Category Archives: Sociology

Eight American metro areas have homes worth over $1 trillion – and one involves a large suburb

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What do all the housing values in a city add up to? For eight American metro areas, the housing values are over $1 trillion:

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According to residential real estate website Redfin, less than 10 metro areas in America are now worth $1 trillion in collective real estate home values. Most of those areas make sense for the list, like New York, Boston and Atlanta (the latter of which has a metro population of more than 6 million people). Anaheim, on the other hand, has a population of about 350,000 people, and for years fought to disengage itself from the ignominious nickname “Anacrime,” despite being home to the so-called happiest place on Earth…

The Orange County city reached its recently minted status due to an explosion in the real estate market in that area, with home prices up more than 12% over the past year, Redfin says. To source its findings, the Seattle-based company relied on aggregate home sale data for almost 100 million homes across the U.S.

San Francisco, meanwhile, has not reached trillion-dollar status yet, but that’s only because the city itself is so small. When combined with other large area real estate markets in San Jose and Oakland, the number jumps to a staggering $2.5 trillion. The other cities that did cross the $1 trillion threshold are Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Phoenix.

Nationally, the biggest overall rise in home values comes from more rural and suburban areas, Redfin says. The high cost of homeownership in Anaheim specifically points to ongoing issues in California around housing supply and affordability. Orange County has long been a wealthy area in aggregate, with pockets of affordability. Now, many prospective homeowners may be feeling the squeeze to leave, departing for less expensive homes in places like the Inland Empire and Bakersfield.

To some degree, this measure may not have much value. The biggest metro areas are on this list. (Missing are Dallas and Houston.) Have a lot of people and have relatively high prices and a place ll make this list.

On the other hand, Anaheim does seem like a bit of a surprise. It is a suburb of Los Angeles. In 1950, it had just over 14,500 residents. It grew tremendously in the postwar era. According to the Census Bureau, it has a median housing value of over $713,000.

What other suburbs could be close to joining this list? They would need to be large and expensive. This would rule out many communities in the Northeast and Midwest where suburbs tend to be smaller. Are there some Sunbelt or West Coast suburbs that could join the list soon?

The culture wars come for traffic policies

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Should motorists or others take precedence on streets and roadways? Legislative battles over traffic policy in Washington, D.C. show how this has become a culture war issue:

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One of the proposals would forbid Washington’s local government from banning right turns at red lights. Another would do away with the automated traffic-enforcement cameras that ticket D.C. drivers for speeding, blowing stop signs and other violations.

The provisions are not just a case of earnest traffic-engineering wonkery sneaking into Congressional oversight. They represent a culture-war cause just as real as D.C.’s needle-exchange efforts or mask mandates, two other targets of current GOP riders. At the core of it is the politically revealing question of cars versus other ways of getting around.

In blue cities across the country, local road policy in the past decade has been tweaked in the name of making things safer and more enticing for non-drivers — often by making things slower and more annoying for motorists…

In a polarized country, it was inevitable that this would become more than just a disagreement over traffic circulation and moving violations. After all, the 21st century push to promote alternative modes of transportation cites a Democratic-coded cause (climate change) to promote ways of getting around (by foot, bike, bus, or subway) that are a lot more convenient in dense blue cities.

On the right, for more than a decade, there’s been a refrain about the “war on cars” right alongside the war on Christmas. “There is a loud constituency that does not want you to drive your car,” said Jay Beeber, executive director for policy at the National Motorists Association, which has championed the measures dictating Washington policy. “A lot of this is virtue signaling.”

Four thoughts:

  1. Is it “inevitable” that this would become a culture war issue? I am sure there is an interesting history in here. Does this go back to seat belt laws? Speed limits on highways set in the 1970s?
  2. It is relatively easy to break this down into cities versus other areas. What about groups or political discussions in between such as suburbs promoting more walkability and bicycling, small towns and rural areas trying to lessen dependence on cars, and regions emphasizing different transportation policies? Are there Republicans for different road policies and Democrats for more driving?
  3. The interplay between federal and local policies is worth paying attention to. Americans tend to like local government oversight of local issues. Do Americans tend to think the federal government does too much regarding traffic policies or not enough?
  4. Where does this issue rank in the range of culture war issues? Is this more like a proxy war or the big issue? Americans like driving so this could get at core concerns about American ways of life.

A possible investment return of over 800% on Chicago’s parking meters

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One estimate of the profit to be generated through the privatization of Chicago’s parking meters suggests this was a lucrative investment:

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In 2008, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley, with the approval of poodles on the City Council who failed to do due diligence, agreed to sell a 75-year lease on 36,000 parking meter spots for $1.16 billion to an entity that calls itself Chicago Parking Meters LLC and is made up of various parties including Morgan Stanley-related entities and, indirectly and also among others, the sovereign wealth fund known as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Daley also agreed to a whole series of tightwad rules that handcuffed the city when it came to removing meters for, say, special events such as outdoor dining, changing the hours of paid parking, or making any other changes that might result in less revenue for Chciago Parking Meters. In each and every case, Chicago has had to lay out more cash.

Why did Daley make this colossal error? He wanted to close a budget shortfall and thought that a private company could more easily jack up rates than an elected official likely to anger voters. And he probably believed that $1.16 billion sounded like a whole lot of money.

Wrong. Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot once told this board that the decision was one of the worst public policy mistakes in the history of municipal governance and she was absolutely correct. The investors, if that’s the right term, have recouped that amount within the first 10 years of that 75-year lease. They’ve now made hundreds of million dollars in additional profit. By the end of this deal, they are likely to have raked in a total of $9 billion. 

Urban parking can be a lucrative business, whether working with parking meters or having a parking lot or garage that later becomes a huge development project. Thus, imagine the money the city could have generated by treating the parking meters differently.

This reminds me of at least two bigger picture issues. First, infrastructure and public goods require a long-term view. In the short-term, selling the revenues from these meters may have helped close a budget loophole. However, lots of things can change over 75 years. Will the city need or want parking meters at that point? How much driving will there be? Would a shorter deal leave more flexibility?

Second, Chicago has relied on some public-private partnerships for decades to help keep the city moving forward. While this deal might not appear to be a good one for the city, other projects may appear to be good. How many projects have worked out well? Does the participation of the city or the use of the city’s resources make certain things possible?

I am guessing this deal will serve as an example for years to come. Hopefully some lessons are learned that could lead to some good.

Mapping religious diversity and what it shows for the Chicago region

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Analyzing data from the 2020 U.S. Religion Census shows interesting patterns in religious diversity in the United States and the Chicago region. First, a map of religious diversity across all groups:

There is a good amount of diversity across counties with this measure. The Chicago area is in the middle, leaning toward less diversity by this measure.

Second, putting together all of the Christian traditions under one umbrella leads to a different map of diversity:

The Chicago region is now more diverse with the metropolitan counties generally on the side of more diversity.

Third, a map of different religious traditions:

This helps show the ways the Chicago region is diverse with a number of religious traditions present. Find county by county findings here.

The article has a summary of the larger patterns across the United States:

But if we regard Christianity as a single monolith — lumping all the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and whatnot in one big sacramental wine jug — we find that the most religiously diverse places in America are generally the big cities. The urban Northeast leads the pack.

That’s because if America has a Quran Belt, a Torah Belt or a Bhagavad Gita belt, greater New York City forms its buckle. Almost half of America’s Jews, by synagogue adherence, live in either New York or New Jersey — which also happen to be the second and third most Islamic states, after Illinois. And they’re in the top three for Hindu Americans (along with Delaware). The Buddhists stick to the West Coast (and D.C.).

In other words, religious diversity varies quite a bit by county in the United States with metropolitan regions tending to be more diverse. The Chicago region is in the middle and has a large presence of Catholics.

I saw a sign for “Steeple Storage” – and drew the wrong conclusion

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Fewer churches have steeples. What might a congregation do if they have a steeple but do not want it for the future?

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I recently thought I had found an odd solution to this issue. On a recent drive through Michigan, we passed a business named “Steeple Storage.” I thought they must store steeples. I have never heard of such a thing but perhaps there is some demand for churches to hold on to steeples even if they are no longer on their buildings. Imagine a storage facility you can enter where there are steeples from different traditions and time periods. The steeples are protected for posterity. Perhaps they could be used again later or end up in museums or archives.

Weeks later, it hit me: this business likely does not store steeples. The name might refer to a surname or some other feature of the company’s history. How much demand could there be for storing steeples?

I can see how I got to my first conclusion. I co-authored a book about religious buildings and am always looking for them. In particular, the shift from older architectural styles in religious buildings – including the use of steeples – to newer styles is fascinating.

In this, I was doing a very human thing: trying to find patterns. But, I was likely wrong. I saw a pattern that does not exist. It is not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. And I will hold on to a dream of steeples stored somewhere so that visitors, researchers, and people from the future can see what steeples used to look like.

Imagining a car-free Los Angeles and using the coming Olympics to move that direction

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The city of Carmageddon is interested in hosting a 2028 Summer Olympics with little car use:

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“A no-car Games,” she said.

Doubling down on something she discussed with The Times in April, Bass told reporters at the 2024 Paris Olympics that she envisions expanding public transportation to a point where fans can take trains and buses to dozens of sports venues, from Crypto.com Arena downtown to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood to the beaches of Santa Monica.

“That’s a feat in Los Angeles — we’ve always been in love with our cars,” she said at a news conference Saturday, adding that people “will have to take public transportation to get to all the venues.”

The LA28 organizing committee — a private group charged with staging the Games — prefers to say it is planning a “public-transit-first” Games. Some venues will have ample parking, others will not. Organizers say no one will be told they cannot drive to a competition, but public transportation might be an easier option.

This is a bold vision in a city and region famous for driving, highways, and sprawl. The realism is okay too; trying to do this all in 4 years is a tall task.

But why stop at the Olympics and that several week window? Why not imagine a Los Angeles in ten or twenty years that relies much less on cars? Why not pursue some of the same strategies – working from home, staggered work schedules, more buses – with additional strategies – more mass transit options that do not involve roads, ban planning that does not just keep adding lanes, etc.?

Even if these efforts require the long view and a large amount of resources, the time to start is now. Developing needed infrastructure is costly but pays off down the road. What if the lasting legacy of the Olympics in Los Angeles was not property or stadiums that people do not know what to do with (a common issue in recent Olympic cities) but a new approach to the streetscape and getting around?

Living with a distant view of a big city’s skyscrapers

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My daily life in the suburbs does not provide views of the Chicago skyline. But I do not have to go far to find such views. Here is one recent example looking east from a four story building:

Given the importance of skyscrapers for cities, how do these skylines affect suburbanites? They may provide a reminder of the big city. They may be a landmark or anchor in looking in a particular direction. They could be interesting to view amid changing weather conditions (as I was watching the image above, rain was coming down off and on in between my location and the skyline). They could provide space where a suburban resident works.

Such buildings are relatively rare in the suburbs. There are collections of taller buildings in suburbs, particularly in communities with office parks. This can occur in edge cities where buildings provide hundreds of thousands of square foot of office and retail space near major roadways. But this buildings are rarely 50+ stories and they cannot be seen from as far away as a skyline like Chicago’s.

I think I would enjoy seeing a distant skyline on a regular basis. It might feel less like a looming structure and more like a reminder of the population center nearby. To see multiple tall skyscrapers in one view provides a reminder of the large scale of human activity in the early 21st century.

Rents set by algorithm and how housing prices are set

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New tools allow landlords to set rental prices and this has led to lawsuits:

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Instead of getting together with your rivals and agreeing not to compete on price, you can all independently rely on a third party to set your prices for you. Property owners feed RealPage’s “property management software” their data, including unit prices and vacancy rates, and the algorithm—which also knows what competitors are charging—spits out a rent recommendation. If enough landlords use it, the result could look the same as a traditional price-fixing cartel: lockstep price increases instead of price competition, no secret handshake or clandestine meeting needed…

According to the lawsuits, RealPage’s clients act more like collaborators than competitors. Landlords hand over highly confidential information to RealPage, and many of them recruit their rivals to use the service. “Those kinds of behaviors raise a big red flag,” Maurice Stucke, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and a former antitrust attorney at the Department of Justice, told me. When companies are operating in a highly competitive market, he said, they typically go to great lengths to protect any sensitive information that could give their rivals an edge.

The lawsuits also argue that RealPage pressures landlords to comply with its pricing suggestions—something that would make no sense if the company were merely being paid to offer individualized advice. In an interview with ProPublica, Jeffrey Roper, who helped develop one of RealPage’s main software tools, acknowledged that one of the greatest threats to a landlord’s profits is when nearby properties set prices too low. “If you have idiots undervaluing, it costs the whole system,” he said. RealPage thus makes it hard for customers to override its recommendations, according to the lawsuits, allegedly even requiring a written justification and explicit approval from RealPage staff. Former employees have said that failure to comply with the company’s recommendations could result in clients being kicked off the service. “This, to me, is the biggest giveaway,” Lee Hepner, an antitrust lawyer at the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly organization, told me. “Enforced compliance is the hallmark feature of any cartel.”

The company disputes this description, claiming that it simply offers “bespoke pricing recommendations” and lacks “any power” to set prices. “RealPage customers make their own pricing decisions, and acceptance rates of RealPage’s pricing recommendations have been greatly exaggerated,” the company says.

It will be interesting to see how the courts decide in this area.

I would be curious to hear how this process differs from the way housing prices are determined. The “correct price” does not just emerge. There are a set of actors – such as realtors, appraisers, and websites – that contribute. There are local histories that inform current and future prices. The housing market follows particular patterns and I recommend reading sociologist Elizabeth Korver-Glenn’s 2021 book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America on this topic.

Is the primary difference that there is not a centralized tech source for housing prices? (But maybe there is – how much has Zillow and its Zestimate changed the game?) Or are the new actors viewed with more suspicion than others (tech sector versus realtors)? Or are we in a particular social moment where high costs of housing prompt more questions and thoughts about alternative?

Will “did not vote” once again win the presidential vote in 2024?

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I recently saw a graphic that compared vote totals for president since 1976. Outside of the last election in 2020, there has been a consistent winner:

And “did not vote” often clobbered the candidate who received the higher percentage of the popular vote, often by 10-20%.

What does this mean about “get out the vote” efforts? Is the narrative that “this is the most important election of our lifetime” effective in getting people to vote?

At the least, the presidential election turnout is better than many local elections.

Locating the geographic center of Chicago

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A sign in the McKinley Park neighborhood supposedly marks the geographic center of Chicago. Just one problem: the center shifted several decades ago:

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In 1896, a Tribune article placed the city’s midpoint at West 37th and South Carlton. That address doesn’t exist today, but it’s pretty close to where the modern-day sign is. The discovery that the geographic center was essentially a cow pasture shocked the article’s writers…

The spot is no longer home to a pasture, but it’s still in a quiet, residential neighborhood about 5 miles from The Loop. Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) said it’s special the sign is in a working-class neighborhood like McKinley Park…

But more than 20 years before outgoing Mayor Michael Bilandic presided over a 1979 ceremony declaring the intersection as the city’s geographic center, the city’s annexation of land for O’Hare International Airport had shifted the actual midpoint about 1.5 miles northwest. 

Now, the actual center is between Pilsen and McKinley Park: south of 31st and Western and in the water of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, according to WBEZ Chicago. 

Two thoughts in response:

  1. Geographic centers get relatively little love compared to population centers or social influence centers. Where there is more social, economic, and government activity is likely to be seen as more “central” even if it is not geographically central.
  2. This provides a reminder of the dimensions of the city of Chicago. The geographic center is pulled to this location by the city stretching further to the south than the north.

How about a sign at the true geographic center as well as retaining the sign at the acknowledged geographic center? They could coexist and mark the unique boundaries of the city over time. Imagine a walking trail of geographic centers throughout Chicago’s history.