Category Archives: Sociology

Can a McMansion dweller have the last laugh?

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A controversial TikTok video suggests a housewife could get the last laugh in her McMansion:

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Finally, Drummond, who also considers herself a content creator, took issue with women who criticize other women who marry their bosses: “Women will bully the woman who’s the secretary who married the doctor, but who has the last laugh?” she asked on camera. “Her in her McMansion with her husband and her baby.”

This last line quoted above is not what is driving the conversation about the video but it does highlight the divisive nature of McMansions. One person could live there and love the house, the space it offers, and the success it symbolizes. Another person might say they would never live in a McMansion and they are an abomination on the housing landscape.

These two opposing views come into conflict in different ways. Those opposed to McMansions are unlikely to move into a neighborhood full of them. A teardown McMansion might create conflict between a possible new McMansion owner and neighbors with other kinds of homes. Proposed McMansions can invite comments and action by people inside or outside a community. The conversation cited above is a more abstract scenario involving life in a McMansion.

Adding opinions about McMansions to another hot conversation is unlikely to lead to resolution on McMansions. However, it does provide a reminder that real people live in McMansions and many like living in McMansions or would want to live in one. This also reminds me of an earlier set of posts about gendered life in McMansions…

What children learn from HGTV #3: Houses are symbols of success and making it

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In watching HGTV with children and studying suburbs and housing, I have several ideas of what kids learn while watching the network’s programming.

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Put together the ideas in the previous two posts – homes involve emotionally satisfying arcs and they pay off financially in the end – and add decades-long American ideology and houses are symbols of success and making it. The house, typically a single-family home on HGTV, is a visible, tangible monument that the owner is successful. Residents and show hosts talk about how the house symbolizes all of the struggle and work of a family. They talk about passing down a legacy to kids. They usually do not come out an say it but the home and its exterior provide a positive impression to neighbors and those passing by about the status of the residents.

Homeownership is celebrated on HGTV. An attractive house that meets the needs of the residents and broadcasts a message of success to others is the ideal. Almost no one wants to rent or live long-term with family or friends. Almost everyone is trying to move up to a better and/or more attractive home. The goal is to acquire one’s own home which provides well-being and financial security.

Ultimately, HGTV helps perpetuate homeownership and its link with the American Dream in the way it presents houses and what they are for. The people on the network find success in acquiring and improving homes and almost nothing else is discussed. Kids watching HGTV see that people need to acquire and/or improve a house to be a successful adult.

What children learn from HGTV #2: Houses pay off financially

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In watching HGTV with children and studying suburbs and housing, I have several ideas of what kids learn while watching the network’s programming.

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In addition to the upbeat emotions on HGTV, the network relentlessly suggests houses are worth the financial investment. Numerous shows discuss how much money is involved, whether that is in the purchase price or the profit or equity made in repairing a home or the costs to particular changes. These are often not small sums; budgets are usually in the tens of thousands or more and few characters discuss how they have such money to spend.

But, the big sums of money are worth it in the end because homes are an important investment. Sure, they are to be enjoyed – and the reveals at the end of many HGTV episodes are full of positivity – but the money may be even more important. Everyone has spent a lot of money on these homes and they are worth it because they will be worth even more in the future.

HGTV often embodies the shift in the United States from homes as important centers of family life to financial investments. The money to be gained by owning or renovating a home is never far away on HGTV.

What children learn from HGTV #1: Houses are worthy of emotional investment

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In watching HGTV with children and studying suburbs and housing, I have several ideas of what kids learn while watching the network’s programming.  

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To start, HGTV shows are built around emotional stories about home repair or home acquisition. There is a regular narrative arc where people want to improve where they live or find a new place to live, they face some obstacles along the way, and then they are successful by the end of the episode. The shows are filmed, edited, and scored in such a way to create such a positive emotional payoff. The shows suggest they are helping people find happiness.

All of this weds the idea of homes with happy feelings. The shows are upbeat, the search for a better homes a success, and viewers have a positive resolution. HGTV has very few negative outcomes or unsuccessful work. The characters rarely talk about emotional distress, financial difficulties, and difficult family relationships. Only rarely do people not find what they were looking for and even then the ending is cast as a successful change in focus. Any obstacle is easily overcome.

In sum, HGTV is an emotionally positive network. I could see why parents or families might feel comfortable having kids watch such happy outcomes. A new or renovated home is good for the well-being of the resident(s) as well as the viewers.

29 years on a waiting list to access a housing voucher in Chicago

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A Chicago alderwoman shared that she had received the opportunity to apply for a public housing voucher – 29 years after joining the waiting list:

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Jeanette Taylor applied for an affordable housing voucher in Chicago in 1993, nearly three decades ago. But on Tuesday Taylor revealed that she received a letter dated May 20 informing her that she was on the top of the waiting list and could begin the “application for eligibility” process…

However, demand for the vouchers typically far exceeds their supply: about a quarter of the low-income tenants who need federal rental assistance actually receive it, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank. Waiting lists, which sometimes stop accepting new applicants for several years at a time, are typical. Landlords don’t always want to work with Section 8 renters, either.

“Everyone is shocked but this is pretty standard,” Courtney Welch, a council member in Emeryville, California, said in a post responding to Taylor’s thread on Twitter. “Twenty-nine years is exceptionally long, but I know two people personally that were on the section 8 wait list for over a decade. One got it after 11 years, the other after 13. They both signed up at age 18.”…

In 2020, though, the suburban Housing Authority of Cook County reopened its Housing Choice Voucher waiting list for the first time since 2001, with at least 10,000 people applying right away, according to the Chicago Tribune. In March, the nearby Oak Park Housing Authority also reopened its waiting list to applications for the first time since 2004.

Lengthy bureaucratic lines for public housing and housing vouchers may be normal but my sense from Chicago’s track record is that residents of the city wait longer than most.

In a related question, can a city or government really claim to offer something when the waiting list spans decades?

Finally, Americans have consistently showed that they do not particularly like the idea of public housing. Instead, more resources and effort go toward encouraging mortgages and homeownership. This could be one consistent way to signal this displeasure: do not provide enough funding and vouchers to meet the need present in many places.

Proposed buildings that could go on for miles

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A proposed new city in Saudi Arabia may include the world’s largest buildings:

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NEOM, the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman, aims to build twin skyscrapers about 500 meters (1,640 feet) tall that stretch horizontally for dozens of miles, the people said.

The skyscrapers would house a mix of residential, retail and office space running from the Red Sea coast into the desert, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. The plan is a shift from the concept announced last year of building a string of developments linked by underground hyper-speed rail, into a long continuous structure, the people said.

Designers were instructed to work on a half mile-long prototype, current and former NEOM employees said. If it goes forward in full, each structure would be larger than the world’s current biggest buildings, most of which are factories or malls rather than residential communities.

Imagine a building that stretches on for miles. As one follows it with their eye, it just keeps going and going. A building that goes past the horizon.

How does one get around within such a building? Moving walkways? Segways? An interior mass transit system? Or, exit the building and use a vehicle out there?

I could imagine a fairly self-contained community inside such a building. Going outside might not be very necessary except for going to a different city. What an American suburbanite might desire to be within a ten minute drive just happens to all be in the same structure.

Since this is in the planning stages, it could be years for the development to arise and stretch out to the point where the buildings are the largest and/or longest in the world.

AIM away messages and a “basic form of social liberty”

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AIM away messages provided a way for users to show that they were not available:

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Sometimes you had to step away. So you threw up an Away Message: I’m not here. I’m in class/at the game/my dad needs to use the comp. I’ve left you with an emo quote that demonstrates how deep I am. Or, here’s a song lyric that signals I am so over you. Never mind that my Away Message is aimed at you.

I miss Away Messages. This nostalgia is layered in abstraction; I probably miss the newness of the internet of the 1990s, and I also miss just being … away. But this is about Away Messages themselves—the bits of code that constructed Maginot Lines around our availability. An Away Message was a text box full of possibilities, a mini-MySpace profile or a Facebook status update years before either existed. It was also a boundary: An Away Message not only popped up as a response after someone IM’d you, it was wholly visible to that person before they IM’d you.

Messaging today, whether through texting or apps, does not work the same way:

Catapulting even further back into the past for a moment: Old-fashioned phone calls used to, and sometimes still do, start with “Hey, you free?” Santamaria points out. “You were going to tell me if you could talk before we started the conversation.” There’s a version of this today—someone might preface their message with “Not urgent, respond when you can,” for example—but for the most part, we just send the text message without consideration, Santamaria says. Interruption is the default.

The ability to walk away from communication and the demands it makes on a person struck me as similar to one of the three “basic forms of social liberty” humans had before settling in cities and large societies. Anthropologists David Graeber and David Wengrow say the second form was “the freedom to ignore or disobey commands issued by others.” Text messages, emails, and messages in apps create a pressure for someone to respond. To not have these digital “commands,” one practically not use apps and devices.

Is this the freedom we have traded to use social media, the Internet, and smartphones? People can unplug but it is difficult to do that and still participate in regular social life today. Saying no to messages or refusing to respond will likely not garner many friends or close connections. And related to the first form of freedom, “the freedom to move away or relocate from one’s surroundings,” the messages and apps can follow us anywhere there is Internet access or cell coverage.

These platforms succeed by encouraging messaging and connections. But, what if a basic human freedom is the one to say no to that interaction when desired?

The suburbia where those who work from home have money to spend nearby

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If more suburbanites are working from home and spending more time in the suburbs, suburban communities and businesses want their money:

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Suburban developers and retailers are working to provide ways to escape home, be around others, and, most importantly, spend newfound time and money…

Neighborhood retailers are eyeing the money she and others are saving on the commute, in addition to the thousands of dollars that office workers typically spend annually in restaurants, bars, clothing stores, entertainment venues and other businesses. In many cases, coffee breaks, haircuts and happy hours that used to happen near downtown offices have moved to the suburbs…

In the Washington region and nationally, the trend is most striking in higher-income inner suburbs, where more residents have computer-centric jobs suited to remote work and money to spare…

The new weekday demand, developers say, has helped suburban shopping centers and entertainment districts reach and, in some cases, surpass 2019 sales. The pandemic also accelerated long-standing pre-pandemic trends toward walkable suburban developments and the “third place” — public gathering spots like coffee shops and bookstores, where people can connect beyond home and work.

I want to expand on one of the ideas suggested above: this may already be happening in wealthier and denser inner-ring suburbs. These communities already have residents with more money to spend and already have a denser streetscape from a founding before postwar automobile suburbia.

But, could this go further? Suburbanites with more money to spend live in certain places. The shopping malls that will survive and even thrive are likely located near wealthier communities. Having more resources could enable certain suburbs to redevelop and add to their offerings compared to others that could languish in a competition for spenders and visitors.

Imagine then an even more bifurcated suburbia where wealthier suburbs have vibrant entertainment and shopping options while other suburbs do not. The suburban work from home crowd is not evenly distributed and neither are the communities and amenities they might prefer.

12 of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the US in 2021 were Sunbelt suburbs

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The 15 fastest growing communities – percentage-wise – the United States between July 2020 and July 2021 included 12 suburbs:

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  1. Georgetown, TX – suburb of Austin
  2. Leander, TX – suburb of Austin
  3. Queen Creek, AZ – suburb of Phoenix
  4. Buckeye, AZ – suburb of Phoenix
  5. New Braunfels, TX – suburb of San Antonio – see earlier post about growth in the community
  6. Fort Myers, FL – a central city in Cape Coral-Fort Myers MSA
  7. Casa Grande, AZ – suburb of Phoenix
  8. Maricopa, AZ – suburb of Phoenix
  9. North Port, FL – a central city in North Port-Brandenton-Sarasota MSA
  10. Spring Hill, TN – suburb of Nashville
  11. Goodyear, AZ – suburb of Phoenix
  12. Port St. Lucie, FL – central city of Port St. Lucie MSA
  13. Meridian, ID – suburb of Boise
  14. Caldwell, ID – suburb of Boise
  15. Nampa, ID – suburb of Boise

This is not just about the Sunbelt continuing to grow, as I saw in several headlines, but also about suburban and metropolitan growth in the Sunbelt. Many of these regions continue to grow, such as Austin, Phoenix, San Antonio, Nashville, and Boise, on the edges.

The list of the fastest growing communities by the absolute number of new residents was also weighted toward suburbs.

If you replace a suburban colonial with “a very modern house” rather than a McMansion, is this a win?

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A profile a recent teardown in Bethesda, Maryland highlights that the new structure is not a McMansion:

Teardowns can often raise concerns in established neighborhoods when a McMansion suddenly arises in a collection of bungalows. The design team didn’t want that to happen. “We didn’t want it to look like a UFO just landed in their yard,” Bloomberg says. “We looked at scale, proportion and massing.”

This quote above highlights what the new home is: it is has better scale, proportion, and massing compared to McMansions which tend to get these wrong. It was designed by an architectural firm rather than builders.

The best text description of the new home is this paragraph:

“Everything feels very scaled,” Bloomberg says. “It has a warmth to it even though it’s a very modern house – there [is] lots of wood, which helps make it very warm and welcoming.”

The pictures of the interior reinforce this description: it is a more modern structure.

But, one picture early on in the article hints at a contrast between the new home and the neighbor:

The teardown does not appear to be that much different in size than the neighbor but it certainly presents a different style of home compared to the brick and shuttered Colonial. Teardown McMansions are often criticized not fitting in with the existing style of homes.

I have asked before: would Americans prefer to live next to a McMansion or a modernist home? The article says “there has been no neighborhood backlash” to this new teardown. Now, what happens if a teardown McMansion goes up next to this modern home…