As I regularly teach sociology courses, I continually come up against the idea that society constrains people. It tells them what to do. It limits them. It imposes behaviors and beliefs and belonging that they do not necessarily want. Society is an anchor many want to cut loose.
This may reflect my setting: teaching sociology within the United States, a country where students have heard they are to be free to follow their own paths, to pursue their own goals, to become successful on their own merit. Individualism is alive and well in the United States and perceived conformity and constraint are negative.
But I will argue in this post and four to follow that society enables people more than it constrains them. To be human is to participate in social relationships. To live the good life as an individual involves being part of society. To participate in and contribute to social life is empowering in the long run.
Another way to put this: there is no solo human being. To be cut off from others from a long period of time is not healthy. Yes, relationships and society can bring pain and destruction; this is true now and throughout human history. But to now be part of a collective, something bigger than each of us as individuals, is to miss out on something fundamental to humanity.
One brief example from the classroom illustrates these points. What might we gain if we take a college class together as opposed to learning on our own (books, online, etc.)? Many people might feel frustrated by the classroom setting where the instruction, pace, conversation, or setting may not be exactly what they want. But what if we, in the long run, learn from and through experiences with other people? One can have a conversation with oneself but this looks very different than the talk possible when people bring their knowledge, experiences, and struggles to a focused conversation together.
In the next post, I will use the analogies of (1) groups of musicians and (2) sports teams to further the argument that society enables people.
These figures were part of a story about AI farming technologies:
In general, technology is further along for row crops because hundreds of acres of corn and soybeans are relatively simple to tend to en masse. Ag-tech conglomerates such as John Deere and CNH Industrial have also historically catered to the needs of row crop operations since they’re such a large share of the nation’s agricultural sector, accounting for $21 billion of agricultural production in Illinois alone. Specialty crops haven’t received as much attention from corporate America.
When you drive out of the Chicago area, you can see what appear to be endless fields of these two crops. Illinois may lead the country in pumpkin production but the amount of corn and soybeans grown is much higher. These may not be “exciting” crops but they are used in many ways.
Put it another way: what would Chicago area residents think if “Land of Lincoln” was changed “Land of Corn and Soybeans”? Would they associate those crops with other places (like corn with Iowa)?
And would being a state that leads in corn and soybean AI be an advantage? If so, how much so and where would the benefits go?
Wilson’s legacy includes dozens of hit singles with the Beach Boys, including three Number One singles (“I Get Around,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” and “Good Vibrations”). In the 1960s, the Beach Boys were not only the most successful American band, but they also jockeyed for global preeminence with the Beatles. And on albums such as Pet Sounds, Wilson’s lavish, orchestral production techniques dramatically expanded the sonic palette of rock & roll and showed how the recording studio could be an instrument by itself.
Born June 20, 1942, Brian Wilson grew up in Hawthorne, California, a modest town next to the Los Angeles Airport. Brian was the eldest of three brothers; his younger brothers were Dennis and Carl. Their father, Murry, was an aspiring songwriter and a tyrant. “Although he saw himself as a loving father who guided his brood with a firm hand, he abused us psychologically and physically, creating wounds that never healed,” Wilson wrote in his 1991 autobiography, Wouldn’t It Be Nice: My Own Story.
Wilson grew up playing sports and obsessing over music, teaching his brothers to harmonize with him. Music was his sustenance and his solace, he said: “Early on, I learned that when I tuned the world out, I was able to tune in a mysterious, God-given music. It was my gift, and it allowed me to interpret and understand emotions I couldn’t articulate.”
In 1961, Brian, Dennis, and Carl formed a band with their cousin Mike Love and their friend Al Jardine, managed by Murry Wilson; Brian played bass, took many of the lead vocals, and wrote the songs. Signed to Capitol Records and named the Beach Boys, they started to roll out hits like convertible Thunderbirds coming off an assembly line: “Surfin’ U.S.A.” (with music borrowed from Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen”), “Surfer Girl,” “Be True to Your School,” “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Those Brian Wilson compositions all sounded like insanely catchy jingles for the California teenage lifestyle — surfboards, hamburger stands, pep rallies — but on the flip side of the good times was a real sense of melancholy. Sometimes that was apparent in the lyrics — the lonesome “In My Room,” for example — and sometimes it was expressed nonverbally, with the Beach Boys’ heartbreaking multipart harmonies.
Two connections to the suburbs to note:
Hawthorne, California was a small community in the early 1940s – over 8,000 residents – southwest of downtown Los Angeles and a few miles from the beach. Today, the community houses nearly 90,000 people. The suburb was home to a number of aerospace companies over the years and Mattel was started there in 1945. It grew as the sprawling Los Angeles area grew in the postwar era.
Many of the songs of the The Beach Boys reflect features of suburban life, particularly for teenagers. Numerous early songs discuss driving. Los Angeles became a driving capital in the postwar era and Hawthorne is bordered by multiple interstates. A teenager driving in the early 1960s could easily access the beach, fast roads, fast food, shopping malls, and new subdivisions and communities. Do this all in the sunshine and you might be regularly going in “American Dream mode.” There is also the theme of family. The group includes Wilson’s two brothers and his cousin. Wilson writes and sings about relationships. In the suburbia of the 1950s and 1960s, nuclear families were emphasized. The Brady Bunch, set not that far from Hawthorne, purported to show wholesome family life. That the group and songs involved family life, even amid clear themes of teenager individualism, is not surprising given the suburban context.
Thomas and Wilson met four years ago in Nashville when the producer was recording Stars and Stripes, a country tribute to the Beach Boys. They are an unlikely pair — Wilson the fragile artist and Thomas the beefy Midwesterner who wears cowboy boots and a mullet haircut. But in 1996, their wives bought sprawling homes next to each other in the rolling countryside of St. Charles, Illinois, and a studio was installed in Wilson’s basement to record Imagination.
The Wilsons chose St. Charles almost by chance. “Joe and Brian were in the studio in Chicago one day, so Chris [Thomas’ wife] and I went shopping, because they were looking for a house,” explains Melinda, 51, sitting with Brian in a small, comfortable room off the studio in St. Charles. “We saw this place with a basement that was unfinished, and we thought, ‘Why not?’
“It’s good to get out somewhere, away from everything, where you can work,” she says. “It doesn’t matter about the weather, doesn’t matter about traffic. If Brian doesn’t want to work, he just goes upstairs, and when he feels like it, he comes down. Most artists are not people who can do a nine-to-five trip.”…
Later, over dinner, Wilson feels differently, and he admits that he misses L.A.: “It’s home, where I’ve always recorded, and there’s just something about the vibe there. I like the L.A. vibe.”
After living in St. Charles, Wilson moved back to Los Angeles.
Trahan told the Journal in 2023 that the house was “the worst investment ever,” but has since clarified those comments, telling People that she views the home as a piece of art.
“When I was buying it, I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, it was a great investment,'” Trahan told People in 2023. “When I buy art, it’s because I love the art. It’s not because, ‘Oh, I’m going to make money on this.’ If you’re going to make money in art, you have to sell it. I buy art, and then I don’t sell it.”
The first Brady Experience sweepstakes was such a success that Trahan is opening it up for another round. Trahan could not be reached for comment.
Can a home be art? Can a real suburban home that became part of a well-known TV show be art? This might require public and/or critical consensus.
The idea that a postwar suburban house could be a piece of art is not that farfetched. Imagine homeowners of such homes across the American landscape that lovingly take care of their homes, maintaining and improving them. Or preservationist efforts that protect particular homes for future generations. (Which postwar suburban homes might qualify for this is another discussion – which are more art and which are more pedestrian?)
Add to this the iconic nature of this home. For many, The Brady Bunch house represents suburban family life. The show only ran 5 seasons but the family and its home became a part of the postwar culture during its run, through syndication, and ongoing lore. I doubt many critics would say the show was art – it was a normal sitcom – but the iconic status of the show may elevate it in the eyes of viewers.
Perhaps the Brady home is pop art: a slice of a particular time that was revered by many.
Through the 1990s and early 2000s, there was so much single-family construction in Naperville that “I think there’s probably a little bit of a need to diversify housing product,” Whitaker said.
“I would say it’s not just townhomes, but I think you’ve also seen more senior housing, more apartments,” he said.
Whitaker also pointed to changing demographics in Naperville. It’s always been a great place to raise a family, but today, the population is aging, he said. “We’ve got a great supply of single-family homes in neighborhoods like Ashbury and Tall Grass in south Naperville, and frankly, it would be hard to … build new single-family homes at a price that is cost competitive to what exists in those communities,” Whitaker said. “And so I think the goal has been to diversify a little bit and find some different niches…
“The development will meet a significant community need by creating a housing opportunity that is suitable for many types of homebuyers,” the petition states, “including some of the fastest growing housing segments of our population, young professionals and empty nesters.”
As I noted yesterday, the primary way Naperville can grow in population in the future is to develop denser housing. Growth has been a key trait of the community for decades. But more and more townhouses is a change from single-family homes.
Additionally, these comments suggest townhouses in Naperville are aimed at particular residents. Specifically, townhouses could provide housing for seniors/empty nesters or young professionals. Might there be other homebuyers who could live in the townhouses?
Long-term, will more townhouses be palatable in the community if they are at particular price points and particular residents live there? There likely will be some pushback for townhouses regardless because of changes to character of the community and to the neighbors who own homes nearby.
The suburb of Naperville, Illinois is marked by several characteristics: rapid growth from the 1960s onward, particularly between 1980 and 2000, and lots of land annexation; wealthier suburban residents and numerous white-collar jobs; and a lively downtown with national retailers, local stores, plenty of restaurants, and a nice Riverwalk. Will any Chicago area suburb trace a similar path in the future?
Here is why I would guess no:
Limited population growth in the Chicago suburbs. The whole region is not growing much. Population growth in the suburbs could still be uneven; some places are perceived as more desirable or are more affordable and they could grow faster will others stagnate or even shrink. But explosive population growth in the Chicago area looks like it is done.
At multiple points in Naperville’s history, leaders and residents discussed possible development and regulatory options. They tended to choose growth and in particular forms. These sets of decisions helped give rise to the particular traits of Naperville today. Even if another suburb tried to pursue the same path, not all the pieces might fall together in the same way.
When Naperville grew from 1960 onwards, it was closer to the edge of the metropolitan region. Land was cheap and available. The city could annex land without running into other communities. That growth has since moved out further beyond Naperville’s ring, out to places like Aurora and Plainfield and Oswego. Any future Naperville will be 10-30 miles out from Naperville.
Naperville itself – and other older suburbs – will likely change in the future. If Naperville wants to continue to grow in population, it will need to grow denser and taller. Infill development on small parcels could add lots of townhouses, condos, and/or apartments. Redevelopment in desirable areas and around mass transit options could lead to taller or denser buildings. This all could happen in numerous Chicago suburbs but this will move them away from homes dominated by single-family homes and lifestyles.
So: When was the last time you were on a sound stage for a film or TV series? Even if you work in production, the answer is likely “not lately.” One well-known director recently told me that the last time they worked on the 15-stage Fox lot, their production was the only one active that day. And FilmLA’s recent sound stage report was bleak: Average stage occupancy plunged to 63 percent in 2024, down six points even from a strike-ridden 2023.
Compare that to 2016, when stages hummed along at 96 percent occupancy level, or the we-all-agree-it-was-a-bubble Peak TV year of 2022 when levels bounced back up to 90 percent during the post-pandemic recovery. Investors from Blackstone to TPG have stakes in sound stage properties, so it’s not just Hollywood worried about production. Just days ago, sound stage titan Hudson Pacific Properties — the Blackstone-backed owner of Sunset Bronson Studios, which is leased to Netflix — got hit with a credit rating cut. S&P Global called out the company’s “weakened studio business performance” and declining leased studio space, which dipped to 73.8 percent from 76.9 percent the year prior…
On a macro level, sound stages are in trouble — a reflection of the times. Production continues to be offshored to states and countries with more appealing tax incentives and cost structures, the correction from Peak TV means fewer series are being made, and the post-strike job market is still sluggish. While Gov. Gavin Newsom and others are pushing for a big new California tax credit plus other legislative moves to make filming here more accessible (#StayinLA), the industry is still reeling from a few years of blows, and some entertainment workers have left L.A. behind.
While the empty sound stages may be the result of specific issues in the TV and film industry, the comparison to shopping malls is particular interesting. Do we now just assume shopping malls are past their peak? That many of them are dead? That they are the exemplar of buildings that were once thriving but are empty now?
Vacant buildings are a problem for a number of industries and communities (see examples here and here). Empty buildings mean less work or activity is taking place. Empty buildings can lead to perception issues and ne’er-do-wells possibly causing problems. Empty buildings could lead to reduced tax revenues.
If shopping malls are the best comparison for these particular empty buildings, one lesson we might take: it will take years to figure out what to do with these properties. Will activity pick up in production again? Could there be temporary uses for these structures? If redevelopment is pursued by developers, do neighbors and communities want what might be there next?
Dead shopping malls could turn into zombie shopping malls: ones that slightly change form but stick around for years with limited activity and change. Whether sound stages follow a similar path remains to be seen.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the office that publishes the inflation rate, told outside economists this week that a hiring freeze at the agency was forcing the survey to cut back on the number of businesses where it checks prices. In last month’s inflation report, which examined prices in April, government statisticians had to use a less precise method for guessing price changes more extensively than they did in the past…
To calculate the inflation rate, hundreds of government workers called enumerators fan out across cities each month to check how much businesses are charging for products like blue jeans and services like accounting, largely by visiting brick-and-mortar stores. Statisticians in Washington, D.C. roll those figures together into the consumer-price index, a data stream that shows how the cost of living is changing for typical Americans.
If the government’s enumerators can’t track down a specific price in a given city, they try to make an educated guess based on a close substitute: say, cargo pants instead of slacks. But in April, with fewer workers on hand to check prices, statisticians had to base their guesses on less comparable products or other regions of the country—a process called “different-cell imputation”—much more often than usual, according to the BLS…
The inflation rate determines how much social-security benefits go up each year, and where federal tax brackets are set. Private-sector contracts such as wage agreements between companies and unions routinely reference the inflation rate. Payments on $2 trillion of inflation-protected federal bonds hinge on the inflation rate, as do yields on standard Treasury bonds. Businesses, investors and policymakers rely on the reading to guide their decisions. The Federal Reserve is laser focused on inflation data when it sets interest rates for the country.
Surveys require a lot of work to put together. Questions and methods need to be thought through and tested. Data needs to be collected. Analysis requires skill. Sharing results and interpretations is important.
The particular issues outlined above seem to have to do with (1) collecting data, which relies on going out and finding prices, and (2) dealing with missing data, which is related to #1 but is an issue for many surveys. If the survey is utilized by a large number of people, the choices made in the survey process can then affect decisions and policies.
It will be interesting to see what happens here. At what point do academics, policymakers, and others decide that the survey data may not be trustworthy? Which government surveys – and there are many – get priority for funding and having enough employees?
Neighbors objected, saying they’d prefer condos to apartments. Some said they feared the apartments would turn into Section 8. Others raised the prospect of crime…
Alderman Joe Kenny said then that the building in question would not be an issue if the developer planned condos instead of apartments…
“I felt some of the comments in the emails came off as really derogatory. The tone in those statements, they came off to be kind of racist, and it promoted a level of classism that Darien is not proud of,” said Vaughan, who was the council’s only African American.
In response, a man stormed out of the room. Others denied that race was a factor.
But race was explicitly mentioned in one of the dozens of comments that the city posted to its website.
Across suburban communities, these two reasons are commonly mentioned in opposition to apartments: (1) who will live in the apartments and (2) preference for condos or other forms of residences that require ownership. Regarding the first, sometimes the language is veiled and sometimes it is not. It sounds like those who opposed apartments in Darien were clear about who they did not want in the community. And that building condos instead would address their concerns.
And what is the answer in suburbs to these concerns? Here is one answer given in Darien:
He said The Jade was a “beautiful building,” occupied by young professionals. An alderman said something similar recently.
To assuage the fears of residents, these reasons are often provided: the new apartments will look high-quality and young professionals will live there. These are intended to show that these apartments will be occupied by people residents will find acceptable in the community.
This is a way that suburban exclusion continues. I have found similar discussions happening for decades for Chicago area suburbs. Another reason sometimes provided by objectors is that apartments will disturb the character of the community. This reason is often related to the two explicitly mentioned above.
Decisions about development are not just about properties and buildings; they are about who community members want in their suburb.
So, when the National Association of Realtors recently adopted a policy allowing limited off-MLS marketing, Zillow announced it would permanently ban any listing not posted to the MLS within one day. Essentially, Zillow — a company that doesn’t sell homes — is asserting it gets to decide how you can market and sell your home.
Zillow claims it is protecting consumers from off-MLS marketing, which it says leads to longer market times and lower prices. But a 2024 study by Midwest Real Estate Data — the MLS serving Chicagoland — shows the exact opposite. MRED offers a Private Listing Network that shares listings with all member agents without circulating them to public websites. Homes first marketed through MRED’s Private Listing Network sold 55% faster, for more money, and at a higher percentage of list price (97.5% versus 95.4%) than those listed publicly from day one.
Our own experience across tens of thousands of transactions confirms the findings of this study. At @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, we developed a “private-to-prominent” listing strategy that starts with an off-MLS marketing period and builds to a full public offering. This approach has several benefits. It allows a seller and their agent to prepare the home for sale while building interest and demand. It also gives them an opportunity to test a price without having Zillow or other websites display any reductions that might be made prior to the public listing. And the listing does not accumulate market time during this premarketing phase. (Typically, as market times increase, buyer interest decreases.)
This approach can result in faster, higher-value sales, often before the home ever hits the MLS, or Zillow. Most importantly, it keeps the seller in control. They choose when to list publicly and can accept or reject an offer at any time.
The key here is at the end: “it keeps the seller in control.” Should the seller be the one calling all the shots and having the advantages?
Another argument could be made that the seller having the primary options limits potential buyers. Is the home reaching all the possible purchasers? If it is on a private network first, how often does it reach the general public? Could private listings build off existing networks, reproducing inequalities?
Or should Zillow and other actors play the primary role as many Americans look for real estate online? Is this more of a tug-of-war between the established real estate industry and the online competitors who offer information for any searchers without the need to contact an agent? There are a lot of jobs and a lot of money at stake.
Is there any role for communities or people who might want to access certain communities down the road? If the strength of local real estate is often taken as a sign of local vibrancy and status, should this only involve private actors?
I suspect this discussion will continue as different actors look for an edge in real estate. Hopefully this does not come down to solely who can lobby the most effectively.
Legally Sociable 