Category Archives: Sociology

Office buildings empty, residential property taxes go up

Posted on by

What happens when the office buildings in Chicago’s Loop have more vacancies? Residents end up paying more in property taxes:

Photo by Burak The Weekender on Pexels.com

The pandemic left the heart of the Loop with vacant offices and stores as workers and customers stayed home, and more people began working remotely. Then, citing the impact of that lost business, the owners of those vacant offices won huge tax breaks from Cook County officials.

The amount of property taxes didn’t get smaller because those taxpayers were now paying less. The taxes were still needed to pay for government services and salaries. So others have had to pay more to make up for that shortfall.

On top of that shift, City Hall and other government agencies have been asking property owners to pay more taxes overall, with total property taxes in Chicago rising from $6.8 billion five years ago to $8.3 billion last year.

That’s a 22% increase in taxes citywide in those five years.

This is one reason municipal officials like thriving commercial and industrial sectors: they contribute to the property tax base of a community. When these properties are worth less, someone else has to pick up the slack. Homeowners do not like rapidly increasing property taxes, if they like property taxes at all.

For residential property owners, the issue is compounded for some because the value of residences has jumped in recent years. With limited new supply and consistent demand for good housing, property values have gone up. Homeowners like this – until property taxes also increase because their home values have increased.

Will residential property owners put up with this and, even if they do not like it, what recourse do they have? Does this mean cities and communities need to put on a full-court press to get office buildings filled or converted?

Mapping Carnegie Libraries

Posted on by

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has a map of the libraries Andrew Carnegie funded around the turn of the twentieth century:

I have not studied this beyond the map but I am intrigued that the map seems to show a lot of libraries between roughly western Pennsylvania through Nebraska. The Midwest has a lot of libraries, except for Missouri which seems to have fewer. There are some pockets of libraries elsewhere; northern California, the Northeast. But Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, and other midwestern states have a lot of libraries.

Why the Midwest? A few ideas come to mind:

  1. Its population is growing rapdily at this time. (Population growth in the South and West would come later and the East Coast already had established communities.)
  2. Did Carnegie’s life in Pittsburgh connect him to life in other midwestern locales or familiarize him with midwestern values?
  3. These communities valued civic institutions, like libraries.

If someone had come along in the 1960s and wanted to help fund civic buildings, how much different would the map look?

I found “giant white houses” in my study of suburban teardowns

Posted on by

What caused the construction of numerous “giant white houses” across the United States?

Photo by Sindre Fs on Pexels.com

Giant White Houses are white, with jet-black accents: the shutters, the gutters, the rooves. They are giant—Hulk houses—swollen to the very limits of the legally allowed property setback, and unnaturally tall. They feature a mishmash of architectural features, combining, say, the peaked roof of a farmhouse with squared-off sections reminiscent of city townhomes. They mix horizontal siding, vertical paneling, and painted brick willy-nilly…

After speaking to realtors, architects, critics, and the guy who built the house next door, I’ve learned that the answer is more complicated than I’d imagined. It has to do with Chip and Joanna Gaines, Zillow, the housing crunch, the slim margins of the spec-home industry, and the evolution of minimalism. It has to do, most of all, with what a certain class of homebuyer even believes a house to be—whether they realize it or not.

I found at least a few of these houses among the 349 teardowns I examined in suburban Naperville, Illinois. I did not classify them as such but they were among the many homes with prominent triangular gables (and usually multiple ones on the front facade). They sometimes had porches. The primarily white exterior is unique compared to teardowns that mix brick, stone, siding (vertical or horizontal), and shingles.

At least in Naperville, these homes emerged in a particular context: a wealthy built-out suburb that was in demand, numerous older and smaller single-family homes located near the vibrant suburban downtown, and local regulations that allowed relatively large teardowns.

How many years until this particular style is no longer built in large numbers and is perceived to be from a particular era? This happens with different residential home styles. This was not the predominant style in the teardowns I looked at between 2008-2017. Does this have an even shorter shelf life if it is linked to the reach of Chip and Joanna Gaines (and perhaps is more prominent in communities where people watch HGTV)?

How many suburban communities will allow chickens?

Posted on by

Given the price of eggs, is this a moment when more suburban communities will allow residents to have chickens?

Photo by Anna Chip on Pexels.com

Americans like suburbs for multiple reasons. Some of these reasons might appear to support homeowners having chickens while others might seem to oppose it. A quick breakdown:

-Closer to nature: suburbanites keeping chickens feel they are closer to the land and to animals. Suburbs with chickens can feel more like rural areas.

-Middle-class aspirations: suburbanites pay a lot of attention to what yards should look like. For example, lush green grass is a preferred option in many places. Chickens can disturb this aesthetic. Or keeping chickens might be considered something that contributes to a lower status for a neighborhood or a community. At the same time, middle-class residents can tout the financial benefits of keeping chickens instead of paying for eggs.

-Single-family homes and the rights of property owners: suburbanites take property rights seriously. If you own your home, shouldn’t you have freedom to do with it what you want? However, many Americans live in HOAs that have particular standards or suburbanites live in communities where particular standards are maintained (such as the maximum length of the lawn). Is the ability to live a quiet suburban life with higher property values hampered if a neighbor has chickens?

Suburbanites could make arguments for chickens and against them out of the same common suburban values. This could mean that all of these debates are then local and depend on the context of the community. How many community members are in favor? How does the community view itself and do chickens fit into that vision? Do the current economic conditions push residents and leaders in one direction?

Why American elevators are the size they are

Posted on by

Here is the story of how the size of American elevators came to be:

Photo by Kelly on Pexels.com

Two decades ago, the fire marshal in Glendale, Arizona, was concerned that the elevators in a new stadium wouldn’t be large enough to accommodate a 7-foot stretcher held flat. Tilting a stretcher to make it fit in the cab, the marshal worried, might jeopardize the treatment of a patient with a back injury. Maybe our elevators should be bigger, he thought.

The marshal put this idea to the International Code Council, the organization that governs the construction of American buildings. After minor feedback and minimal research (the marshal measured three stretchers in the Phoenix area), the suggestion was incorporated into the ICC’s model code. Based on one man’s hunch, most of the country’s new elevators grew by several square feet overnight. The medical benefits were not quantified, and the cost impact was reported as “none.”

It is one of the many small rules that have divorced our national building standards from the rest of the world. According to research by the building policy wonk Stephen Smith, who recounted this story in a report last year, changes like these are one reason it now costs three times as much to install an elevator in the U.S. than in Switzerland or South Korea.

Someone – individual or group – have to come up with the standards and then another organization implements them and advocates for them in the future. If this particular standard seems odd to people, what would stop others from proposing a different standard and working to get that implemented? How exactly is such a decision adjudicated?

I imagine most elevator users would not think about this when stepping into or stepping out of a larger elevator. It may seem spacious. They may notice when the elevator can hold a lot of people and/or items (suitcases or household goods on moving day). Would anyone lay down in the elevator and realize they can fit?

Implementing a new standard today would take a while to work through the system as new elevators start showing up. Thirty years from now, someone could look back and mention the day when the standard changed (and perhaps give the reasons why it changed). Until then, we have a certain elevator size that can accommodate a seven foot stretcher.

The Chicago bungalow as a symbol of early 20th century success

Posted on by

Living in a Chicago bungalow became a symbol of a successful life:

Photo by Haley Cao on Pexels.com

The humble bungalow made it possible for Chicagoans to realize the American Dream of home ownership. In the first part 20th century, between 80,000 and 100,000 bungalows were built in Cook County. The majority went up between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression, making many about 100 years old. Many were home to first-generation immigrants. They formed an arc around the city’s center known as the Bungalow Belt.

It “stretches all around the city, from South Shore to Marquette Park, out west to Austin to the Northwest Side and West Rogers Park,” Dominic Pacyga, a Columbia College urbanologist, told the Tribune in 2000…

In 1997, a Tribune declared: “Bungalows Were Better Than A Place To Live. They Told The World Who You Were” over a story that declared the humble home to be “an idea, a symbol, a trophy, a style, an approach to life.”…

Chicago’s bungalow builders left that idea behind, while appropriating the concept that the middle class deserved homes with little artistic touches, like those the wealthy took for granted: leaded window glass, red or yellow brick with checkerboard patterns, bay fronts either octagonal, squared or rounded.

Three quick thoughts:

  1. This highlights the coming and going of residential architectural styles. This design emerged in a particular era, took off, and now has been replaced by other designs that address the wants of residents and builders and that also became symbols of joining the middle class. (See the suburban ranch home or the McMansion.)
  2. How exactly does a particular home style become a status symbol? The article hints at the role of developers (selling the image that goes with this particular home), politicians (promoting the style and protecting the homes in later decades), and residents. Could we add in famous cultural works that take place in or highlight or celebrate the bungalow? The role of zoning officials and historic preservationists?
  3. How many of these homes initially were owned by white residents of Chicago and how much has this changed over time? How much did bungalows contribute to long-standing patterns of residential segregation and differences in wealth among homeowners?

One marker of American life: eating lots of peanut butter

Posted on by

Life in the United States may be marked by many things, including the consumption of peanut butter:

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

The only invention that did more than hydrogenation to cement peanut butter in the hearts (and mouths) of America’s youth was sliced bread—introduced by a St. Louis baker in the late 1920s—which made it easy for kids to construct their own PB&Js. (In this century, the average American kid eats some 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before graduating from high school.)

Rosefield went on to found Skippy, which debuted crunchy peanut butter and wide-mouth jars in the 1930s. In World War II, tins of (hydrogenated) Skippy were shipped with service members overseas, while the return of meat rationing at home again led civilians to peanut butter. Even today, when American expats are looking for a peanut butter fix, they often seek out military bases: They’re guaranteed to stock it.

But while peanut butter’s popularity abroad is growing—in 2020, peanut butter sales in the United Kingdom overtook sales of the Brits’ beloved jam—enjoying the spread is still largely an American quirk. “People say to me all the time, ‘When did you know that you had fully become an American?’” Ana Navarro, a Nicaraguan-born political commentator, told NPR in 2017. “And I say, ‘The day I realized I loved peanut butter.’”

Though the United States lags behind China and India in peanut harvest, Americans still eat far more of the spread than the people in any other country: It’s a gooey taste of nostalgia, for childhood and for American history. “What’s more sacred than peanut butter?” Iowa Senator Tom Harkin asked in 2009, after a salmonella outbreak was traced back to tainted jars. By 2020, when Skippy and Jif released their latest peanut butter innovation—squeezable tubes—nearly 90 percent of American households reported consuming peanut butter.

How many lists of American food would include peanut butter?

How many images of American life would include peanut butter in them?

Or what would Americans replace peanut butter with if it was gone?

How does the number of PB&Js kids eat compare to other kinds of sandwiches they eat?

And why do so many seem to like Uncrustables?

Finding the weather screen that shows everything I want

Posted on by

I have tried numerous weather apps and websites over the years searching for an interface that provides all the information I want in a helpful format.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Many platforms seem to want to emphasize the current temperature and conditions and make it harder to see other details. And they want you to view ads.

I eventually found Weather Underground’s ten day forecast. It works best on a bigger screen through their website. Here is what it looked like last night:

This does tell me current conditions – I can see them on the left. And there is a temperature high/low and a graphic at the top. But it also does several other things:

-provides info on upcoming days

-graph lines for temperature, wind chill, dew point, cloud cover, precipitation and wind

-the user can move along those graph lines to see the exact prediction conditions at that time so it can operate like an hourly forecast

Perhaps this is too much information for many. But I don’t need to scroll down and down or click to another screen. I can have a current condition graphic and can see current conditions plus can see trends for the future. This is the weather site I am sticking with (though would be open to trying other options).

Chicago rents up at three times the rate of median household income in 2+ decades

Posted on by

The cost of renting in Chicago has increased in recent years:

Photo by Max Vakhtbovycn on Pexels.com

After adjusting for inflation, Chicago’s median household income grew by just 9% from 2000 to 2023. Meanwhile, the city’s median cost for rent and utilities grew by 28%, roughly three times faster, according to a WBEZ analysis of census data.

This particularly affects lower-income residents:

Like Robinson, about 129,000 renter households in Chicago — roughly one-fifth of the citywide total — make between $2,000 and $4,000 a month, according to a WBEZ analysis. About 30% of those households are spending a majority of their income on rent and utilities…

Twenty-five years ago, a majority of the apartments in a dozen neighborhoods would have been affordable for someone making about half the city’s median income, like Robinson. They would have included North Lawndale, South Lawndale, the Lower West Side, the Near South Side, Douglas, Grand Boulevard, Washington Park and Woodlawn. Now, a majority of the rents in those eight neighborhoods are completely out of her reach. For example, after adjusting for inflation, the median rent in the Near South Side community has nearly quadrupled since 2000.

And the causes?

New apartment construction fell off dramatically in the late 2000s, in the early years of the subprime mortgage lending crisis and the Great Recession. “A number of single-family home builders [and] a number of multifamily developers left the sector all together,” Hermann said. “Less housing was built for more than a decade than we’ve seen pretty much ever.”…

The city is also losing housing — in particular, older two- to four-unit apartments that have historically offered more affordable rents for families.

Can leaders – political, business, real estate, etc. – address this issue? Building more units overall could help. Offering more incentives for affordable housing could help. Promoting and incentivizing development throughout the city – and not just areas where developers see the potential for a lot of profit – could help. Can housing be a leading issue to tackle?

Big cities face numerous issues but housing is a foundational concern. Residents need quality housing at prices they can afford. Not having such housing can affect all areas of life, including people’s hope for what their future can be. It can lead to people leaving (hinted at by the end of the article) and limit who can move in. And if the affordable housing shortage continues, the number of units needed only increases.

Even as there appeared there might be some energy in mid-2024 to address housing concerns at a national level, communities need to keep at this and make sure there is affordable housing on the way.

A New Jersey suburb with the country’s oldest mayor at age 100

Posted on by

Suburban mayors can help guide community decisions and care for a community. But how many could do it at age 100?

Photo by lil artsy on Pexels.com

Vito Perillo, the mayor of Tinton Falls, Monmouth County, died over the weekend at the age of 100. According to Governor Phil Murphy, Perillo was the country’s oldest mayor.

According to the borough’s website, Perillo had served for 8 years. He started serving as mayor at age 93.

We sometimes see stories of young mayors, perhaps a college student or young adult who is elected. They are at the start of adult life and may be perceived as not having the life experience that could help in leading a community.

On the other hand, being elected mayor at 93 could mean the community benefits from the wisdom of many years lived. That person could have decades of relationships and experiences in the community. They could have a sense of what the community was and how it understands itself.

In some suburbs, the mayoral role is less involved than the city manager role. Mayors are elected by residents while managers are professionals who take care of day-to-day operations. Mayors may be the ones who show up at community events, vote in local council meetings, and cheerlead for local happenings.

At what age would suburban residents say someone is generally too old to be mayor? At least in this suburb outside New York City, residents elected Perillo twice to lead the community.