Category Archives: Places

Google Street View using tricycles to capture images of places that cars can’t go

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Google Street View is using some heavy-duty tricycles in order to provide images of more public areas where cars can’t travel:

The Internet giant has this week launched a large collection of images taken by the 9ft-long tricycles.

The novel off-road vehicles will allow Street View to increasingly include images of public and private sites such as Kew Gardens in London, hiking trails in California and Sea World in Orlando, Florida.

The tricycles weigh 250lbs and are each equipped with a 7ft-tall stalk of cameras on the back.

Heavy and tough to pedal, Google has hired football players and other athletes to drive them.

The idea of photographing public off-road places came to Google engineer Daniel Ratner when he was on Street View and noticed cobblestone alleys impassable to cars in Barcelona.

When I first saw this headline, I envisioned camcorders duct taped to tricycles that children were riding around parks. Google’s actual method does seem better, if less quixotic.

I know there are all sorts of privacy concerns due to Street View but I look forward to seeing these images of public parks and other areas generally inaccessible to cars. Urban parks, in particular, can often be fantastic places that offer a respite from the controlled chaos of large cities. Walking through the heart of Grant Park in Chicago, Central Park in New York City, Hyde Park in London, or the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, one can almost forget that one is within a several mile radius of millions of people.

Zoning, churches, and tax bases

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Zoning of land can become a contentious issue, particularly when a community sets limits that some community members find restrictive. An article quickly mentions one of these points of contention: when communities make it difficult for churches to be built.

“Churches do not realize the fight they’re in,” Baker said. “If you go into a commercial district, they say you’re wrecking their tax base. If you go into residential, they say you’re disturbing their peace.”

While the issue is not new, Baker said, “The objections to churches obtaining zoning do seem to be heating up under the [economy].”…

In Houston, churches recently raised objections over a proposed drainage fee by city officials. In Mission, Kansas, churches filed a lawsuit after being charged a “transportation utility fee” to help fix roads.

In the case of Burbank, Mayor Harry Klein told the Chicago Tribune, “It’s obvious—every city likes to see their tax base grow, that’s a given.”

An alderman in Evanston, Indiana, raised concerns last year about the impact of “storefront churches” on the tax base and proposed an ordinance requiring special-use permits for houses of worship to operate in all business or commercial districts.

While this article doesn’t give any insights into how common this is, it does suggest that these cases might be more common now in a time of economic crisis. This may be the case as many communities look to close budget shortfalls and churches also have some more purchasing power with reduced real estate prices. Is there any data to suggest these sorts of incidents are now more common?

This article does highlight the goals of local municipalities: generating tax revenue and expanding the tax base. To require fees to pay for roads or sewers are not unusual when commercial or residential property is involved as these fees help offset the infrastructure costs for local communities. Churches do not generate property or sales taxes for a community so they might be considered dead weight. And if a church wants a potentially lucrative property, then the aims of the church and the community are at odds. Zoning is a means by which local communities have some control over land use and therefore can attempt to use zoning rules to regulate everything from the placement of banks to churches to tattoo parlors.

It would also be interesting to compare these sorts of cases with churches to those of mosques (one example here).

Tying together being green, McMansions, and promoting urban development in Asia

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As the world discusses how to reduce carbon emissions, Edward Glaeser (see a review of his latest book here) suggests that America is an odd position: we want to promote urban development in fast-growing Asian countries and yet we subsidize sprawl within our own borders.

America’s interest in promoting a hyper-urban Asia, so different from our sprawling nation, puts us in a slightly awkward position. How can a country of McMansions and Ford Expeditions preach the virtues of low-carbon urban living?

Freedom is America’s greatest treasure. This includes the freedom to choose where we live — city or suburb. But we should eliminate the mistaken policies that artificially subsidize sprawl. The federal government subsidizes transportation significantly more in low-density areas than in high-density areas, and that pulls people away from cities. Economist Nathaniel Baum-Snow found in 2007 that each new postwar highway that cut into a city reduced that city’s population by 18%. The home mortgage interest deduction induces people to leave urban apartments, which are overwhelmingly rented, and move to suburban homes. Because the deduction scales up with the size of the mortgage, it essentially pays people to buy bigger, more energy-intensive homes.

Reducing such policies, which push Americans away from our green cities, will enable us to make a stronger case for higher-density dwelling in India and China.

The key to Glaeser’s argument here is that the US government “artificially” makes suburban living look like the best choice. Without these subsidies, highway construction, mortgage benefits, etc., the suburbs might not look like the good option that they appear to be. Glaeser may be right – but I wonder if there still might be Americans who would want to pursue a suburban lifestyle. Perhaps this alternate version of American suburbs would be more restricted to the wealthy who could subsidize their own extra costs.

But Glaeser is also suggesting that there is the matter of looking like hypocrites: how can we as a country ask other countries to live in certain ways when we promote relatively ungreen suburbs? More broadly, should the many residents of China and India who have joined the middle class in recent decades get a shot at living in suburbs or should they have to live in more urban developments to help offset American patterns?

And I would also note the common citing of McMansions and SUVs as emblematic of the entire United States and its behaviors.

Racial makeup of some (read: one) suburbs being changed by foreclosures

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The suburbs are growing increasingly diverse (evidence here, here, here, and here). And this news story shows that foreclosures in the Detroit area may be helping minorities move to suburbia:

The foreclosure crisis made it possible…

Many of the foreclosed upon Southfield [Michigan] homes were going for $40,000 to $60,000. The median home value dropped from more than $190,000 to below $130,000 over the same period, according to Census figures.

With so many empty houses available, rents also dipped by hundreds of dollars. Renters increased from about 13,100 in 2006 to 15,400 in 2009.

The lure of low prices to Detroiters was obvious — as was the likelihood that their arrival would not be without issues.

“Blacks, like all Americans, want good schools and a safe community, and they can find that in the suburbs,” says Richard Schragger, who teaches local government and urban law at the University of Virginia…

Two things irritates me about this story. First, it seems to be based entirely on some anecdotal evidence from Southfield, Michigan. Is what is described in this article taking place in other metropolitan regions? The story provides little insight beyond this one Michigan community.

Second, the headline seems to highlight foreclosures but the real story seems to be about what happens when poorer Blacks move into the suburbs. The article says the result of this may be that more middle- and upper-class Blacks will continue to move to more far-flung suburbs. Should we conclude that foreclosures in certain areas are actually good for some people or do they change communities too much? The original headline, “Foreclosures helping change color of some suburbs,” is more ambivalent but when the AP story gets repeated in other sources, such as the Daily Herald, the headline changes: in the web edition, the headline is “Foreclosures accelerating changes in suburbs,” while the print edition has the headline “Foreclosures changing the suburbs.” The story says little beyond the Detroit area and yet the new headlines suggest foreclosures are leading to these specific changes throughout all (or most) American suburbs.

The location of the actual “Tally’s Corner” is revealed

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Tally’s Corner is a classic ethnographic work:

It’s a remarkable book, an academic work – it grew out of Liebow’s doctoral thesis – that isn’t dry or boring. It’s an in-depth look at a group of men who routinely hung out on a Washington street corner in the early 1960s. These are poor men, flawed men, unemployed and underemployed men. But they are treated with respect. And although Liebow used pseudonyms, giving the men such names as Tally, Sea Cat, Richard and Leroy, they come across as flesh-and-blood individuals. When “Tally’s Corner” was published in 1967, the New York Times called it “a valuable and even surprising triumph.” The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) called it “nothing short of brilliant.”…

“Tally’s Corner” remains in print, has been translated into multiple languages, and has sold more than a million copies, an amazing feat for an anthropological text.

But there has been some confusion over the years about where exactly Elliott Liebow interacted with the men who were the focus of his study:

According to many sources, it was Ninth and P streets NW. Except Answer Man happens to know it wasn’t…

Liebow picked a location that would be easy to get to from his office and his home in Brookland: 11th and M streets NW in Shaw, a corner that had a carryout, liquor store, dry cleaner and shoe-repair shop. This is the first time the exact location has been revealed. “I feel free to say that because it’s no longer that street corner,” Harriet told Answer Man. “The carryout’s gone. That whole world is gone from that street corner.

It is often the case that ethnographic works conceal the location of the study as well as the identity of the participants. And it sounds like the location was only revealed now because the area has changed so much that no individuals or businesses could be identified at that corner.

I’ve had discussions with people about the exact location of ethnographic works, as if the location was some mystery that needed to be solved. The authors sometimes do a better job to conceal the location that others – it can often take quite a consistent effort. I feel like I have read some studies that try to use vague terms like “a liberal-arts college in the Midwest” but then later give enough clues (unintentionally?) for the reader to figure it out.

“Five myths about the suburbs”

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From a writer whose first book was titled Bomb the Suburbs (first released in 1994), this might seem like an unusual column title: “Five myths about the suburbs.” But William Upski Wimsatt goes on to lay out five common misperceptions regarding American suburbs:

1. Suburbs are white, middle-class enclaves…

2. Suburbs aren’t cool…

3. Suburbs are a product of the free market…

4. Suburbs are politically conservative…

5. Suburbanites don’t care about the environment…

The first three points in particular line up with research about suburbs: they are government-subsidized communities (highways, mortgages, etc.) that have growing minority and poorer populations as well as increasing cultural opportunities. The last two points might be more contentious: the suburbs are not just conservative though they went conservative in the 2010 elections (see Joel Kotkin’s opinion here). I’ve also seen other analyses suggesting that exurbs, far-flung suburbs, are quite conservative so perhaps they are balanced out by more Democratic-leaning inner-ring suburbs. About environmentalism and going green, there are still seem to be plenty of people who think the suburbs are not green enough (see an example here) or perhaps can never truly be good for the environment.

Wimsatt’s conclusion is also interesting:

Everyone with a prejudice against the suburbs will have to get over it. Even me.

He seems to be suggesting that the suburbs aren’t as bad as some people once thought (and there is a long history of suburban critique). Perhaps this is an honest sharing of a revelation, perhaps it is simply prompted by the fact that a majority of Americans live in the suburbs and this is where the action is taking place.

Chicago’s population loss, neighborhood by neighborhood

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After the recent news that Chicago lost about 200,000 residents between 2000 and 2010, the Chicago Tribune takes a look at how the population changed in each of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. Here are some of the trends:

Sixty of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods lost population, according to the 2010 Census. The focus of the population growth was in the Loop, the Near South Side and the Near West Side, areas that experienced a boom in new residential high-rises and loft developments.

The city lost more than 200,000 people during the decade, many from predominantly black neighborhoods hard hit by crime and foreclosures. More than 27,000 non-Hispanic white residents, meanwhile, poured into the city’s downtown and surrounding areas.

On the Southwest Side, the number of Hispanics and Asians grew in historically white ethnic neighborhoods such as Bridgeport, Archer Heights, West Lawn, West Elsdon and Ashburn. White populations in those communities dipped.

So the population growth took place in two places: around the downtown where wealthier whites moved in and on the southwest side where Latinos and Asians moved in. Throughout the rest of the city, the population declined.

As the City of Chicago thinks about how to respond to these figures, should they focus resources on the areas that were growing (particularly the area around the Loop which is likely to get more attention) or figure out some way to boost the prospects of the 60 other neighborhoods that experienced population loss?

A-Rod real estate tax flap tied to incentive to construct affordable housing

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It appears that a number of luxury housing owners in New York City, including Yankees’ star Alex Rodriguez, are getting a major real estate tax break. While this is creating a stir, there is more to this story: these luxury units are getting a tax break because the developers have promised to build affordable housing elsewhere in the city.

Rodriguez and all the residents of his posh high rise will get tax breaks for 10 years under the city’s 421A tax abatement program. Luxury developers get tax breaks in exchange for making sure affordable units get built elsewhere. Rodriguez is one of some 45,000 New Yorkers who have scored the tax break.

“I think it’s outrageous,” Lewton said.

When Rodriguez’s moves into his $6 million, five-bedroom penthouse his tax bill will be $1,150. In contrast, Stephen and Phyllis Franciosa pay $3,100 in taxes one their one-family home in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx…

The councilman said the law needs to be changed because this year alone the program will cost the city $900 million in lost revenue.

A-Rod’s taxes are so low that if he paid the going rate his tax bill would be 50 times higher. He should get such a break when he faces the Red Sox pitching staff.

City officials claim the tax breaks on Rodriguez’ building helped build over 575 units of affordable housing in the Bronx.

This is not an uncommon tactic for communities to encourage affordable housing: grant some tax breaks in exchange for the builder or developer constructing some units of affordable housing. It is often a struggle to get developers and builders to construct affordable units on their own as profit margins are lower. So communities have searched for incentives that would still allow builders to make their money while also providing for the public good.

In the long run, will this story simply be commentary about how the rich and famous get to play by different rules (and New York loves to pick on A-Rod) or can there be a reasonable discussion about how cities go about promoting affordable housing? I am guessing that the first option will easily win out. Why can’t New York news organizations go to those 575 units of affordable housing in the Bronx and talk to the other people who benefited from this tax break?

Selling a car by selling Detroit

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The troubles of Detroit have been well documented and discussed in the American media in recent years (see here and here). So why would Chrysler mount a full advertising campaign (and I see this commercial almost every commercial break at times) based on Detroit  for its new 200 model? See the long-form (2:03) video here.

The entire campaign seems to be built around this idea that Detroit is something different: the ad says it is not New York, Chicago, or Las Vegas. While we get some typical shots, of a high school team running and a woman ice skating, the emphasis is on their hard work. The scenes on the street are at night with steam coming out of manhole covers as the 200 rolls along. The longer ad features Eminen, perhaps the only celebrity known to most Americans as being from Detroit (does Kid Rock count?). And all of this is driven home by the tagline: “Imported from Detroit.”

Perhaps the strategy is this: why not take all of this talk about Detroit’s darker side (and the commercial mentions that this is a “town that has been to hell and back”) and turn it around so that the commercial makes a positive point about this gritty, tough, and edgy car. Will this explicit linking to Detroit, a city on the decline, boost sales of a particular car model? Do Detroit residents see this commercial as positive and representative of their city?

St. Louis also lost population (8%) in the 2000s and mayor says it is “absolutely bad news”

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Last week, 2010 Census figures about Chicago were released and showed a population decline of 200,000. Population figures regarding St. Louis were just released and city leaders are surprised at the 8% population loss over the 2000s:

Figures from the 2010 census were a bitter disappointment, as the city’s population dipped to 319,294.

That’s down more than 29,000 – a staggering 8 percent – from 2000.

For St. Louis leaders, the news was doubly disappointing because they were expecting to see an increase.

“It is absolutely bad news,” Mayor Francis Slay said. “We thought after more than 50 years of population decline that the city had finally changed direction. Obviously, that’s not the case.”…

St. Louis was the nation’s eighth-largest city with a population of 856,795 in 1950. Now, for a couple of decades, it hasn’t even been Missouri’s largest city.

Kansas City’s population grew to 460,000 in the latest census, widening the gap over St. Louis, though the St. Louis metro area remains significantly larger.

Since the mid-20th century, the exodus of St. Louis residents to the suburbs has been startling. And people keep moving farther away from the urban core. St. Louis County lost population in 2010 for the first time, down 1.7 percent to 998,954 in 2010, as residents relocate to communities like St. Charles, O’Fallon, Wentzville and Troy.

Since 1950, St. Louis has steadily lost population. A few thoughts about these figures:

1. On one hand, it seems odd that the mayor would be caught so off-guard by these figures. Couldn’t the city have predicted or at least seen some hints of it through other measures (like vacancies)? But this is more complicated:

A census estimate on July 1, 2009, forecasted that the city’s population of 348,189 in 2000 had grown to 356,587.

Either the estimate was wrong or there has been a substantial recent exodus.

The 2010 census is based on the population in April 2010.

So what happened between this 2009 Census estimate and the 2010 figures?

2. There are two things at stake with these figures: the loss of state and federal dollars (often tied to population) and a blow to civic pride. As the mayor suggested, the city had thought they had turned a corner. Additionally, there appears to be some comparisons to Kansas City, the other major city in Missouri.

2a. But on the other hand, the trends happening in the St. Louis area are happening in many large cities: people are moving to the suburbs, further and further from the center of the metropolitan region. Even St. Louis County (suburban but three times larger than St. Louis) lost population, 1.7%, for the first time.

3. While it is notable that the population in St. Louis dropped by about 29,000 (8%), in the last sixty years, this is the smallest percentage drop since a population increase in 1950. From 1960 onward, here are the percentage decreases: -12.5% in 1960, -17% in 1970, -27.2% in 1980, -12.4% in 1990, -12.2% in 2000, and -8.3% in 2010. So perhaps the population in St. Louis is slowly stabilizing.