Author Archives: legallysociable

US population growth slows in 2011

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The Census Bureau announced today that the population growth rate of the United States slowed in 2011:

The population of the United States is growing at its slowest rate in more than 70 years, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Wednesday.

The country’s population increased by an estimated 2.8 million to 311.6 million from April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011. The growth rate of 0.92 percent was the lowest since the mid-1940s.

“The nation’s overall growth rate is now at its lowest point since before the Baby Boom,” Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said in a statement.

Texas gained more people than any other state in the 15-month period, at 529,000, followed by California at 438,000, Florida at 256,000, Georgia at 128,000, and North Carolina at 121,000, according to the latest Census estimates.

Looks like the Sunbelt is still continuing to grow. This news comes on the heels of a slow population growth rate during the 2000s:

Despite the slowest decade of population growth since the Great Depression, the USA remains the world’s fastest-growing industrialized nation and the globe’s third-most populous country at a time when some are actually shrinking.

The United States reached 308.7 million in 2010, up 9.7% since 2000 — a slight slowdown that many experts say was caused by the recession and less immigration.

Even so, U.S. growth is the envy of most developed nations. Trailing only China and India, the nation is expected to grow at least through the next generation because it is one of the few industrialized countries that has a fertility rate close to replacement level. The rate of births needed for a generation to replace itself is an average 2.1 per woman. The USA’s is at 2.06.

Perhaps one’s perspective is dependent on which country the United States is compared to.

It would be interesting to talk with Americans about their expectations about population growth. I’ve thought about this before when considering shrinking cities or suburbs: we tend to assume places will go on growing forever but we know there are some communities that have not. Throughout the course of American history, Americans have seemed to believe that the country would continue to grow in terms of land, population, and political and economic power. And growth often seems to be tied to progress: bigger will lead to better. Granted that there is no land left to have and our political and economic power is somewhat stagnant, what would happen if the population growth of the United States came to a standstill in a few decades? Is a slowdown in population growth taken as a sign of weakness or a necessary correction? Similarly, in European countries that now have fertility rates below replacement levels, how much angst is there about the future of these nations?

Perhaps the biggest area of concern would be welfare or safety net programs that are reliant on a large population base that can support others. If the population is stagnant or dropping, this tax base can’t support the growing number of elderly citizens. But there could also be cultural consequences including a sense of decline or stagnation. Maybe that’s why USA Today reported that our lower rates of growth are “the envy of most developed nations.”

Quick Review: Bertrand Goldberg retrospective

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The Art Institute of Chicago currently has a Bertrand Goldberg retrospective, the first of its kind. Goldberg is well known in Chicago for several works of architecture: Marina City on the north bank of the Chicago River as well as the Prentice Women’s Hospital, which has been in the news lately because of a discussion about whether it should be preserved.

Here are a few photos from the exhibit:

A few thoughts about Goldberg’s work:

1. His primary design form, concrete cobs or wavy walls around a circular core, are quite unique. However, I can’t imagine any building today being built in this style. This has definitely aged.

2. The exhibit portrayed him as a visionary because of his interest in reviving the city through large, self-contained developments. This sort of sounds like New Urbanism but the scale is quite different as are the aesthetics with large concrete surfaces. This reminded me more of Le Corbusier or the arcologies found in Simcity. The self-contained nature of these developments might stop people from fleeing to the suburbs but it wouldn’t necessarily push them to interact with the wider city.

3. Goldberg is known for a few high profile works but also designed a number of other things as well including lots of hospitals, some houses, public buildings, and household items like chairs.

4. My biggest critique of the exhibit: the buildings and designs are given without context. Take Marina City. It definitely is iconic and interesting. Yet, how did it get built? How was the land acquired and the project pushed through the city government? How did it affect the surrounding neighborhood? What is its legacy beyond its walls? For example, the developer for the project was Charles Swibel, a man well-connected to Mayor Richard J. Daley and an unsavory character when it came to things like public housing. While the exhibit suggested Goldberg was trying to help the city, did he really do so in the long run? What was needed was the perspective of an urbanist who could provide some commentary about the overall effect of these buildings. While the exhibit mainly focused on design elements, it really is also an opportunity to assess how Goldberg’s design helped or hindered American cities.

Example of advertising language: “executive home” versus “McMansion”

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In a longer article about the role of truth in advertising, an advertising executive notes how two different terms about a house raise two very different ideas:

Language gives marketers power to construct positioning. Consider the difference between using the following terms to describe the exact same house: “executive home” or “McMansion.” The descriptors shape a relative interpretation and even can deliver a value judgment.

Here is a brief overview of what is associated with these two terms:

1. McMansion: mass produced, low quality, emblematic of suburban sprawl, residents are social strivers, too large, not green, more about glitz than substance.

2. Executive home: aspirational (who wouldn’t want to be a executive?), quality, a home (which implies not being mass produced), impressive with gravitas (the executive label).

This difference between terms is not inconsequential: Toll Brothers, one of the biggest builders of large homes in the United States, has claimed to build “executive homes” and does not like the McMansion label.

The decision about whether to call a home a McMansion or an “executive home” often depends on one’s standing and relationship to the designated home. For example, a neighbor who opposes the teardown next door is likely to call it a McMansion. The builder who is putting up the new luxury home is likely to call it a McMansion while an architect who is building a similar home several miles away shuns the McMansion label. So there might just be multiple advertising truths about the same home.

Undergraduates discovering positive deviance

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While we might typically consider deviance to be negative, an activity in one sociology class illustrates how deviance can also be positive:

“Can I pay for her drink, too?” asked Caitlin Hendricks.

Peterson was pleasantly surprised but still taken aback; she and Hendricks didn’t know each other…

Hendricks’ random act of kindness wasn’t entirely random: She was completing an assignment for sociology professor Michelle Inderbitzin’s deviant behavior and social control class at OSU, which studies the concept of social deviance and how it can vary based on history and context.

Inderbitzin has assigned the “positive deviance” exercise in her social deviance class at OSU for six years. She asks students to simply do something nice for a stranger — bag someone else’s groceries, for example, or hold an umbrella over someone’s head while it’s raining. Students then write a page-long recap of their experience, focusing on the recipient’s reactions as well as their own feelings before and after the act and discuss their experience in class.

This is a good reminder about positive deviance that might lead to the world of Pay It Forward in popular culture but can be examined more closely sociologically. This reminds me of the ideas of Emile Durkheim who thought deviance could help reinforce existing norms. By seeing people break norms and then experience the consequences, others are reminded of the norms. At the same time, it seems that most sociologists have focused on the creation of or breaking of social norms. For example, Robert Merton’s strain theory describes how when people are faced with anomie, they respond in different ways including breaking norms.

It is interesting to think about why we as a society tend to focus on negative deviance more than positive deviance. Perhaps it is tied to findings that show we experience loss more deeply than gain. Perhaps it is because we have media sources that tend to lead with crime (and presumably they do this because it brings an audience). Perhaps it is because some argue we have a violent, individualistic culture. Simply throwing in a few positive stories on the nightly news may not be enough to overcome society’s emphasis on negative deviance.

Sociologist: phone call or text like “catnip” for humans

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Amidst a larger conversation about using cell phones in vehicles, a sociologist gets at an interesting question: why can’t people resist the allure of cell phones?

The lure of multitasking may be, in at least one respect, more powerful for drivers than for other people, said Clifford Nass, a sociology professor at Stanford University who studies electronic distraction. Drivers are typically isolated and alone, he said, and humans are fundamentally social animals.

The ring of a phone or the ping of a text becomes a promise of human connection, which is “like catnip for humans,” Nass said.

“When you tap into a totally fundamental, universal human impulse,” he added, “it’s very hard to stop.”

Humans are indeed social animals and driving is uniquely isolating. On one hand, it is an oddly social activity as drivers must interact with other drivers and there is an interesting set of non-verbal interactions. On the other hand, one is in a sealed, moving vehicle and it may be one of the few regular moments people have where they are not near enough to talk to other people. Couldn’t someone examine this hypothesis by looking at how many cell phone caused or influenced car accidents took place when there was a solo driver?

It would be interesting to see how people respond to cell phones differently when alone opposed to in more social settings where they have opportunities to interact with people.

I imagine this could easily become a marketing campaign for cell phones: your phone is “a promise of human connection.” Indeed, a number of cell phone campaigns have stressed how they bring people together. The commercials might not add this but here is the kicker: sometimes this urge to make a human connection might be be problematic…

Better educated people more able to adjust to new health research

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This finding from a study in the December issue of American Sociological Review has been getting a lot of attention: despite efforts to even out the effect more education has on health, higher levels of education still lead to better health outcomes. Here’s why:

Professor Richard Miech of the University of Colorado Denver and colleagues said data have showed for decades middle-aged adults with low education levels — high school or less — are twice as likely to die as those with higher education levels.

Miech’s study, published in the American Sociological Review, provides new understanding as to why death rates for less educated middle-aged adults are much higher than for their more educated peers, despite increased awareness and treatments aimed at reducing health disparities.

The researchers found as new causes of death emerge, people with lower education levels are slower to respond with behavioral changes, creating a moving target that often remains a step ahead of prevention efforts.

Despite efforts to reduce education-based mortality disparities, the gap remains because new health disparities counteract the efforts to reduce the death rates for those with less education — the causes of death have changed, rates have not, Miech said.

Translation: the world continues to change and certain groups are better positioned in society to take advantage.

What you lose by having a 3-4,000 square foot home compared to a 5-6,000 square foot home

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If you are going to move into or build a 3-4,000 square foot home instead of a 5-6,000 square foot home, what do you lose? A game room, among other things:

Customers increasingly are opting for alternate uses for the room that used to house the pool table and bar. Real estate agents and builders cite a number of reasons, from people’s tastes changing, a sign of the economic times or a baby boomer generation growing older, as reasons.

Going without a game room is not necessarily a sign that people are entertaining less, but more an indicator that custom homebuyers are making more practical decisions about what they want their living space to contain, says A. Faye Scoller, of the Scholler Group Prudential PenFed Realty…

“Additionally, we are seeing a lot less of the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ in terms of the total square footage,” Booth notes. “Where we used to build 5,000- to 6,000-square-foot McMansions, now customers are reducing their space requirements, and now custom homes, with the same high-end amenities and extras, are in the 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot range.”

A smaller footprint comes from eliminating the game room and dining room and making one large and airy great room that can serve multiple uses, Booth said.

Both home sizes are large but you would have to make changes if you lose several thousand square feet.

The most interesting part of this to me is that although these houses may be smaller, this one builder suggests the smaller homes still have the “same high-end amenities and extras.” People may not want space but they still want the luxury items associated with a big home. At the same time, does this mean that a pool table and a bar are no longer desirable status symbols?

The Presidents who can’t go to church

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Much has been made of American’s desire for the President to have religious faith and/or attend church. But what happens if the hoopla that comes with the President going anywhere means that they can’t go to church?

It’s hard to imagine any future President being able to attend church–much less teach Sunday School–without an attendant hullabaloo. And that’s too bad. The men and women we put in that office will confront serious questions on life-and-death issues and find themselves under enormous amounts of stress. For those for whom religion has been important, it could be helpful to have the outlet of a congregation where they could reflect and be renewed. The individuals who serve as President give up many personal freedoms in order to do so. A community of worship shouldn’t have to be one of them.

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How do we know if there is a small house trend?

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One summary of 2011 makes a provocative claim: “How Small Spaces Trumped McMansions.” The problem: the review has little to no evidence to back up this claim.

Here are ways we could know that small spaces really trumped McMansions:

1. Look at the average size of the new American home. This has indeed dropped. But this doesn’t necessarily mean Americans are buying small or tiny houses, just smaller new homes. And McMansions have been on the decline for the last few years, not just in 2011.

2. Look at how many small or tiny homes are sold. I haven’t seen any statistics on this nor do I know if anyone is actually compiling this data.

3. Look at whether there is an increase in media coverage of small or tiny homes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this did happen in 2011 but this means a change in media coverage, not necessarily a shift in people’s actions.

4. Look at what builders say they will be building in the near future. Builders seem to think the trend is downward but again, I don’t think most of them are really building small houses, just smaller.

5. Look at whether small or tiny homes are drawing the attention of our best thinkers about homes (architects, designers, others) and government officials. Perhaps this has happened but some data would be nice.

Overall, we need some more data about this possible trend. I think there is evidence that McMansions have been on the decline but we need more data about small houses.

Sociology: the study of constrained choices

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I recent saw a blurb about a new online course that explores how sociology explains how we make choices:

In his lecture “If You’re So Free, Why Do You Follow Others? The Sociology and Science Behind Social Networks,” part of Floating University’s Great Big Ideas course, Christakis explains why individual actions are inextricably linked to sociological pressures. Whether you’re absorbing altruism performed by someone you’ll never meet or deciding to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, collective phenomena affect every aspect of your life.

Christakis is well-known for research in recent years that shows things like obesity and emotions spreading through social networks and affecting friends of friends.

But this larger idea about constrained choices is interesting. When faced with a new Introduction to Sociology class at the beginning of the semester, this is one of the ideas that I present to them: sociology is less interested in how individuals make their individual choices and more interested in how larger social factors, society, culture, institutions, networks, etc., constrain the choices of individuals in certain ways. While we live in a culture that loves to celebrate individual choice, we don’t really have completely free choices to make. Common areas of analysis in sociology, such as race, social class, and gender, can open up or limit possible choices for individuals.

Of course, there are sociologists more interested in individual choice. This has led to a larger debate in the discipline between agency and structure. But overall, sociologists tend to focus more than other disciplines on social factors that often unknowingly affect all of us.

UPDATE 12/21/11: The Washington Post gives more information on this course that will be offered on a few elite college campuses as well as online.