Author Archives: legallysociable

A LEED-certified modular McMansion

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Ask and you shall receive: a few days ago, I asked whether builders could construct “green McMansions.” I came across a video of the construction of a modular, LEED-certified McMansion. Here is why this 6,300 square foot home is green:

New Classics systems-built construction has a smaller impact on the environment than traditional building methods do…

In addition to the green benefits embedded in our construction process, all New Classics homes require less energy to operate…

In addition to the advantages delivered by our systems-built construction, we’ve joined forces with a number of our trade partners to incorporate further energy management and practical green technology into the Bradley Green Home. All of our environmental management features are easy to live with and make smart economic sense…

I would be interested to see whether this home proves attractive to buyers and critics. While it is still a large home (5 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, guest cottage in the back), it also includes a lot of green features including a “geothermal heating and cooling system,” “a solar hot water system,” “The first living retaining walls in the Washington, D.C., area have been installed in the backyard to control erosion,” and “A rainwater collection system” with a “3,000-gallon underground storage tank.” Which wins out in the end: the size and design of the home or its green features? Are these green features enough to counter the fact that this is still part of suburban sprawl in Bethesda, Maryland?

Another important question: what does this home cost? To buy space, luxury, and green, I imagine it could command a premium.

The difference between a sociologist and a geologist, the “soft” and “hard” sciences

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Comments about sociology can come from anywhere. See this example from a House member discussing FDA guidelines:

The most intense reaction was generated by a provision offered by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) that would block the FDA from issuing rules or guidance unless its decisions are based on “hard science” rather than “cost and consumer behavior.” The amendment would prevent the FDA from restricting a substance unless it caused greater harm to health than a product not containing the substance.

“The FDA is starting to use soft sciences in some considerations in the promulgation of its rules,” said Rehberg, who defined “hard science”, as “perceived as being more scientific, rigorous and accurate” than behavioral and social sciences.

“I hate to try and define the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, between a sociologist and a geologist, but there is clearly a difference,” he told the committee.

Three sets of comparisons are made here: between psychology and psychiatry, sociology and geology, and “hard” and “soft” science. I think it is pretty easy to make the first two distinctions, particularly between geology and sociology. But the third comparison seems a little strange: does Rehberg want to suggest that soft sciences are less true or that they matter less/are less valid for FDA decision making?

Overall, it sounds like Rehberg is suggesting that the “soft” sciences (psychology and sociology) are not as important in crafting FDA policies as the actual science that says whether certain products are good or bad for humans. But it seems somewhat silly to suggest that perceptions and behaviors shouldn’t influence policy decisions. A lot of legislation is driven by perceptions and values in addition to the actual influences in the physical world. Think about some of the major issues being discussed today such as the deficit or taxes: less of the conversation is about the actual impact on the country and more involves ideologies about who should be responsible for funding the government and what is the proper role and/or size of the government. One of the problems presented in this article is instructive: cigarettes are not illegal and yet government bodies are interested in limiting the consumption of them. Therefore, while menthol cigarettes may not be that much more harmful, if it is attractive to younger kids who then take smoking, why not regulate this? Of course, the smoking example is a loaded one and it would be hard to find someone who would suggest more smoking among teenagers is a good thing.

Based on this discussion, would either political party be willing to create legislation only based on “hard science” or is this only a suggestion when the “hard science” supports one’s existing viewpoint? Additionally, are there politicians out there who have publicly supported sociology rather than suggested it is a “soft” science?

Quick Review: Revolutionary Road

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In my continued quest to watch movies involving the suburbs, I recent saw Revolutionary Road (although I have not read the 1961 book on which the film is based). Here are some thoughts I had after watching the film:

1. The main thrust of the movie is that the couple is unsatisfied in the suburbs. This is not an unusual plot for books/movies/critiques of the suburbs. But I wonder after watching the film whether this couple would be truly satisfied anywhere or doing anything.

2. There are two complicating factors in the story. One, the couple decides to move to Paris in order to escape the suburban doldrums and two, while in Paris, the wife will work and support the husband who will have time to think and relax. These ideas, the glamor of Paris plus the reversal of 1950s gender roles, seem to dog the couple throughout the rest of the film as they are unable to to achieve these goals.

3. I was struck that the lives of the children in the film are quite tangential to the plot. The story suggests the adult couple is stifled in the suburbs but we don’t get much insight into how this affects the children. Or, perhaps this is suggesting that the children don’t matter very much or that if the couple is unhappy, the children are bound to be in for a difficult time as well.

4. Like some others stories in this genre, this film features a mentally ill man who is the only one able to see through the suburban facade. The irony, of course, is that the man who society says is unfit is the only one able to voice the issues that the couple faces. The implication is that those in suburbia are actually the mentally ill.

5. The husband works for a firm that suggests computers are the future. I wish some of this contrast between this machine-driven future and the dull suburban life was developed further: do computers provide hope or another nail in the consumerist, family-oriented suburbs?

Overall, I didn’t find the film particularly noteworthy as you can find a very similar story in a number of other places. The contrast between the suburbs and Paris and the suburban lifestyle versus a life where the wife supports the family could be truly revolutionary but it ends up more of a fleeting, unattainable dream than anything else.

(This film got good reviews from critics: it was 68% percent fresh, 135 fresh out of 198 total reviews, at Rottentomatoes.com.)

Growing interest in the investment potential of farmland

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With people looking for good investments, farmland is getting some attention:

Just how hot is American farmland? By some accounts the value of farmland is up 20% this year alone. That’s better than stocks or gold. During the past two decades, owning farmland would have produced an annual return of nearly 11%, according to Hancock Agricultural Investment Group. And that covers a time period when tech stocks boomed and crashed, and housing boomed and crashed. So at a time when investors are still looking for safety, farmland is becoming the “it” investment.

The article goes on to say that because food demand is up, particularly for corn, and crop yields are up because of improved technology. At the same time, perhaps there is a market bubble going on here and it is difficult to get into the business of owning farmland.

I find it interesting that there is no mention of land development in all of this. In areas of sprawl, farmers can benefit from skyrocketing land prices as developers and builders look to acquire buildable acreage. But this story seems to be talking mainly about farm land in the middle of country, not farmland on the booming southwest edge of the Chicago region. In the long term, is farmland more valuable because of the commodity values (which can fluctuate) or because it can eventually be sold for other profitable uses?

Perhaps this all works because it is difficult to envision too much more American land becoming farmland – the total number of cropland (and farmland and pasture) acres has dropped from over 445 million acres in 1997 to over 406 million acres in 2007. If food demand is continually strong and there is a somewhat fixed number of acres that can be farmed, perhaps this is indeed valuable land.

The value of inheritances

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Megan McArdle talks through issues of inheritance in the United States:

I don’t see by what right people should be allowed to order living people how to dispose of their stuff after they’re beyond caring.  I think people should be allowed to make generous gifts while they’re still alive, without gift tax. (Though I think the recipients of those gifts should have to pay income tax on it; I don’t understand why we’d want to tax income people get by working, but not income people get by being born.  Being born is about the most tax-inelastic thing you can think of.)  But once people are dead, then I can make a pretty compelling case that in a modern economy where extended families are not a major economic unit, there’s little justice case for inheritance…

Inheritance not only hands people valuable income in return for something we don’t really want to further reward–being born lucky–but also, in doing so, it entrenches the least attractive feature of our economy: the fact that people who are born to affluent parents are much more likely to themselves be affluent than children born to the less well-heeled.  Lack of economic mobility is generally regarded as a bad thing that we should combat.
Yet so many of our institutions, from the geographic organization of our schools, to the financial distribution of our inheritances, reinforce it.  Some of those things are not going away (we should not, and will not, order affluent people to move into poor school districts, or shut down research universities for conferring unfair advantages on the mostly affluent students who have the ability to gain admission).  But what are the social benefits that inheritance conveys to offset its drawbacks?  I think they have to be pretty large to justify letting dead people order us to perpetuate the economic status quo.

So I can make a moral case for a 100% estate tax.

McArdle then goes on to talk through specific situations where inheritances might make sense and suggests in the end that she is wary of putting this into practice because it is unclear how it would turn out.

I think her earlier points are of more interest as Americans talk about meritocracy but inheritances seem to go against this ideal. From the beginning, Americans have had the populist idea that class doesn’t matter in the same way that it did in England. We argue that there should be mobility between classes (presumably this also means people can go down), not more rigid classes where money is passed down for decades. But we have a less flexible system than we imagine – some people can move up but the numbers are relatively low. This is exacerbated when we look at disparities in wealth between different groups: wealth is not then just about passing along hard-earned benefits to future generations but rather about reinforcing the large existing wealth inequalities that hamper American society.

I would be interested in seeing more data regarding what Americans mean when they say they want their children to have a better life: does this come from actions during their lifetime, like by promoting education or particular values like hard work, or from an inheritance that is passed along in a will?

Illinois redistricting also about capturing suburban voters

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Much of the press about redistricting in Illinois has highlighted how Democrats plan to increase their seats. But the Daily Herald offers an additional insight by suggesting that the redistricting is really about capturing suburban voters:

But even as political analysts poring over the new boundaries provide slightly different takes, one thing is certain: the suburbs, which saw booming growth over the last decade, were the prime meat in the proverbial fattened calf — filleted to produce congressional districts that would help assure a Democratic majority in the state’s delegation over the next 10 years…

“There’s been a shift in power,” Northern Illinois University professor Richard Greene said. “Because of the population shift, the Democratic core and the inner manufacturing suburbs are losing strength, as the outer-edge suburban communities are gaining substantially in strength.”

Democrats, political consultant Kitty Kurth said, want to continue to capitalize on their base — the largely Democratic voting bloc of Chicago, some of which has moved to the suburbs in recent years.

The new map appears to do just that, in some cases through odd-shaped districts that often start in solidly Democratic Chicago and extend into the suburbs through long, gnarled fingers. That essentially extends Democratic Chicago districts into traditionally Republican suburban ones, but not by so much as to put any Democratic majority at risk.

Traditionally, some of the suburban areas, particularly DuPage County, have been solidly Republican strongholds. While these figures are already changing somewhat, this redistricting might help push  these state offices further away from Republicans.

The article also goes on to note how the second Hispanic district in the state could be located in the southwest suburbs “centered around Aurora and Joliet.”

Such a move to control suburban votes would go along with commentary that suggests suburban voters are critical for national political outcomes.

Claim of social desirability bias in immigration polls

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Social desirability bias is the idea that people responding to surveys or other forms of data collection will say the socially correct answer rather than what they really think. A sociologist argues that this is the case for immigration polls:

A Gallup survey taken last year found 45 percent believe immigration should be decreased, compared to 17 percent saying it should be increased and 34 percent saying it should be kept at present levels. But should such figures be taken at face value? University of California, Berkeley, sociologist Alexander Janus argues not. Using a polling technique designed to uncover hidden bias, he concluded about 61 percent of Americans support a cutoff of immigration. Janus, who published his findings in the journal Social Science Quarterly, argues that “social desirability pressures” lead many on the left to lie about their true feelings on immigration — even when asked in an anonymous poll. In an interview, he discussed the survey he conducted in late 2005 and early 2006:

THE SURVEY: “The survey participants were first split into two similar groups. Individuals in one of the groups were presented with three concepts — ‘The federal government increasing assistance to the poor,’ ‘Professional athletes making millions of dollars per year,’ and ‘Large corporations polluting the environment’ — and asked how many of the three they opposed. Individuals in the second group were given the same three items as individuals in the first group, plus an immigration item: ‘Cutting off immigration to the United States.’ They were asked how many of the four they opposed. The difference in the average number of items named between the two groups can be attributed to opposition to the immigration item. The list experiment is superior to traditional questioning techniques in the sense that survey participants are never required to reveal to the interviewer their true attitudes or feelings.”…

I estimated that about 6 in 10 college graduates and more than 6 in 10 liberals hide their opposition to immigration when asked directly, using traditional survey measures.”

This sounds like an interesting technique because as he mentions, the respondents never have to say exactly which ideas they are opposed to.

In the long run for immigration policy, does it matter that much for liberals if people are secretly against immigration if they are willing to support it publicly? Of course, it could influence individual or small group interactions and how willing people are to participate in rallies and public events. But if people are still willing to vote in a socially desirable way, is this good enough?

I wonder if there are other numbers out there that are influenced by social desirability bias…

Barbie needs a “green dream home”

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The socialization process that children go through includes messages and ideas that they get from the toys that they play with. So if we want future adults to live in greener homes, then perhaps it will be Barbie who leads the way:

With an exciting new career in architecture, Barbie naturally needs stylish new digs which is why Mattel has teamed up with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to launch the Architect Barbie Dream House Design Competition…

And here are Barbie’s guidelines, in her own words:

My Dream House should reflect the best sustainable design principles and also be a stylish space that I can live in comfortably. A sleek, smart home office is important for any doll…

I love to entertain so I need living and dining areas that are open and connected allowing for mingling and easy entertaining from one room to the other…

And the list of guidelines goes on.

This is an interesting list: it starts with “sustainable design principles” but then the rest of the list expands on the concept of “stylish space.” So Barbie might want a greener home but this home is still going to have to be pretty large to accommodate all of her stuff. The home may be designed a little better but it still sounds like it will be an ode to consumption since she is a “fashionista,” has at least three cars, and needs a big yard. Can Barbie live in a greener McMansion (not that architects could call it that)?

It would be interesting to see what type of architects would openly submit designs for this.

Can’t we build greener McMansions?

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This is a story that comes up from time to time: people who live in larger homes, sometimes called “McMansions,” should pay some sort of penalty as they consume more. Here is this very suggestion from an Australian academic:

People who want to build energy-guzzling McMansion-style homes should pay more taxes, an academic says.

And taxes should also be used to make owning multiple plasma TVs prohibitive, says Melbourne University construction expert Dr Robert Crawford.

Rapidly increasing suburban house sizes, more reliance on cars and a rise in demand for consumer goods had wiped out many of the benefits of building energy-efficient homes, he said yesterday…

“Indirectly through the price of materials and things like that, if you make it more expensive in some way to build larger houses then that might encourage people not to do it,” he told the Herald Sun.

Such a move would be similar to other incentives that governments offer regarding certain activities.

But I have wondered in recent years why there aren’t more builders who are trying to make these large homes greener. They could benefit from this as one of the big knocks on McMansions is that they are symbols of excessive consumption. So why not earn some points back by making them more environmentally-friendly? I assume there are things that could be done that might cost some money but could also fight back against this image. In the long run, it may just be “greenwashing” but building homes that most people consider “McMansions” because they contribute to environmental problems is a losing cause. Additionally, this might expand their markets to people who are looking for greener homes. What reasonable American homebuyer with money today wouldn’t want a larger AND greener home? And for critics of McMansions, what if they were quite green – is the larger issue the presumed unnecessarily large size or the home or suburban sprawl or something else?

Of course, we could also have a larger national conversation about greener standards for buildings. But we would know how this conversation might play out…

Sociology quiz turns 19 year old into local hero

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A 19 year old Canadian college student illustrates the dramatic effect a sociology quiz can have on one’s life:

Nanaimo’s Derrick Kalicum just had to stop when he saw an elderly lady trapped in her car…

The 70-year-old woman was in a Toyota Matrix that was struck by a reddish-maroon vehicle at the intersection of Wakesiah Avenue and Second Street around 12:42 p.m. The car that hit the Matrix backed away and then fled the scene…

He didn’t hesitate to stop and he credits [Vancouver Island University] for teaching him about the “bystander affect.”

“That’s something I was quizzed on the day before in my sociology class,” he said…

“I have to thank my sociology professor for explaining the bystander affect to me. I really think people should stop and help,” he said.

A little knowledge can go a long way. And they say a sociology degree isn’t worth much…

It is too bad that he wasn’t asked if he would have stopped to help this woman if he hadn’t learned about the bystander effect.