Category Archives: Places

Rahm Emanuel says Chicago is “the most American city”

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In announcing that a prestigious conference will be held next year in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel made an interesting statement about the city:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced today that Chicago will host the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates this spring…

The event is expected to attract high profile leaders from around the globe. All former Nobel Peace Laureates will be invited to attend. It will be co-chaired by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Walter Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome. Emanuel will serve as an honorary co-chair.

This event “has been held in Paris, it’s been held in Berlin, it’s been held in Rome,” Emanuel said. “And they picked, in my view the most American city in America, Chicago.”

Chicago was chosen “due to its rich heritage and international profile,” organizers said Thursday.

What exactly makes Chicago “the most American city”? Several reasons come to mind:

1. Chicago came to prominence during the late 1800s as Americans were expanding to the West Coast, the railroad became really important, and America became a larger player on the world stage. In these changes, Chicago helped lead the way as a major port connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi and becoming the railroad hub of the nation. Chicago was the boomtown of this era, growing from just over 112,000 people in 1860 to nearly 1.7 million in 1900.

1a. In comparison, the older cities of the Northeast, Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia are too dependent on the colonial era.

1b. However, one could make the case that Los Angeles (or maybe even Houston) is the quintessential American city of the 20th century with a rise of the suburbs, highways, culture industries, and a population shift to Sunbelt and West Coast. At the same time these things were happening, Chicago was also changing: its suburbs have continued to grow (and also experienced growth in high-tech/white collar jobs) even as the city has experienced the Rust Belt problems of white flight and the loss of manufacturing jobs.

2. Chicago embodies some of the best and worse of America. It’s skyline is beautiful and it features miles of parks along Lake Michigan. The downtown and Michigan Avenue area is relatively clean and full of tourists. Chicago is a prominent world city because of its finance industry. On the flipside, Chicago is well known for its segregation (bringing MLK to the city in 1966), corrupt politics, and crime/gangsters.

3. Chicago is middle America, not the more educated or stylish East or West Coast. It embodies American values of hard work and grittiness alongside success and entrepreneurship.

A side note: it will be a busy spring in Chicago with the G-8 and NATO meeting in Chicago not too long after this Nobel gathering.

The Big Sort continues? Fewer Americans live in middle-income neighborhoods

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Here is another way to look at the gap between the rich and poor in the United States: the percentage of Americans living in middle-income neighborhoods has shrunk in recent decades.

In 2007, nearly a third of American families — 31 percent — lived in either an affluent neighborhood or a mainly low-income one, up from just 15 percent in 1970, according to the study conducted by Stanford University, and released in partnership with the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University.

Meanwhile, 44 percent of American families lived in middle-class neighborhoods in 2007, down from 65 percent in 1970…

For the study, researchers used data from 117 metropolitan areas, each with more than 500,000 residents. In 2007, those areas were home to 197 million people — or two-thirds of the US population.

This study covers about two-thirds of the American population. I assume the study is restricted to larger metropolitan areas because of how the researchers defined a neighborhood but couldn’t they adapt to smaller cities in order to represent more of the US population? Also thinking about the research methods, I hope the researchers used analogous cutoff points for these different classes in 1970 and 2007.

Moving past methodological issues, this does bring to light an interesting issue: how many Americans experience residential segregation based on social class? Of course, race and social class is linked. Do Americans care that people of different income strata live in completely different areas? Based on American history, I would say no: Americans don’t seem terribly concerned about concentrated poverty or pockets of affluence. If you have money, it is generally expected that you go live with people who also have money. You might provide incentives for the classes to mix (example: mixed-income neighborhoods on the site of former housing projects) but this is rare.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown here between cities and suburban areas. Some of the earliest American sociological research focused on these disparities in the city, such as Zorbaugh’s work The Gold Coast and the Slum where the rich and poor lived in incredible proximity but rarely mixed. Is class-based residential segregation higher in the suburbs?

Residents in Chicago suburb of Palatine oppose proposed Starbucks

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For suburban communities, the arrival of a Starbucks can be seen as a sign that the suburb has the ability to attract national stores. But some residents in suburban Palatine are opposed to a proposed Starbucks:

The Palatine village council Monday referred the proposal back to the Zoning Board of Appeals on the village attorney’s advice so that it can review the results of a traffic study despite its earlier unanimous vote to recommend the project. The postponement also grants a request by McDonald’s Corp., which operates an adjacent restaurant, the opportunity to look the study over.

The Starbucks would make up one of three tenant spaces to be built on a vacant lot between the fast-food restaurant and Harris Bank on Northwest Highway near Smith Road. Charley’s Grilled Subs would fill the second space with the third still undetermined.

A couple dozen residents attended the council meeting to oppose the national coffee chain, which they believe will ultimately force nearby Norma’s Coffee Corner to close.

“We as a town should embrace diversity, and I would hate to see Palatine become a national franchise town if there are no mom-and-pops around,” Roman Golash of Palatine said.

Four things strike me about this story:

1. Traffic is a common complaint in NIMBY cases. However, this Starbucks would be located near several other chain/strip mall type businesses on an already busy road. Is Starbucks the problem or the type of development that is already there?

2. The residents seem interested in buying local and Starbucks is one of those companies, perhaps along with Walmart, Walgreens, and others, that represent sprawl and big box stores. At the same time, as far as I can tell from Google Maps, Norma’s is also in a strip mall. So are these residents opposed to all national stores in town? Why is Starbucks singled out in particular? This isn’t quite the battle of a long-time downtown business versus the big national chain. While national stores may not be local businesses (unless they are franchises), they can still bring in tax revenue.

3. Diversity equals having a mix of national and local businesses? This doesn’t sound like the traditional definition of diversity which is typically associated with race and perhaps social class. I wonder if suburbanites use these altered definitions of diversity because they really think that racial or class diversity is not really desirable but they think people like to hear about diversity. (To be fair: Palatine is 76.9% white, 10.3% Asian, and 18% Latino.)

4. Some Chicago suburbs are interested in attracting Starbucks and similar businesses to their downtowns in order to bring in more people. For example, the Starbucks that opened in downtown Wheaton in the late 1990s was seen as a sign that Wheaton’s downtown was an important shopping area (and had a wealthy enough demographic to support such a business).

Joliet Correctional Prison may become a tourist site?

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One journalist suggests the Joliet Correctional Prison, closed since 2002, may have a future as a tourist destination after a prison in Philadelphia has become a hotspot:

Eastern State Penitentiary opened in 1829 on a former cherry orchard and housed prison escape artist “Slick Willie” Sutton and Al Capone. The pen closed in 1971 and has been recast into one of the most popular tourist attractions in Philadelphia. Visitors wander through a frozen ruin of crumbling cell blocks, vacant exercise yards, a lonley Death Row and the prison surveillance hub. The joint reopened for public tours in 1994 and is now billed as “America’s Most Historic Prison.”…

“But Alcatraz led the way. The federal government didn’t want to open it up but they did and people kept coming. The same thing is true here, where people keep coming and we really haven’t reached our peak.” In 1994’s first year, 10,450 people toured Eastern State. There were 249,289 visitors in 2010…

Representatives from the City of Joliet have visited Eastern State to research the possibility of making the Joliet prison a similar tourist attraction. After all, the 1-year-old Independent League baseball team in Joliet is called the Slammers. “The prison has become quite a tourist attraction for us on Route 66,” said Ben Benson, director of marketing and communications for the City of Joliet…

“The City of Joliet is interested in acquiring the property but financial resources are not what they used to be,” Benson said.”We’re doing a full study on potential uses of the site. With a grant from a different division of the state, we have added about a dozen tourist kiosks because so many people come by because of the Blues Brothers lore. We had a Blues Brothers band come out and cover their songs on a stage set up in front of the prison. We look at it as our Alcatraz.

I wonder what sociologists might say explains why Americans like visiting prisons: they like violence? They are interested in criminals? They think prison culture is intriguing? Something that Alcatraz and this Philadelphia prison seem to share in common is having some celebrity prisoners that people know about. Prison escape stories seem pretty popular, particularly if the escapees have to try to escape through shark-infested waters.

From a local perspective, I suppose you have to promote whatever possible tourist attractions you might have. It would be interesting to see if people from the Chicago region would be willing to go to Joliet just for a prison. (And perhaps a trip to the casino afterward?) Note: the Joliet Correctional Prison is not the same as Stateville Prison which has been featured in movies like The Blues Brothers  and Natural Born Killers.

I haven’t visited this Philadelphia prison but I have been to Alcatraz. I can see why this place is appealing: it sits in the middle of the bay (hence its nickname “The Rock”), numerous Hollywood movies have been made about it, and it has an intriguing history including a number of famous prisoners and a AIM takeover in the early 1970s. The audio tour they have is also quite good. Here are a few shots:

It also doesn’t hurt to have the ability to sell movie posters with famous movie stars on them in your prison gift shop:

Perhaps prison tourism is the wave of the future in Joliet.

Update on Occupy Naperville

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While some of the protests in major cities around the United States have seemed to lose some steam, Occupy Naperville is still operating and has its own website.

Beyond the initial news coverage, there hasn’t been too much additional coverage. However, a Chicago Sun-Times piece posted yesterday suggests the group is “finding its voice”:

Now a month old, the Saturday morning demonstration against economic inequality that operates under the credo “we are the 99 percent” continues to attract several dozen participants to its weekly walk from Ogden Avenue into the retail core and back.

About 55 people came to last weekend’s protest, a slightly smaller group than the 70 who had taken part in each of the previous two weeks. The demonstrators again processed to the amphitheater on the Riverwalk to share ideas.

By group vote during each week’s general assembly, the participants are building a platform. They agreed at an early gathering to support the effort to reinstitute a limit on corporate campaign donations. Last time they adopted support for a single-payer health care system, making that another tenet of the local movement…

The marchers also agreed during their general assembly to seek a waiver that would let them use a bullhorn earlier than the noon start time stipulated in the city code, and they made plans to host a food drive in support of local hunger relief.

That is not an inconsequential number of people yet still not a whole lot. I wonder if the group has any interest in prompting change in local (meaning Naperville or DuPage County) rules such as social service provisions. Why only focus on state or national issues?

The BBC on Levittown 60 years later

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The BBC goes back to Levittown, Pennsylvania and finds that it looks like much of America:

Now, as then, the community is home to a diverse cross-section of middle-class voters. But whereas in 1960 unemployment rates were less than 6% and business in Levittown could not expand fast enough to meet growing demand, the outlook for current residents is grimmer…

Now, the outer roads around Levittown are lined with strip malls, and in them a dozen different grocery and convenience stores, a Super WalMart, McDonalds, and hotel chains.

The houses, once indistinguishable from one another, have developed individual flair: on one street, one house has painted pink brick face, while another has built a covered front porch…

It’s not a greying district by any means – thanks in part to the housing collapse, Levittown is once again an abundant source of inexpensive housing, and as a result more new families are moving here to get their start.

The Levittowns are often held up as exemplars of the massive suburban boom in the United States in the decades following World War Two. The mass production of the homes was unique then though the techniques would look fairly normal today. I like that this article emphasizes the changing nature of this suburb that was once derided for its similar looking homes and relatively homogenous population. We would do well to have such a view of all suburbs: they change over time even if some of the physical pieces, such as single-family homes or strip malls, are the same.

The two best books I can recommend on Levittown(s):

1. The Levittowners by Herbert Gans. Based on ethnographic work conducted during the early years of the development, Gans combats some of the common suburban stereotypes.

2. Expanding the American Dream: Building and Rebuilding Levittown by Barbara Kelly. Kelly gives more details about how Levittown residents have customized their homes and what this means for the community.

College students rent cheap but luxurious McMansions

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Here is another use for McMansions (and much better than one California option from last week): rent them to college students.

While students at other colleges cram into shoebox-size dorm rooms, Ms. Alarab, a management major, and Ms. Foster, who is studying applied math, come home from midterms to chill out under the stars in a curvaceous swimming pool and an adjoining Jacuzzi behind the rapidly depreciating McMansion that they have rented for a song.

Here in Merced, a city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley and one of the country’s hardest hit by home foreclosures, the downturn in the real estate market has presented an unusual housing opportunity for thousands of college students. Facing a shortage of dorm space, they are moving into hundreds of luxurious homes in overbuilt planned communities.

Forget the off-to-college checklist of yesteryear (bedside lamp, laundry bag, under-the-bed storage trays). This is “Animal House” 2011.

Double-height Great Room? Check.

Five bedrooms? Check.

Chandeliers? Check.

Then there are the three-car garages, wall-to-wall carpeting, whirlpool baths, granite kitchen countertops, walk-in closets and inviting gas fireplaces.

This article provides an overview of an interesting situation but asking a few more questions would reveal a lot more:

1. If students live in such nice homes during college, what does this do to their expectations when they return home or after they graduate? If you are used to living in a nice McMansion, how do you move up after that?

2. In what condition do these students leave these McMansions?

3. The story paints these students as helping desperate homeowners. At the same time, homeowners in nice suburban subdivisions may not always look favorably at college students who can tend to be loud and unruly. Are all the town and gown relationships here all good as the story suggests?

4. Might some of these students stick around in these neighborhoods after college? If so, how would this change the neighborhoods?

To sum up, is this a long-term solution or a temporary solution to issues in one of the foreclosure capitals of the United States?

The mystery behind the dramatic drop in New York City’s crime rates

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A new book written by a criminologist examines why crime rates have dropped dramatically in New York City in the last two decades. It’s not all due to broken windows theory or Rudy Giuliani:

In the 1980s, the city was widely perceived as a pit of chaos and fear, an urban society stumbling toward anarchy. Between 1965 and 1984, the number of violent crimes nearly tripled. In 1984, there were nearly five murders a day. In the following years, things got worse still…

In his new book, “The City That Became Safe”, Franklin Zimring unrolls a litany of statistics that almost defy belief. The murder rate has dropped by 82 percent. Rapes are down 77 percent and assaults by two-thirds. Auto theft verges on extinction after dropping 94 percent…

So what accounts for the miracle? Zimring, a criminologist at the University of California at Berkeley, surmises that the biggest factors were focusing cops on high-crime areas and closing down outdoor drug markets, which helped curb gang conflicts that often turned deadly (though it had little effect on drug use). But much of what happened is a mystery.

That’s the bad news, since the New York experience yields no easy formula for safe streets. But it proves we can realize vast improvements in safety without first solving all the problems that supposedly cause crime — poverty, bad schools, out-of-wedlock births, drug use, violent movies and so on.

It would then be really interesting to see what lessons Zimring says can be applied to other cities.

It does seem worthwhile to conclude that this is a hopeful tale: crime rates can truly be reduced. We may not know exactly what to do but crime can be curbed. Yet, I don’t think it would be good if we then didn’t  pay attention to these other issues like a lack of opportunities and poverty. Imagine a world where poor neighborhoods have lower crime rates, perhaps not as low as wealthy suburban communities but lower than peak rates several decades ago. Would other problems receive as much media attention if crime stories couldn’t lead the local news? Do these issues simply fall more off the map than they already are within public and political discourse?

“Hardware sociology” in New York City?

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The Wall Street Journal has an article examining a few small hardware stores in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Here seems to be the extent of the sociology:

Here’s where the provincialism of New York City comes in, and customer loyalty that can be measured in a thimble with room to spare. One wouldn’t think that moving from 87th to 82nd Street, albeit also from Madison to Lexington, would be the equivalent of relocating to the Mongolian steppes. But much of Feldmans’ customer base, pleased though they undoubtedly were to have the store in the neighborhood all those years when they needed Liquid-Plumr or light bulbs for their Picassos, didn’t follow.

Takeaway: “New York is said to be a city of neighborhoods. It’s more like a city of individual blocks.” So New York City, like most big cities, has a number of different subcultures.

This may be pop sociology at its finest/worst. There is not much sociological content here and sociology seems to be the pseudo-academic cover for explaining the idiosyncrasies of the local city.

Two fun structures: an “underground temple” in Japan and a proposed underground skyscraper

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Here are two interesting spaces, one underground proposal from Mexico City and a large piece of infrastructure in Japan.

1. A Mexican architect has drawn up plans for a building that is just the opposite of a skyscraper:

Suarez has imagined a massive building for those who prefer holes to heights and a novel solution around a law that bans structures higher than eight stories in the crowded, historic center of Mexico City.

Instead of a soaring tower, Suarez wants to dig an inverted pyramid nearly a thousand feet deep with enough apartments, stores and offices to hold 100,000 people.

Kind of sounds like an acropolis from Simcity. What would people do for natural light – would people be more willing to live far underground than high above a city?

2. A large piece of infrastructure under Tokyo is known as the “underground temple.” Its real job: help control floods.

The Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, also known as the G-Cans Project or the “Underground Temple”, is an subterranean water infrastructure project built to protect the capital Tokyo against floodwaters during rain and typhoon seasons. It is believed to be one of the largest water collection facilities in the world. Building began in 1992 and the massive structure now consists of five concrete silos, a large water tanks and 59 pillars connected to a number of pumps that can pump up to 200 tons of water into the Edogawa River per second. It has also become a tourist attraction, as well as a location for movies, TV shows and commercials.

This kind of looks like the depiction of the large temple-like spaces of Moria in The Lord of the Rings. This also reminds me of the Deep Tunnel project under Chicago which is also for floodwater – it is the largest infrastructure around (one of the largest such projects in the country – see some earlier pictures here) but hardly any Chicago area resident knows that it even exists.

(Two quick thoughts: both of these spaces would be large and impressive. Second, is getting one’s architecture news from Yahoo good or bad?)