Author Archives: legallysociable

Defining and explaining sidewalk rage

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There was road rage. But the anger is not just limited to the roadway: now there is sidewalk rage. Here is a description of this phenomenon that is being defined and studied by a several academics:

Researchers say the concept of “sidewalk rage” is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder,” researchers say. On Facebook, there’s a group called “I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head” that boasts nearly 15,000 members…

Signs of a sidewalk rager include muttering or bumping into others; uncaringly hogging a walking lane; and acting in a hostile manner by staring, giving a “mean face” or approaching others too closely, says Leon James, a psychology professor at the University of Hawaii who studies pedestrian and driver aggression…

How one interprets the situation is key, researchers say. Ragers tend to have a strong sense of how other people should behave. Their code: Slower people keep to the right. Step aside to take a picture. And the left side of an escalator should be, of course, kept free for anyone wanting to walk up…

People slow down when distracted by other activities, too. A 2006 study by the City of New York and the NYC Department of City Planning showed smokers walk 2.3% slower than the average walker’s 4.27 feet per second. Tourists creep along at an 11% more-leisurely rate than the average walker, while cellphone talkers walk 1.6% slower, according to the study. Headphone wearers, by contrast, clipped along at a 9% faster rate than average.

Looking at this from a sociological perspective, sidewalks are problematic because they have a lack of formal rules. They are often wide, particularly in big cities, but there are no markers of where to walk. The situation can become more complicated with dogs, skateboarders, bikers, strollers, tourists, segways, and more. So would the answer to this problem be to institute some guidelines? Why not post signs in public places that escalators should have open lanes on the left?

Yet this lack of rules on the sidewalk can often make them fascinating places to watch or study (if one is not walking at a quick pace through a crowd of people with other objectives). For Jane Jacobs, the sidewalk was where people in the neighborhood gathered to interact and check up on each other. For Mitchell Duneier in Sidewalk, these spaces are where homeless street vendors and others mix, conduct business, and react to differential treatment from the police.

(As a side note, the strategy of the journalist in the second paragraph to cite the size of a relevant Facebook group is a harmful one. This is an interesting article about academic research on a new phenomenon – how does a Facebook group support this exploration? It is simply a number divorced of any context. What if the group had 500 members or if it had 10,000 members? Perhaps it is an attempt to be relevant. But it doesn’t help establish the facts about the phenomenon of sidewalk rage.)

Ethics and social science: grad student gets 6 months sentence for studying animal rights’ groups

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This is an update of a story I have been tracking for a while: a sociology graduate student who had studied animal rights’ groups was  sentenced to six months in jail. Here is a brief summary of where the case now stands:

Scott DeMuth, a sociology graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was sentenced yesterday to 6 months in federal prison for his role in a 2006 raid on a Minnesota ferret farm. A judge in Davenport, Iowa, ordered that DeMuth be taken into custody immediately.

In 2009, DeMuth was charged with felony conspiracy in connection with a separate incident, a 2004 lab break-in at the University of Iowa that caused more than $400,000 in damage. DeMuth argued that anything he might know about the Iowa incident had been collected as part of his research on radical activist groups and was therefore protected by confidentiality agreements with his research subjects. A petition started by DeMuth’s graduate advisor, David Pellow, argued that the charges violated DeMuth’s academic freedom.

Last year, prosecutors offered to drop all charges related to the Iowa break-in if DeMuth would plead guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge related to the ferret farm incident. DeMuth took the deal. No one has been convicted in the Iowa break-in.

This has been an interesting case to introduce to students when teaching ethics amongst sociology and anthropology majors in a research class. Just how far should participant observation go? Couple this with another story, like Venkatesh knowing about possible crimes in Gang Leader for a Day, and a good conversation typically ensues.

However, this case does bring up some larger questions about how protected researchers and their subjects should be when carrying out their research. Should researchers have shield laws? How exactly do courts define “academic freedom” in cases like this?

CBS infringes…itself

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From the left-hand-doesn’t-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing department, CBS appears to have infringed its own copyrighted works:

A CBS reporter embedded a video of one of their own pieces of content onto a CBS-owned web property. Only to have it soon yanked down by lawyers (or lawyer-bots – AKA auto-DMCA patrol).

Click on over to the original piece on The Future Buzz to see the screenshot, which is pretty hysterical.

Appealing fair use

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It looks like we are headed toward more clarity on the fair use front:  Righthaven is appealing one of its fair use losses to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals:

[U.S. District Judge] Hicks found the online posting by [defendant Michael] Nelson of the first eight sentences of a 30-sentence [Las Vegas] Review-Journal story didn’t amount to copyright infringement as it was protected by the “fair use” doctrine .

This ruling caused Righthaven to alter its litigation strategy to limit its lawsuits to entire stories, photos and graphics — rather than partial stories — that were reproduced without authorization.

This could get interesting.  The 9th Circuit is extremely pro-content industry, perhaps unsurprising given that Hollywood is located within its jurisdiction.  At least a ruling will provide additional clarity going forward.

Population loss of 200,000 in Chicago from 2000 to 2010

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Chicago has often been held up as an example of a Midwestern/Rust Belt city that managed to thrive in the 1990s and actually gain population. But new Census numbers show that the 2000s weren’t as kind to Chicago as the city’s population fell about 200,000. Here are a few of the key numbers and thoughts from the front-page article in the Chicago Tribune.

1. One of the key conclusions is that suburbanization continued during this past decade:

“I think these data from here and elsewhere in the country reflect that the United States has become a suburban nation,” said Scott W. Allard, a University of Chicago associate professor of social service administration.

This quote seems somewhat silly to me: the United States has been a suburban nation for decades now. It is not just a feature of the 2000s or the 1990s; a larger number of Americans have lived in suburbs (compared to cities or rural areas) for several decades.

2. The population growth of Chicago in the 1990s was helped by Latino immigration:

In the 2000 census, Latino immigration fueled a modest 4 percent population increase in Chicago, marking the city’s first decade of growth since the 1940s.

This time around Chicago’s Latino population was up just a little more than 3 percent. The white population was down a bit, while black numbers dropped nearly 17 percent.

Latinos and Asians accounted for the metropolitan area’s biggest population increases during the 2000s. In both cases, the biggest gains for those groups were in collar counties, not in the city or suburban Cook County.

So in the 2000s, the Latino population still increased but the Black population, in particular, declined in Chicago.

3. Minorities are living in places throughout the Chicago area:

“The biggest (change) is finding more minority people in different places in the metropolitan area where you didn’t used to find them,” said Jim Lewis, a demographer and senior program officer at Chicago Community Trust. “That and the loss of black population in the region and the state.”

The census information isn’t yet complete enough to track where blacks who left the city went, Lewis said. The figures indicate some have moved to suburbs, but a slight decline statewide suggests some African-Americans have been moving out of the region entirely, Lewis said.

This is also not surprising. This is a growing trend throughout the United States in recent decades: minorities and new immigrants are moving to the suburbs in increasing numbers.

4. The whole Chicago region did grow but the numbers were down compared to 1990s growth:

Carried by the collar counties, the population of the six-county Chicago region grew almost 3 percent during the decade, to 8.3 million. That’s down significantly from the region’s 11 percent growth in the 2000 census.

5. DuPage County is no longer a hotbed of growth as it was from 1950-1990. This likely due to the fact that there is little open land remaining for new subdivisions. The growth has moved on to locations further out from the city:

DuPage County, long the region’s epitome of booming suburbia, barely grew at all. The county lost about 45,000 white residents, which was offset by more African-American and Asian residents.

“You could say that Kane County is the DuPage County of yesterday,” said Rob Paral, a Chicago demographer. “The things we’re saying about Kane County today is what we said about DuPage County 20 years ago.”…

For the second decade, Aurora and Joliet experienced dramatic growth. Aurora (197,899) passed Rockford (152,871) to become the state’s second-biggest town, while Joliet moved up three places to No. 4, with 147,433 residents, nearly 40 percent more than in 2000.

So now we should sit back and wait to hear how various people, including politicians, talk about this new data. Overall, it mirrors a lot of national trends: people, including minorities and immigrants, continuing to move to the suburbs. This has some important implications: Illinois is losing a US House seat and Chicago could lose some status. What are the new figures for Houston, the city that trailed Chicago in the rankings for the largest US cities?  Does this mean Chicago is in trouble? Will Chicago enact a plan to draw people back to the city in the next decade?

From PhD doctor to “love doctor”

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Earning a PhD gives one the title of “Doctor.” When using this title, one occasionally has to differentiate between academic doctor and medical doctor. But one sociologist is both an academic doctor and a “love doctor”:

Terri Orbuch, a University of Michigan research scientist, studies romance, marriage, divorce and relationship patterns. She gets her “doctor” title because of her sociology Ph.D. and her work at U of M’s Institute for Social Research and Oakland University.

Which title would an academic prefer more: doctor or “love doctor”? It looks like the “love doctor” title doesn’t hurt as Orbuch was quoted in a New York Times story about love a few days before Valentine’s Day.

Digging a little further into this nickname, one can find that Orbuch maintains a blog for Psychology Today. According to the brief profile at the top of the blog, “Dr. Orbuch also is known as “The Love Doctor®” on radio, TV and in magazines/newspapers across the country.” And a profile from her own website says, “One of Michigan’s most trusted relationship experts, Dr. Terri Orbuch has published over 40 articles; been quoted in such national publications as USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Reader’s Digest; and authored five books.” I would be curious to know how one goes from studying relationships for years to hosting a local show in Detroit and advising people about relationships.

Are there other areas where someone can become a “doctor”? How about those Dr. Pepper commercials where all sorts of celebrities claim to be doctors? I also vaguely remember Frasier Crane claiming to a be a love doctor…

Oh Canada

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I’ve made the point here before that the music industry inexplicably declines perfectly good revenue sources simply because they are “less” than what they are expecting.  At the risk of Monday-morning-quarterbacking their business model, here’s more proof from north of the border, courtesy of Michael Geist:

Pandora, the popular U.S. online music service filed for an initial public offering last week, provided new insight into hugely popular company that spends millions of dollars in copyright royalties. Pandora users listened to a billion hours of music in the last three months of 2010. Given U.S. laws, the Pandora prospectus notes that it paid for the privilege of having its users do so, with the company spending just over half of its revenue on copyright fees – $45 million in the first nine months of 2010.

The numbers are striking since it points to a growing source of revenue that is largely being missed in Canada. Millions of dollars are now generated from online streaming royalties in the U.S., yet many companies are avoiding the Canadian market. The reason, as Pandora explained last year, are the royalty demands of the major record labels. As Tim Westergren stated last fall, “as long as rights societies take this approach, they will prevent Pandora from launching to Canadian users.” While CRIA tried to claim that the decision to avoid the market was a function of Canadian copyright law, Pandora indicated that it is the fee demands, not the laws that are the stumbling block. With millions now being paid for streaming music in the U.S., it is notable that Canadian interests would seemingly prefer to receive nothing rather than the millions that could potentially be on the table.

A $4000 mistake

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Talk about turning lemons into lemonade.  A Canadian-based copywriting firm is attempting to parlay a very expensive mistake into favorable publicity:

“Like many other creative types in the web industry, our copywriters were not clear on image copyright laws, and we were taught an expensive lesson,” said Rick Sloboda, Senior Web Copywriter at Webcopyplus, which provides designers and businesses optimized web content. “We’re sharing our story, so others can learn from our experience and avoid the same mistake.”

In May, 2010, with the assumption Web images without copyright notices were “public domain” and free to use, a Webcopyplus copywriter used Google images to find an unmarked 400 x 300 pixel scenic photo to complement an article for a tourism client’s blog.

Webcopyplus has posted additional details on their blog, as well as some resources for obtaining stock photography in a way that won’t get one sued (including Creative Commons photos available via Flickr).

Housing prices dropping in places where it wasn’t supposed to keep dropping (like Seattle)

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It has been well-documented that the housing crisis has had a strong effect on places like Las Vegas and much of Florida. But this report suggests the drop in housing prices has spread to places once thought to be immune to these drops, such as Seattle:

Now, though the overall economy seems to be mending, housing remains stubbornly weak. That presents a vexing problem for the Obama administration, which has introduced several initiatives intended to help homeowners, with mixed success.

CoreLogic, a data firm, said last week that American home prices fell 5.5 percent in 2010, back to the recession low of March 2009. New home sales are scraping along the bottom. Mortgage applications are near a 15-year low, boding ill for the rest of the winter.

It has been a long, painful slide. At the peak, a downturn in real estate in Seattle was nearly unthinkable.

In September 2006, after prices started falling in many parts of the country but were still increasing here, The Seattle Times noted that the last time prices in the city dropped on a quarterly basis was during the severe recession of 1982.

Two local economists were quoted all but guaranteeing that Seattle was immune “if history is any indication.”

A risk index from PMI Mortgage Insurance gave the odds of Seattle prices dropping at a negligible 11 percent.

These days, the mood here is chastened when not downright fatalistic. If a recovery depends on a belief in better times, that seems a long way off. Those who must sell close their eyes and hope for the best.

It doesn’t sound good for sellers in a lot of places.

It would be interesting to know more about why certain cities were thought to be immune. I can think of a few explanations off the top of my head: certain markets didn’t experience a big boom in prices in the 1990s-2000s so there wasn’t much room for prices to drop; certain areas attract jobs and employees so there will be more people always look for housing; and certain didn’t experience building booms so there isn’t a glut of houses or units to be sold. Does one of these explanations fit Seattle?

Target coming to Carson’s building on State Street

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State Street is a venerated shopping street in Chicago. Prior to the construction of the retail stores on Michigan Avenue north of the Chicago River, State Street was the home to department stores with familiar names like Marshall Fields and Carson’s. And now there is news that Target is planning to open a store in Carson’s iconic building:

Target will lease 124,000 square feet over two floors, but only 54,000-square feet will be selling space, the company said.

The retailer, known for its cheap chic, has been in talks for more than a year to lease space at the landmark Sullivan Center at State and Madison Streets. Carson’s closed its store there 2007…

The city has poured $24.4 million in tax-increment-financing to help restore the Louis Sullivan building, which also houses offices. Chicago-based developer Joseph Freed & Associates, the building’s owner, has invested another $190 million in the national and Chicago historic landmark in the last decade.

“I applaud Target for bringing this urban store concept to Chicago, as well as the new jobs and economic opportunity this store will create,” Daley said. “Target will be an important addition to State Street, one of Chicago’s most important retail centers, and will be located in one of city’s most architecturally significant buildings.”

The State Street store would be in keeping with the discount chain’s recent strategy to push into urban cores with smaller stores. Target recently signed deals to open a 70,000-square-foot store in the heart of Seattle and a 100,000-square foot store in a shuttered Macy’s in downtown Los Angeles. Those stores are slated to open in 2012.

“We look forward to preserving this Chicago treasure and blending in with the building’s aesthetic, said John Griffith, executive vice president, property development at Target. “A hallmark of Target is our flexibility in store design.”

As for Target’s iconic red bull’s eye, the retailer is still working out the details of incorporating its logo while still respecting the building’s historic status.

This announcement comes as both Target and Wal-Mart have announced plans recently to move into more urban markets. A few thoughts about this:

1. It is somewhat ironic that the stores like Carson’s and Macy’s (purchaser of Marshall Field’s) are mainly about sales from suburban malls while stores like Target and Wal-Mart, symbol of big-box suburbia, now want to be part of the city.

2. Is there anyone who is going to complain about Target moving into this iconic building? When Macy’s bought Marshall Field’s several years ago and moved into the flagship store on State Street, a lot of Chicago residents were mad that one of their iconic businesses had been replaced. Will there be similar concern about Target or are people just happy that they can get to the trendy Target in the middle of the city? (Imagine if Wal-Mart was planning to move into this location.)

3. It will be interesting to see how Target blends their image and layout with this historic building.

4. What does this move say about State Street compared to other shopping areas in the city? State Street seems to be an odd mix of suburban stores on a historic street. Couple this move with the ongoing saga of Block 37 and one has to wonder if there is any long-term plan for State Street.