argues that this is really the result of social class. Within the same classroom, students of different class backgrounds have been raised in different ways: the middle- to upper-class students have been socialized to be more assertive with authority figures while lower-class students are less assertive and let authority figures dictate what is happening. With years of being more assertive, middle- to upper-class students are able to reap the benefits of advocating for themselves as well as practicing interacting with and connecting with adults.

While the article mentions that Illinois “the first state in the nation to require that all school districts teach social and emotional skills as part of their curriculum and day-to-day routine,” it doesn’t see if this curriculum helps with this particular topic. While individual teachers might be addressing this, is there a systematic effort to try to help lower-class students find a voice in the classroom and speak up?

It would be fascinating to track these kids further and see how this affects educational achievement differences by high school. Similarly, are there studies about the effectiveness of trying to help lower-class students be more assertive?

This is not a bad run of publicity for the December American Sociological Review: another story from that issue about the gender inequality in multitasking among working parents has also been getting a lot of attention.

Argument: “The SportsCenter-ization of Politics”

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This is a fascinating claim: political journalism today has adopted the genre of sports reporting/entertainment from ESPN. It all comes down to the entertainment of an emotional argument and who is “winning.”

Did this sharing of genres simply come about because ESPN has been successful? Or have ESPN staffers made a name with sports and then branched out into other areas?

Sociologist says expectations for marriage are too high

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Amidst discussions about the number of adult Americans who are married, a sociologist says part of the problem is that American’s expectations for marriage are too high:

Mary Laner thinks that we expect too much. A professor of sociology at Arizona State University, Laner says that when the marriage or the partner fails to live up to our ideals, we don’t recognize that our expectations were much too high. Instead, we blame our spouse or that particular relationship…

The ASU sociologist studied the marital expectations of unmarried college students. She compared their expectations with those of people who have been married for about 10 years. The significantly higher expectations held by the students, she says, come straight out of the “happily ever after” fantasy…

Laner believes that the only way those expectations will change is through education. But that will be a tough order. Laner teaches a Courtship and Marriage class at ASU. The results of a recent study revealed that even her own class had a minimal effect on lowering expectations in unmarried young adults.

“This college course is a drop in the bucket compared to what students really need,” Laner says. “We don’t adequately prepare anyone for marriage, even though we know that somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of the population is going to be married.

It is interesting to think that college might be the only or last place where students have an opportunity to think more realistically about marriage. I imagine that some people may not like this since it suggests the education system should take on another task that could be left to families or other institutions but if Laner is correct, there is a need for talk about marriage. Laner is suggesting that American society needs more systematic ways to “pull back the curtain” on marriage.

I wonder if part of this has to do with the emphasis on youth today and less interest in learning from older adults in society. There are plenty of people who have been married and have had both positive and negative experiences that others could learn from. However, this knowledge is not getting passed down, perhaps because younger Americans don’t want to hear it or because older Americans don’t want to share it.

Where exactly are younger Americans getting their information about marriage? Are or have there been any popular TV shows or movies that have more realistically portrayed marriage?

Sociology can contribute to the new field of animal studies

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The New York Times highlights a new interdisciplinary field: animal studies.

The courses are part of the growing, but still undefined, field of animal studies. So far, according to Marc Bekoff, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, the field includes “anything that has to do with the way humans and animals interact.” Art, literature, sociology, anthropology, film, theater, philosophy, religion — there are animals in all of them.

The field builds partly on a long history of scientific research that has blurred the once-sharp distinction between humans and other animals. Other species have been shown to have aspects of language, tool use, even the roots of morality. It also grows out of a field called cultural studies, in which the academy has turned its attention over the years to ignored and marginalized humans.

Some scholars now ask: Why stop there? Why honor the uncertain boundary that separates one species from all others? Is it time for a Shakespearean stage direction: Exit the humanities, pursued by a bear? Not quite yet, although some scholars have suggested it is time to move on to the post-humanities.

The Animals and Society Institute, itself only six years old, lists more than 100 courses in American colleges and universities that fit under the broad banner of animal studies. Institutes, book series and conferences have proliferated. Formal academic programs have appeared.

As I’ve said to my introduction to sociology students, if humans are involved, sociologists can study anything.

I wish the article discussed further this talk about a move to the post-humanities – this sounds like it could be quite interesting and I’m sure it would get a lot of people up in arms.

The American Sociological Association has an Animals and Society section. Helpfully, the section has a page explaining why the section exists:

The establishment of this section reflects the increasing popular and scholarly attention being devoted to the relationship between humans and other animals for well over two decades.  Philosophers, feminists, anthropologists, psychologists — and, increasingly, sociologists – are examining the complex, profound and entangled relationships of humans and other animals…

While several existing ASA sections may touch upon aspects of the interactions of humans and other animals occasionally and tangentially, none are adequate vehicles for serious investigation and development of the issues and question in this area.  Nor do they provide a specific space in which a theoretical sociological framework on other animals can be collaboratively developed.  The ASA section on Animals and Society will facilitate improved sociological inquiry into these issues.

As of 2011, this section has 172 members. This still seems like a rather low-visibility section whose numbers have not increased since its founding.

Considering unwalkable cities

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Felix Salmon discusses an unwalkable part of Jerusalem:

One look at the map and you can tell this is not a walkable neighborhood. Yes, Jerusalem is hilly, but there are lots of walkable hilly cities: San Francisco and Lisbon spring to mind. This area, to the west of the city, is relatively new; it was clearly built with the idea that people would get around first and foremost using their own personal cars.

What’s more, the Holyland development seems to be targeted at Americans, who are used to the suburban lifestyle, like it a lot, and are attracted by developments which can claim to be “surrounded by 15 acres of green park”. Residential towers can be fine things, but they become very bad neighbors when they’re surrounded by nothing.

I suspect that what’s going on here is a classic case of Nimbyism: Jerusalem has a growing population, it needs a lot more residential square footage, but the locals in Jerusalem proper refuse to allow developers to build up. So those developers retreat to the hills, where, attempting to make a virtue out of necessity, they create luxury towers as removed as possible from the bustle of urban life.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this post. Salmon seems to have highlighted just one part of Jerusalem and then tries to expand the conversation to the city level. Here are a few thoughts in response:

1. My guess is that these “unwalkable” parts tend to be more modern and it’s interesting that Salmon notes that this was intended to appeal to Americans. There are cultural differences about what counts as “good” or “desirable” development. I wonder how much Jane Jacob’s classic (which Salmon cites as a model of good development) has been utilized in non-American settings.

2. Perhaps the better question to ask here is what cities have effectively used zoning and other regulations to limit developments like this. Some cities use zoning more than others.

3. The NIMBY conjecture is interesting but it sounds like the reverse of the American context: the large building is pushed to the edge of the city because tall buildings don’t fit the character of the historic central area.

4. This reminds me of a paper idea I had years ago about the grid system found in places like Manhattan. This format is not just physically simpler to navigate or plan but it also reduces the cognitive work pedestrians must do. Because everything is similar and relatively easy to find, the grid is an example of “extended cognition.”

5. Does Jerusalem have walkability scores?

HUD investigating DuPage County Housing Authority who is also naming a new director

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In an update to a story I noted last year, HUD is conducting an investigation of the DuPage County Housing Authority.

Investigators with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General are examining the housing authority’s development of Myers Commons, a 91-unit senior housing project in Darien, the sources said.

The investigation comes after the Tribune reported last year that the housing authority’s board and executive director violated federal regulations by allowing a former board member to develop the project. The housing authority also failed to follow federal regulations by not allowing competition to develop the project, the Tribune reported.

The irony here is that this is a black mark for the county and it involves an agency that many conservatives in the county may not even want (or want it to do much).

Additionally, the agency is naming a new director:

In the latest step to improve its standing with HUD, the DuPage Housing Authority will name David Hoicka as its new executive director Thursday, Board Chairman Thomas Good said.

Hoicka has served as chief operating officer for the housing authority in El Paso, Texas, worked as an adviser to the housing ministry in Bahrain, managed the New Orleans housing authority, and worked as branch chief for Hawaii’s Housing and Community Development Corp. He has written three manuals on HUD regulations.

It would be interesting to hear more about why someone who has presided over housing authorities in decent sized cities such as El Paso and New Orleans would want to work in DuPage County. Clearly, there is this issue to clean up but DuPage County could provide some interesting challenges: it is a wealthy county with a growing population of poorer residents and a need for affordable housing. Additionally, the DuPage Housing Authority has a mixed legacy and it is trying to operate within a conservative county that at least in the past has tried to resist such efforts.

Sociologist talks about the downside of choosing your own news

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A sociologist suggests you may be missing something by only choosing what news you want to read:

It’s in no sense odd to find American academe wrangling over journalism. Dean Starkman of the Columbia Journalism Review and Clay Shirky of New York University have recently been hammering away at each other, seeking to determine whether investigative journalism can only be conducted by highly resourced news machines (like the Guardian’s) or by a more individual, digital-first approach (like… um… the Guardian’s). But what’s sociology got to contribute here?

Plenty, Klinenberg says, outlining the fundamental bargain that underpins newspaper life. You, the reader, want crosswords and cartoons, recipes and TV programme guides. You want all the stuff that journalists serve up with a sigh (because, well, it’s not exactly journalism, is it?). And, in return, as part of the deal, journalism is allowed to have a civic purpose – to report and analyse the workings and frailties of democracy – beyond quick ways to whip up a cottage pie.

That bargain, sealed in print, means you can’t have one without the other. Put your cash on the newsagent’s counter and you get some things you desire and other things, from Cardiff or Chad, that you didn’t know had happened until you turned to page five.

Of course, like any other neat thesis, there are readers and editors who don’t quite fit. But the nature of print – flipping from column to column, noticing stories that intrigue you, naturally expanding your spheres of interest – isn’t “versioning” at all – it’s more eclectic. An iPad or Kindle version works within narrower bounds. A Facebook version is even more selective, tailored to your most immediate demands. And the logical version at the end of this line is utterly simple: no deals, no bargains – just what you want, electronically provided on the basis of past predilection.

This is part of a larger question about the consequences of people only being exposed to certain points of view. Only selecting news that we want to read can be self-reinforcing as then we only seek out certain kinds of stories, limiting our view of the world.

I wonder, though, about blaming this issue on the medium. How much does having a newspaper in hand really increase the odds that someone will read something that didn’t plan to? Can’t people simply pick out parts of the newspaper that they want to read as well? Further, was there ever really a “golden age” where average citizens always tried to engage with alternative points of view? I would guess not though that doesn’t mean it isn’t a worthwhile ideal. We need citizens (and journalists) who can understand our complex world which transcends simply “left” or “right” understandings. Perhaps the Internet makes this easier in some ways but I would guess the Internet could be changed to meet these challenges or people’s behaviors could be altered.

This reminds of an argument I was reading last night. People could argue, rightly, that all media viewpoints are biased in some way. However, this doesn’t mean that we can just throw out all news sources and say they don’t have something of value. What should be consistent across different sources are facts and then there can be disagreement about the interpretation of these facts. Of course, what is considered “fact” may be up for grabs as well – see the recent debate over Politifact’s “Lie of the Year.”

The builder behind Lego’s architecture series

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Perhaps you have seen them in the store: Lego kits that allow you to build the White House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, and many other buildings. Here is some background on the man who designs these kits:

Tucker is a serious sort, with a vaguely brooding air — not impolite, but not comfortable with niceties. He does not flinch from saying that he is an artist and that the Lego is a real medium. “I have zero interest in this as a toy,” he said, holding up a brick. He did not seem like the type who sets out on a Lego-based career path. And he wasn’t. He’s 40 now, but five years ago he was designing high-end residential homes until the real estate market started going stagnant, he said, and clients started drifting away and canceling new projects. He and his business partner split up, and so, rudderless, he moved back in with his parents.

“Six months into my hiatus, I sat down and wrote up a list of everything I wanted to do in this life,” he said. “Didn’t matter what it was — race car driver, dentist, architect. Then I looked at the list and refined it, and through a process of elimination I realized I wanted to work with my hands and I wanted to be my own boss — because I don’t take authority figures especially well. Also, I wanted to do something with architecture. The thing is, how could I be an inspiration to others if I was working in a medium most people can’t do?”

Here’s what he did: He drove to a Toys R Us in Highland Park and loaded eight shopping carts with Lego kits. He then came home, sat on the floor, spread the pieces out at his feet and, because he hadn’t played with Legos since he was a kid, reacquainted himself. He built samples and took them to a Lego convention in Washington, where he caught the eye of Lego brass.

He found Lego at the right time: After going through a rough patch in the late ’90s, the company was ready to refocus on design, and by 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, sales were up 40 percent, making it the rare company that not only weathered the recession but didn’t feel it. Tucker, meanwhile, rounded up licensing agreements with building owners. “I got a sense he didn’t have many contacts, so I set him with the people in other important buildings,” remembered Randy Stancik, the general manager of the Skydeck at Willis Tower, where Tucker’s Willis Tower kit has long been the most popular tchotchke in the building’s gift shop.

Tucker’s relationship with Lego is complex. He is not a Lego employee. With his wife, Brittny, he runs Brickstructures, which has a long-term contract that says he can only design kits for Lego. He also distributes the Architecture series in North America himself, using Lego’s warehouse in Wood Dale (though Lego distributes the series internationally). When I asked who owns the rights to the kits, he said it’s a gray area.

Is this a success story from the new American economy? Alas, it seems like there is only one such job available…

Some additional thoughts:

1. I’ve wondered this for a long time as a Lego fan: why are these sets so expensive?

2. Does Lego have a larger goal of helping people understand the world’s great architecture? If not, why not bill these as educational products? Then you might really see these fly off the shelves.

3. If I had to guess, I would say these sets are bought primarily by highly educated people. Perhaps we can apply Bourdieu to this: lower-class people buy them because they are fun to play with and make a nice decorative piece while the middle- and upper-classes appreciate the aesthetics (squared off as they may be) and knowing about great architecture.

4. Are Lego creations considered art by the broader art community?