Author Archives: legallysociable

Why I can watch the Sing-Off and never watch American Idol

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I have been watching the most recent season of the Sing-Off on NBC. Here are some reasons why I am willing to watch this but have no interest in viewing American Idol.

1. The Sing-Off is only five episodes. Short and sweet. This doesn’t require much commitment on the part of viewers and it leaves them wanting more. In contrast, American Idol seems to go for ever and involves lots of weeks with minimal talent.

2. The Sing-Off seems a bit quirkier (perhaps that is the nature of people trying to make accapella music look cool?) while American Idol seems contrived. (This may be the result of time – it’s hard to remember an era when American Idol was new and exciting.)

3. I like Ben Folds as a judge. Since I enjoy some of his music, it is interesting to watch his comments and actions. I get the feeling that he really like this gig – he gets to be the nerdy judge who compliments the all-important rhythm guy or girl behind what the rest of the group is doing. And whenever he finishes his comments, he immediately sits back, crosses his arms, and smiles.

4. The group aspect is appealing. These are groups that don’t often get the same sort of attention lavished on rock stars. They seem to really enjoy what they are doing and just like having some people pay attention to them.

5. I like the song selection better on the Sing-Off. The songs picked for American Idol seem to be arranged for middle America – hinting on edgy but never really straying from the middle of the road. How many times do we have to hear something like “Bridge Over Troubled Water”?

6. The host battle is a toss-up. Nick Lachey has very little personality while Ryan Seacrest is a bit too smooth (unless he is fighting with Simon).

My prediction at this point: it comes down to Committed or the Back Beats with Committed winning America’s vote (though I think Back Beat would get the judges’ votes).

Many rural counties experiencing population declines

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The rural population has been dropping in many places over the last few decades. The newest data from the 2009 American Community Survey shows the continuation of this trend, particularly in rural counties in the Heartland:

But the [Los Angeles] Times analysis of the numbers shows unequivocally that a thick swath of the country, from north Texas to the Dakotas, has lost population…

Data show that many counties in the Great Plains are also experiencing a loss of young people. Johnson said that trend was probably creating a “downward spiral” of population loss in these areas since the young weren’t sticking around to bear children.

“The only thing that might break them out of it,” he said, “is an influx of young Hispanics.”

There is also mention of a few areas, such as Spencer County, Kentucky, or Teton County, Idaho, where generally wealthier residents have actually increased the population.

This data doesn’t really come as a surprise. Small town America has been gone for quite a while now as multiple generations have left rural areas for cities and suburbs. America is a suburban nation today as these places offer jobs, decent schools, single-family homes, and everything else that is part of the suburban “good life.”

(A side note: I’m really enjoying all these news stories based on the American Community Survey data. This relatively recent survey from the Census will be doing more and more in the future as the decennial census is relied on less and less. Maybe news organizations think these sorts of stories are easy to put together or perhaps lots of readers really are interested in a deeper understanding of the complex United States.)

Not so fast on integrated American neighborhoods

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Taking another angle on residential integration (based on data from the American Community Survey – also reported on here) suggests it is a very slow process. Two sociologists suggest some has changed – metropolitan whites now on average live in neighborhoods that are 74% white (the figure was 88% in 1980). But minorities still have similar segregation figures to 2000:

•Black-white segregation averaged 65.2 in 2000 and 62.7 now.

•Hispanic-white segregation was 51.6 in 2000 vs. 50 today.

•Asian-white segregation has grown from 42.1 to 45.9.

This index score (and I think this is a dissimilarity index) ranges from 0 to 100 with a score of 0 meaning that two groups are completely integrated while a score of 100 means that two groups live completely separately or in different neighborhoods.

Based on this analysis, it looks like the issue of residential segregation is one that will be with us for a long time yet. While there was improvement for some groups, there were  negative or very limited changes for other groups. All that said, residential segregation looks like it is still an entrenched feature of American life.

22 possible ways of assessing a course

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Assessment is an important issue in schools of all levels today. On the college level, there is a growing emphasis on collecting data about particular courses and programs and then assessing whether these courses and programs met critical goals and then using that data to improve what is being offered.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has put together 22 different assessment measurements for a hypothetical college course. Broken into three categories, the instructor, during the course, and after the course, this table quickly suggests how easy or difficult it is to collect the data and then the limitations of each measure.

Just looking at this chart, here is what one could take away from it:

1. It is relatively easy to assess the qualifications of the instructor.

2. Measurement during the course appears easier than after the course.

3. A key issue with the after the course data is that it is difficult to determine exactly what impact one particular course had when students take other courses as well and get educational input outside of courses.

4. It appears that a variety of data would be useful to help avoid the limitations of individual measures.

5. Assessment can be a time-consuming and complex task.

Lower levels of segregation in many cities according to the American Community Survey

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Residential segregation, primarily between whites and blacks, is a critical issue when considering the historical development and current state of American development patterns and way of life. But new findings from the most recent American Community Survey (the Census Bureau’s yearly survey) suggest that segregation levels have decreased in many cities:

Atlanta is one of several predominantly Southern and Western cities that showed a noticeable integration trend over the last five years as both middle-class blacks and whites moved into each other’s neighborhoods, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey of 10 million Americans, released Tuesday…

Seventy-five percent of the largest 100 US metro areas showed neighborhood segregation rates slipping to levels not seen for more than a century…

Ethnic integration failed to show the same kind of gains…

It isn’t that the North, which has lagged behind the South and West in integration rates, has dramatically different attitudes on race. Rather, new housing and job opportunities in the South and West have helped to spur integration there.

This is interesting, and potentially uplifting, news. A number of sociologists have called attention to this issue in recent decades, perhaps most notably in American Apartheid published in the early 1990s. Recent maps show that many cities have a highly visible divide between different population groups. With these recent findings, the question may now be: how much more integration might we see in American cities? Is this a short-term trend or is this indicative of a slow, steady rise of integration in American cities?

What I would like to see is a more specific breakdown of what cities improved on integration and which did not. The article suggests that cities in the South and West had increasing rates of integration while segregation decreased less in the North. This is a reminder that in American cities, segregation has been more prominent in northern cities, what scholars (according to the article) call “the ghetto belt.” Are there lessons from the cities that improved in integration that can be exported to other cities?

Additionally, how have segregation/integration rates changed in suburbs or perhaps in whole metropolitan regions?

A call to update the definition of smart growth

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The term “smart growth” has been around now for several decades. Kaid Banfield argues that the term needs some updating to include more recent concerns. After listing the principles from The Smart Growth Network, Banfield suggests a few things should be added:

Notice anything missing in those principles?  I do.  There’s nothing explicit about equity, health, food, water, access to jobs, parks, energy, green technology, and more – many of the things that have come to the forefront of community and environmental interests in 2010 were simply not on our minds in the 1990s or, if they were, not to nearly the same degree.  If we want to stay relevant, and honest and true to the issues that confront us and the people we represent, we need to do some updating…

[T]oday we confront a very different set of trends than we did in the 1990s.  In fact, I would say that we have made so much progress on these things – with market forces on our side, now, too – that we who like to think of ourselves as “progressive” risk being anything but, if we don’t turn some attention to the issues that have emerged in the 21st century.

My quick thought about these suggestions as a whole is that they are a call for making more explicit the goals or aims of the smart growth movement. If you look at the original principles, such as “Mix land uses,” it is not immediately clear why one should pursue this. But if a later principle then stated goals about equity or preserving the environment, the link between practice and intentions (and how they would affect the lives of people) would be more explicit.

It would be interesting to trace how some of Banfield’s suggestions, like equity, have developed over time. What is the narrative among planners and thinkers over time regarding how to make sure there are “communities of fairness and opportunity?” How does a narrative like this resonate with Americans?

h/t The Infrastructurist

The census and US House seats

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There are a number of people eagerly awaiting the results of the 2010 Census. In addition to sociologists, politicians and states are awaiting an announcement regarding how population changes have affected seats in the House of Representatives:

The U.S. Census Bureau will release the new Congressional apportionment figures at a Dec. 21 news conference at the National Press Club, making official the number of Congressional districts each state will have for the next 10 years…

One trend expected to continue from the previous census is population growth rates in the South and West far outpacing those in the North and East. Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York are expected to lose seats as Florida, Texas, Arizona and Nevada are likely to gain seats.

I am very curious to see the full 2010 Census results regarding where the changes in the American population have occurred. While people have suggested that the suburban population has continued to grow (particularly in its proportion compared to city and rural dwellers), it is also interesting to note the continued trend of population growth in the South and West.

It would also be interesting to track how population changes, and the subsequent Congressional changes, really affect where the seat of power is in America. Let’s say New York loses a House seat going forward – does this really matter in the House? Does it matter in terms of public perception? Even with the population growth in the South and West, do the newer cities like Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego have the same perceived political power as established cities like New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago?

Sporting events and human rights

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With FIFA’s recent awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qater, some commentators have discussed whether the expansion of football (soccer) was the overriding principle in the decision. Ann Killion of Sports Illustrated suggests the decision didn’t really account for human rights at all:

Amnesty International and Freedomhouse.org raise serious concerns about Qatar from a human rights perspective. A 2010 report by the Office of the United Nations high Commissioner for Refugees rated Qatar “not free.” While women have been granted some rights in recent years, in practice they have very little ability to pursues those rights. In 1996 a gay American citizen was sentenced to six months in prison and 90 lashes…

Using a mega-sporting event as an instrument of social change is a dubious proposition. Did human rights improve in China after the Beijing Olympics –or are restrictions on freedom even greater now?

Is Qatar going to magically transform for one month of football 12 years from now? Are football fans going to be able to freely drink a cold beer in the 120-degree heat? Are women and gay visitors going to be accepted?

Somehow I don’t think the 22 men of FIFA’s executive committee really care.

Should a sports body, such as FIFA or the Olympics, take human rights into consideration? This is an interesting discussion. FIFA claims to be about football all over the world, hence their recent plans to have the World Cup be hosted on multiple continents. But whether this spreading is motivated solely by money or about truly sharing the world’s game is another matter.

If a sports body did require certain levels of human rights for countries to host (or to be able to send athletes), could this change any policies anywhere? And if it didn’t change state policies, would it be harming individual athletes who are not responsible for the stance of their home nation? The only example I can think of is that of South Africa where they were not allowed to participate in the Olympics until the apartheid policies changed.

On the basis of human rights, would athletes and nations be willing to boycott a worldwide sports body like FIFA or the Olympics?

Ultimately, we may have make a judgment about whether human rights or money is a bigger motivating factor for sporting bodies and nations. And if money does seem to be the main factor, the task for human rights advocates is to figure out how to counter.

Thinking about the “fastest growing small towns”

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Forbes has put together a list of the “fastest growing small towns” in the United States. Here are the top five towns:

No. 1. Fairbanks, Alaska (Metro Area)

2009 Population: 98,660

2006 Population: 86,754

Growth: 13.8%

No. 2. The Villages, Fla. (Micro Area)

2009 Population: 77,681

2006 Population: 68,769

Growth: 13.0%

No. 3. Bozeman, Mont. (Micro Area)

2009 Population: 90,343

2006 Population: 81,763

Growth: 10.5%

No. 4. Palm Coast, Fla. (Metro Area)

2009 Population: 91,622

2006 Population: 83,084

Growth: 10.3%

No. 5. Ames, Iowa (Metro Area)

2009 Population: 87,214

2006 Population: 80,145

Growth: 8.8%

An interesting list based on data between 2006 and 2009. I have a few thoughts about this:

1. To be a “small town,” a community had to have less than 100,000 people. This does not sound like a small town to me. When I think of small town, I think less than 15,000 people. In my opinion, all of the top five fastest growing should really be labeled “small cities.”

1a. If the list were labeled the “fastest growing small cities,” would people still want to look at it? Using the term “small town” invokes certain images of a place where everybody knows everyone and a quaint downtown where people regularly gather. This image is something quite different from the actual population of the community; I’ve heard people in Naperville, a suburb with over 140,000 people, claim it is still like a small town.

2. Is this growth a good thing? I wonder if the people living in these communities would like to see this growth continue for a decade or so. Since they are already not small towns, they will really not be small towns if this sort of growth continues. The shift from smaller to larger community is often not easy as it involves more newcomers in the community who have a different understanding of the place, new businesses (such as big box stores and chains), and possibly a declining sense of community.

2a. Do a good number of people move to places that are the “hot places” because there is rapid population growth? The Yahoo! story on this has links that immediately go to real estate listing. How many people click on those?

3. It might be useful to know what is “average” growth for communities over this time period. While these communities might be the top 5, what is the distribution among places under 100,000? What is the average or median rate of growth?

Americans blame parents for bad education

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A perpetual question in our country is who to blame for poor educational results. A recent poll shows a large number of Americans blame parents:

An Associated Press-Stanford University Poll on education found that 68 percent of adults believe parents deserve heavy blame for what’s wrong with the U.S. education system — more than teachers, school administrators, the government or teachers unions.

Only 35 percent of those surveyed agreed that teachers deserve a great deal or a lot of the blame. Moms were more likely than dads — 72 percent versus 61 percent — to say parents are at fault. Conservatives were more likely than moderates or liberals to blame parents.

Those who said parents are to blame were more likely to cite a lack of student discipline and low expectations for students as serious problems in schools. They were also more likely to see fighting and low test scores as big problems.

Figuring out how to improve education is always a difficult issue to address. I’ve always thought the discussion is compounded by the fact that people feel more control or duty to check on how their property taxes are being used for education. People gripe about paying money to the federal government or the state but when it comes to the more local level and education, everyone has an opinion (and often a solution).

As the story goes on to day, it is not all about blaming: “55 percent believe their children are getting a better education than they did, and three-quarters rate the quality of education at their child’s school as excellent or good.”

A final thought: the next question on the survey should have been: if you are a parent of a child in school, do you blame yourself for your child’s performance? Or do the people who blame parents really blame other parents?