Author Archives: legallysociable

From pavement to gravel

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Due to the recession, some governments have decided to convert paved roads into gravel roads. This has drawn some media attention. Jack Shafer at Slate argues that everyone should just calm down a little:

But the long-term road trend—unacknowledged in the stories—is that local, state, and federal governments have been on a paving binge for the last 50 years. According to federal government statistics, the country had 1.23 million miles of paved road and 2.31 million miles of unpaved road in 1960. By 2008, that ratio had flipped—2.73 million miles of paved road versus 1.32 million miles of unpaved. In other words, in a half century the infrastructure gained 1.5 million miles of paved road.

Schafer argues that the actual number of roads being turned to gravel is very small and that there might be good reasons for doing so with certain roads.

h/t The Infrastructurist

Quick Review: Be Very Afraid

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Robert Wuthnow is a sociologist of religion and culture and I was intrigued when I saw one of his recent books at the public library: Be Very Afraid: The Cultural Response to Terror, Pandemics, Environmental Devastation, Nuclear Annihilation, and Other Threats. A few thoughts about the book:

1. The book examines four threats: the nuclear threat, terrorism after 9/11, global pandemics, and global warming. Each threat has a chapter where Wuthnow provides an overview of the history and then a second chapter that provides more of an analysis. Each of these subjects is interesting and the historical chapters are decent overviews of the social construction of and response to each of the problems. The historical chapters tend to focus on popular culture (movies in particular) and government responses.

2. The primary theoretical aim is to demonstrate that people are not paralyzed or immobilized by such threats (as some have suggested) but rather are spurred into action. For governments and larger organizations, this means the development and expansion of agencies and procedures to deal with threats. Average citizens go about ways of making sense of the situation and preparing themselves. Wuthnow suggests action and searching for solutions is the typical human response to such situations and analyzing these patterns of response is revealing.

3. While the cases are interesting as is the theory, I feel this work could have done more to analyze each case and provide an overarching perspective on threats at the end. I also would have liked to see more of a summary of the interview data that Wuthnow and his team collected (mentioned in the first footnote to the Introduction) – how did this personal-level data fit with the broader social history of each threat?

Overall, an interesting work that left me wanting a little more explanation. These cases suggest that when a new threat arises, both bureaucracies and individuals will respond with action. But what kind of action – is it dependent on the particular threat, the particular culture, or some other factors?

Meeting romantic partners online

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Time reports on some research that suggests meeting romantic partners online is becoming a regular way of life:

Nearly 30% of new couples now meet online. Today the Internet is the second-most common way to meet a partner, according to results from the How Couples Meet and Stay Together Survey, with web introductions ranked only behind introduction by mutual friends.

Taken in 2009, the survey polled more than 4,000 Americans about their romantic relationships.

Looking online for partners is quite different than the traditional methods. For one, it expands the potential pool of partners. Before the Internet, people were generally limited to their personal connections, the institutions in which they were a part (work, religious organizations, civic organizations, etc.) or their weak ties (introductions by mutual friends). Two, it involves a different process of presenting oneself. Instead of an initial face-to-face interaction, the two people create profiles and search for matches.

According to the story, the research also found that those people who met each other through church had the highest relationship satisfaction.

Emerging adults and “the changing timetable for adulthood”

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The New York Times Magazine takes a long look at emerging adulthood. Early on, the article contains a quick description of this recent phenomenon:

We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.

An interesting read. While this article focuses on the research of psychologist Jeffrey Arnett, there is a lot of recent research on this including research on emerging adulthood and religion by sociologist Christian Smith.

The demise of Barnes & Noble

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Bookseller Barnes & Noble (B&N) is in bad financial shape. According to a commentator in the Wall Street Journal, B&N fell prey to the Internet though they made some missteps on their own.

I, for one, will be sad if bookstores such as B&N and Borders go completely out of business. B&N came to the Chicago area in the 1990s and I shopped at some of the early locations. They were like a new world compared to the bookstores that existed then: relatively large, nice decor, with a varied selection. (I know some would argue this could be found at independent booksellers but I haven’t ever had much experience with these in my suburban life.) As both B&N and Borders expanded into music (a section I spent a lot of time in) and coffee, I found them even more likable locations. I still occasionally am very happy to spend an evening in one of these stores, browsing through magazines, music, and all sorts of books.

Shopping for these things on the Internet has some advantages, including the big factor of pricing. But browsing Amazon.com is still a qualitatively different experience than browsing a large bookstore.

Google CEO Schmidt talks about its future

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The Wall Street Journal reports on a conversation its editors had with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Some of the nuggets of information (with some help of this Telegraph piece):

-The world of targeted information is near at hand. Schmidt says, “a generation of powerful handheld devices is just around the corner that will be adept at surprising you with information that you didn’t know you wanted to know.”

-Google might even help plan out what you should be doing: “”I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” he elaborates. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.””

-From the Telegraph article: “Mr Schmidt said he believed that every young person will one day be allowed to change their name to distance themselves from embarrasssing photographs and material stored on their friends’ social media sites.”

-About privacy regulation: “Mr. Schmidt says regulation is unnecessary because Google faces such strong incentives to treat its users right, since they will walk away the minute Google does anything with their personal information they find “creepy.””

Some fascinating insights into how Google hopes to be part of people’s lives in the future. The piece about young people perhaps needing to change their names once they reach adulthood in order to escape their online past is a reminder of how much information is available on the Internet.

One growing political metaphor: the car

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Politico examines President Obama’s usage of the metaphor of driving a car to describe the national political scene and handling of the economy. The metaphor has grown over the months and recently included the first mention of “Slurpee” by a President in a speech.

Politicians commonly use metaphors and symbols in speeches. The car is such a part of American life that people can instantly grab onto the implications. What would be the metaphorical response from Obama’s opponents?

Moving? Consider the walkability and transit scores

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The Infrastructurist looks at two figures that may become part of the home-buying equation in the near future: a home’s walkability and transit scores.

How much this influences homebuying decisions remains to be seen. I’m sure there is part of the population that wants such a location where daily needs, like parks, food, and transit are within a reasonable walk. But there are certainly others who would emphasize other features, like the size of the home, over the home’s context.

We know that Americans don’t want to walk much more than a quarter mile to get to things. New Urbanists use this information to guide their planning: homes should be within a 5-10 minute walk away from necessities.

Quick Review: Georgia Aquarium

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While recently in Atlanta, I had a chance to make a brief visit to the Georgia Aquarium. Some quick thoughts:

1. Overall, a beautiful facility. Well-designed with an interesting central space/lobby. Vivid exhibits. The only downside was the large crowds in some of the exhibits.

2. The best part were the large tanks. This aquarium doesn’t have a lot of individual tanks featuring a lot of different species. The emphasis is on large tanks, particularly in the Ocean Voyager exhibit. While this exhibit features some rare animals such as the whale shark (unbelievably large), this has numerous great viewing points plus a tunnel underneath the middle of the tank. The viewing theater space at the end of the exhibit was a location where I could sit for a long time just watching the animals swim by. Here is an image of the whale shark from the viewing theater:

3. There were a number of innovative ways to view the tanks. In addition to the tunnel in the Ocean Voyager exhibit, I walked through a small tunnel with glass ceilings (probably three feet tall) under a river exhibit. The penguin exhibit featured special “bubbles”: people would walk up into the exhibit from below and while surrounded by a plastic bubble perhaps four feet across, see eye-to-eye with the penguins.

4. There is a special shark exhibit that didn’t feature any live sharks but had a lot of information on fossil teeth, different shark species, and interactions with humans. One room featured a frozen giant tuna next to a large shark and talked about how sharks chased tunas in the ocean depths. On one hand, the exhibit said sharks were dangerous creatures (with a particular emphasis on their teeth and jaws). On the other hand, the exhibit kept saying that the media and Hollywood have over-hyped shark attacks.

5. The aquarium seemed pretty kid-friendly, particularly in the Georgia Coast exhibit where patrons could touch a number of animals (I touched a small shark, stingrays, along with a few other small and more fixed creatures) and kids could crawl around in some cool-looking equipment.

6. Like many museums today, it was pricey: around $31 for what I saw (and I didn’t purchase all the add-ons).

Even with the price and the crowds, this was well worth the money. I thought the Shedd Aquarium was a lot of fun – this relatively new aquarium is vastly superior.

Military towns benefit from increased compensation

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USA Today reports “16 of the 20 metro areas rising the fastest in the per-capita income rankings since 2000 had military bases or one nearby.” Compensation packages have increased since 2000: “Soldiers, sailors and Marines received average compensation of $122,263 per person in 2009, up from $58,545 in 2000.”

While places with nearby military bases benefited from these changes, USA Today also found some losers in per-capita income over the past decade. These include high-tech centers, college towns, and industrial cities.