Category Archives: Sociology

The cold infrastructure behind America’s food supply

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Alexis Madrigal provides an overview of the cold storage that makes modern America’s food supply possible:

At least 70 percent of the food we eat each year passes through or is entirely dependent on the cold chain for its journey from farm to fork, including foods that, on the surface, seem unlikely candidates for refrigeration,” Twilley writes in introducing her show…

These systems, by design and necessity, exist away from the cities, and even when they’re within cities, away from where the people are. You don’t see them unless you work there, and if you work there, you generally don’t get to tell the stories of the landscape in the popular press.

To venture into infrastructural space is not just to leave the Beltway or the New York media world behind, but to come to know entirely different networks. The nodes on the map are different: Oakland and Richmond, not San Francisco; Long Beach and Hueneme, not LA; Newark and Wilmington, not New York.

In these geographies, the physical reasons people have long chosen certain locations retain their purchase: proximity to resources and markets, water access, transportation access, grid access. Take Allentown, Pennsylvania. It features a logistics hub “where U.S. Foods, Americold, Millard Refrigerated Services, Kraft, Ocean Spray, and others all maintain facilities,” thanks to its “location at the intersection of I-78, I-476, and several East Coast railway lines. It is also close to major urban markets in the north-east corridor–but not so close that the land is expensive.”…

My point here is that this is another America. And it’s neither the pastoral, wholesome family farm of Iowa political campaigns and Wendell Berry poems nor the dense Creative Class preserves where the nation’s bloggers and TV producers live. Almost no one tells the stories of these places.

It sounds like our current food supply is very dependent on several factors that get little attention. A distribution network that efficiently gets food from source to shelves. A transportation system, primarily trucks and railroad, that links this all together. An army of workers in both blue-collar and white-collar jobs that make this all possible. A geographic system/map that doesn’t line up with the global cities of the United States.

Another question to ask is whether it matters much if Americans know this tale of where their food travels. Some have powerfully argued yes in recent years, suggesting knowing this information and being able to make choices based on it is linked to sustainability and enjoyment. On the other hand, many Americans seem happily ignorant of the infrastructure that makes much of their food possible and only care if something goes wrong.

Using suburban homes for film shoots

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The Daily Herald describes what happens when suburban homes are chosen for film shoots:

Directors of Hollywood movies, TV shows, commercials and national print ads regularly use suburban homes as locations for filming and photo shoots. Just a few weeks ago, scenes from the movie “Precious Mettle,” starring Paul Sorvino and Fiona Dourif, were shot at homes in Naperville and Aurora…They will add the photos to their online database and show them to prospective directors. Because they have thousands of homes in their database, the odds of being chosen are slim. But you never know what a director is looking for, and there’s growing demand for suburban-styled homes, said longtime location scout Oryna Schiffman, based in Elmhurst.

“Since the recession started, I’ve been getting less and less requests for your typical North Shore mansions. They say, ‘I want real people who live in real houses,'” said Schiffman, who accepts photos at oryna@me.com. “You never know what they’re going to ask for next.”…

However, there is a downside to offering up your home. Filming and photo shoots can disrupt your routine, your sleep, and possibly your neighborhood. Movie crews, especially, tend to completely take over an area with trailers and equipment. Homeowners usually get short notice about the shoots and need to hastily sign off on the legal paperwork.

While most film crews are respectful of people’s property (and often contractually obligated to return it to its original condition), paint sometimes gets chipped and things get broken or banged up. That’s why it’s important to get things in writing before the filming begins.

Of course, the article starts with a story of a family who was paid $12,000 for giving up their home for six days for a print advertisement shoot. There may be quite a few suburbanites who would relish such an opportunity.

The quote that directors are looking for “real homes” is interesting. The suggestion here is that with tighter economic times, people want to see more normal homes while during more economic prosperous times people like seeing bigger homes. When they arrive at a home, how much do they take the home as is or they change it up to suit their filming needs? Plus, how often is the tone of the commercial, TV show, film, or advertisement that the suburban home needs improving or there is something to critique? On one hand, there are a lot of critics of suburban tract homes but they are apparently useful for marketing and some artistic purposes.

Keeping chickens at McMansions

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Here is an explanation of recent efforts to allow raising chickens in Stonington, Connecticut, an area known for things like McMansions:

Having chickens in the back yard was fairly common when I was growing up in the ‘50s in Westport, Conn.

We kept a flock and so did our neighbors, who eventually had nine children. At the time, chicken feed came in cloth sacks with calico print patterns and we girls often wore summery skirts my mother made us all from the repurposed material.

Westport has changed a lot. Most people equate it now with movie stars, Martha Stewart and McMansions. What hasn’t altered is its acceptance of backyard chickens…

In Stonington, it takes three acres – to have two chickens. Legally.

Certainly, there are many chickens living under the radar here. But why not make them legal? And why not let more people “share the joys of chicken keeping?”…

Like Westporters – and in a growing number of communities around the country — those who wished could gather the freshest possible eggs from a backyard coop, use the poop for fertilizer, reduce the number of ticks and other insects in their yards, feed their flocks kitchen scraps and add another piece of self-sufficiency to their lives.

This discussion about raising chickens has occurred in numerous American communities in recent years, particularly with more people interested in knowing where their food came from as well as cutting costs in light of the recession. But, can chickens and McMansions go together?

1. McMansions are generally associated with wealth and higher property values. Chickens might eat into the image.

2. McMansions are sometimes associated with big houses on smaller lots. This doesn’t necessarily leave much room for keeping animals or having large gardens or doing much at all with the yard.

3. Allowing chickens might help improve the image of McMansions with critics. One big criticism of the homes is that they are not environmentally friendly. Imagine big homes making space for free range chickens, having green roofs, being powered by solar panels or geothermal sources, or being very energy efficient (passive homes or net zero energy homes). Perhaps chickens (and other livestock?) could help McMansions be more green.

In the end, fighting over allowing homeowners to keep chickens mirrors the debate over McMansions themselves: how much latitude should individual homeowners have with their own property?

Houston a relatively unknown city despite being the 4th biggest in the US

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An interesting profile of Houston as the “next great American city” includes this bit about how the city is viewed:

If nothing else, the Kinder Institute’s reports underscore how little the country really knows about Houston. Is it, as most New Yorkers and Californians assume, a cultural wasteland? “The only time this city hits the news is when we get a hurricane!” complains James Harithas, director of the Station Museum of Contemporary Art. “People have no idea.” Its image in the outside world is stuck in the 1970s, of a Darwinian frontier city where business interests rule, taxation and regulation are minimal, public services are thin and the automobile is worshiped. “This was boomtown America,” says Klineberg of the giddy oil years. “While the rest of the country was in recession, we were seen as wealthy, arrogant rednecks, with bumper stickers that read, ‘Drive 70 and freeze a Yankee.’” Today, he adds, “Houston has become integrated into the U.S. and global economies, but we still like to think we’re an independent country. We contribute to the image!”

Several thoughts about Houston’s profile:

1. Part of the issue may be that Houston is trying to join the group of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles that has been set for decades. Houston is the newcomer and perhaps besides oil, doesn’t yet have the broad appeal these other three have. Plus, these top three are world-class cities, top ten global cities, and that comparison can be harsh.

2. It sounds like Houston could benefit from a strengthened booster campaign. Cities often have to sell themselves and their assets. This requires business, civic, and political leaders (the growth machine) to band together behind some common appeals. What might draw people to Houston? What would attract businesses and tourists?

3. I wonder if there is some conflict between being part of Texas and being from Houston. From the outside, perhaps particularly from the coasts, it is easier to lump all of Texas together, even though it has a variety of communities (some big differences between Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio). Additionally, Texans tend to like to play up the uniqueness of their state. Compare this to cities like Chicago where there is a very sharp divide between the metropolitan region and “downstate.” Perhaps Houston needs more of a city-state mentality to separate it from Texas.

Just how much should McMansions cost?

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Curbed San Francisco asks whether a McMansion in the city should sell for $2.16 million. The pictures are interesting and here are a few more details on the home:

The big abode was built in 2011 and features things like “5 luxurious baths” (one of which is photographed with an awkward looking dog in it) and too much recessed lighting. In fact, there’s too much of everything. Too much moulding, too much granite, too large rooms. The 5-bed, 5-bath home clocks in at 4,487 square feet and is asking $2,160,000, which is way more than half of the neighborhood average list price of $869,500.

The main argument here, both in the post and in the comments, appears to be that the home is priced too high compared to the neighborhood in which it is located. Prices for real estate, of course, are relative. But, this could lead to a larger question: how much do McMansions cost? It is assumed that McMansions are big so they will cost a lot. But, just as I have argued that at some point the square footage of a home makes it a mansion rather than a McMansion (perhaps around 7-8,000 square feet?), is there a price point where the mass produced McMansion becomes something only for the wealthy? In addition to being big, another trait of McMansion is that they are more mass produced in terms of architecture and design. Yet, how many Bay Area residents could afford a $2.16 million home? I’m not sure exactly where this price point for a McMansion versus a mansion is, particularly in expensive markets like San Francisco, but there is a line somewhere.

NIMBY reactions in Chicago suburbs to possible marijuana dispensaries

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With a medical marijuana bill in the works in Illinois, some Chicago suburbs are trying to prepare for marijuana dispensaries:

In anticipation of the law, the Lake County Municipal League plans a seminar July 18 addressing how to handle the issue. Several suburbs, including Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Carpentersville, Deerfield, Highland Park and Libertyville, have taken preliminary steps to determine where marijuana facilities could locate…

Fox Lake took steps to limit marijuana facilities to its manufacturing areas, away from the downtown and residential areas.

“No one on the board is opposed to medical marijuana,” Mayor Donny Schmit said. “Everybody knows someone who’s had cancer or suffered eye disease. We just wanted an area where (suspicious) traffic would be noticed.”…

The proposed Illinois law would limit access to medical marijuana to patients 18 and older. Marijuana facilities would have to be at least 1,000 feet from schools, and smoking marijuana would be forbidden in public places and motor vehicles…

“Do you want your home next to a marijuana dispensary?” he said. “I wouldn’t. At least our communities would be protected to the fullest extent we can.”

It will be fascinating to see how more suburbs respond to this. Even if the facilities are legal, many residents, particularly in places with higher property values, will not want to live near such facilities and communities will not to have them prominently featured in their business and civic areas. At the same time, this is a different issue than many NIMBY concerns like landfills or prisons or manufacturing facilities – the medical marijuana law is intended to help sick people. Does having a medical marijuana dispensary nearby lower property values? Is it an eyesore on the level with tattoo parlors?

Might the tide turn if there was some local sales tax money that could be collected from each facility?

Narratives built around the sociological “small world theory” of social networks

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A review of a new novel highlights recent ideas in the sociological analysis of social networks:

In sociology, the “small world theory” holds that any two people can be connected to one another along a chain of no more than a few acquaintances (typically six, the fabled “six degrees of separation”). Though the research behind it is at best contentious, there’s something deeply appealing about its logic-defying simplicity, something exciting about what it implies. In a world that can seem vast and alienating, the idea that we’re all much closer than it seems is, at first glance, comforting. The flip side is that our influence may extend further than we realize.

In his second novel, “The Illusion of Separateness,” Simon Van Booy presents a cast of characters who have had a profound effect on one another’s lives, yet cannot see the bonds that link them. He divides his book into six separate narratives, each following a different character through different eras, from the Second World War to the present: Martin, a retirement home caretaker; Mr. Hugo, a disfigured Wehrmacht veteran; Sébastien, a lovelorn young boy; John, whose B-24 bomber is shot out of the sky over France; Amelia, a blind museum curator and John’s granddaughter; and Danny, a budding filmmaker. Van Booy presents their stories in a nonlinear fashion, shifting back and forth from character to character, decade to decade.

Van Booy’s premise — that we are all linked in ways we may not fully understand, and that our smallest actions can have a significant effect on the lives of others — is fairly banal, and its execution verges on overly sentimental. He builds to the scenes in which his characters cross paths with great ceremony, yet these intersections are the book’s weakest moments. While the plot seems to aspire to present an overarching sense of meaning, Van Booy never quite drives it home. For some, the significance is inscrutable, as when John and Mr. Hugo engage in a tense, but ultimately inconsequential standoff in a field in war-torn France. Others, like when Martin cradles the dying Mr. Hugo in the book’s opening pages, seem like contrivances meant to give the narrative the appearance of structure and meaning.

For more popular descriptions of recent sociological research on this topic, see Six Degrees by Duncan Watts, Connected by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, and Linked by Barabasi (a physicist who covers a lot of ground).

This kind of narrative involving interweaving stories is not new. It seems to be popular in movies in the last 10-15 years – I’m thinking of films like Crash, Love Actually, and others that make use of intersecting characters. This leads to two thoughts:

1. Is this a good instance of social science discoveries, that social networks influence people without their knowledge, influencing popular culture? It could be relatively easy to track whether this is a new kind of plot or whether it has a longer history.

2. The reviewer suggests that while the author has impressive prose, the overall structure of the story is lacking. Since we do indeed live in social worlds strongly influenced by social networks, how can that be effectively translated into a compelling narrative? Going back to the movies I mentioned above, those intersecting storylines involved quite a bit of individual or small group interaction by the end of the movie. In contrast, this book seems to be going for a more disconnected set of stories. Setting up the structure of a social network narrative likely involves balancing the connections alongside the individual interactions that tend to characterize and propel narratives.

Building Gulf Coast houses on 10-20 foot stilts

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Federal regulations regarding building on flood areas on the Gulf Coast have led to a new kind of up-in-the-air house:

I’ve visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast at odd intervals since Hurricane Katrina struck almost eight years ago, and have been keeping tabs on an emerging architectural typology. Ordinary suburban-style neocolonials and ranch houses are being jacked up on sturdy wooden or concrete piers ten or 20 feet in the air, the heights dictated by the Base Flood Elevation set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and enforced by insurance companies. These houses fascinate me because most of them make few concessions to the fact that they’re not built at grade. They look as if someone has played a cruel joke on the owners, as if the family had gone out to dinner and come back to find their house out of reach…

I know a little about the prehistory of these houses. About six weeks after Katrina, the then-governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, invited New Urbanist architect supreme Andrés Duany to bring pretty much everyone he knew to Biloxi to envision a rebirth of the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast. The Mississippi Renewal Forum, as it was called, filled a giant ballroom of the Isle of Capri casino with some 200 industrious, inspired architects, planners, and engineers, all champions of pedestrian-oriented development.

But after several feverish days of dream-ing up antebellum casinos and neoclassical Walmarts, reality intruded. In the wee hours of day four, the conference leadership received the newest flood maps for the Gulf Coast from FEMA, and they showed Base Flood Elevations that were five to ten feet higher than those the designers had been working with. In the Velocity Zones, areas most likely to be impacted by a storm surge, the lowest habitable floor of a home suddenly had to be 21 feet in the air.

“I think the problem is totally recalibrating the aesthetic,” Duany said, leading an emergency meeting. “It’s not taking antebellum houses and cranking them up. The aesthetic has more to do with lighthouses.” While others in the room pointed out the political and economic ramifications of the flood map—some towns might not be able to rebuild at all, poor people would be driven off the coast for good—Duany was nonchalant. “It will be like Tahiti,” he said. “Totally cool.”

It is worth reading the rest as it discusses how such stilted homes make it really difficult to have the close community life desired by New Urbanists. On one hand, I imagine some sort of community will develop if all the homes share the same fate. At the least, they all become known as the people who live in the odd houses. On the other hand, being so high in the air may reinforce the notion that Americans care more about their private spaces – within their homes – than street life and the community.

One odd bonus of a home so far in the air: imagine the size of the vehicle that could fit below.

Los Angeles neighborhood group has a comprehensive set of arguments against McMansions

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A neighborhood group in Beverly Grove, Los Angeles is fighting mansionization and McMansions. Here are a few highlights:

-A definition from the front page: “Mansionization replaces older homes with houses that are out of scale with the homes around them. These oversize houses deprive neighbors of light, air, and privacy. They spoil the character of established neighborhoods.”

-From the page “Why Garages Count“:

Current LA City code excludes the first 400 sq ft of attached garages from the Floor Area Ratio (FAR). But the case for including that square footage is solid:  -Attached garages would not be prohibited, they would simply count towards the FAR calculation. -Attached garages add bulk to homes, eliminate the buffer of a driveway, and spoil the character of older neighborhoods.- Most people do not park in their garages. Excluding attached garage space from the FAR encourages bigger houses but does little to relieve street congestion.

-From the page “Mansionization myths and fallacies“:

 They say the city has no right to set limits on their property rights.

But the city’s zoning code does just that:  It balances individual rights and community responsibility.   And good zoning promotes compatible development.

They say the RFA will stop local residents from remodeling or rebuilding. 

But the RFA absolutely allows remodeling and rebuilding.  It just sets reasonable size limits.

They say the RFA will discriminate against large families that need large houses. 

But the RFA will allow spacious 3,000 sq ft homes that do not put a burden on their neighbors.

-From the “Debunking Green McMansions” page:

New York might have alligators roaming its sewer system, but LA can now boast of its own urban legend: “green” McMansions.  Yes, that’s right; in Los Angeles, McMansions, those boxy, oversized, energy-demanding suburban houses plopped into the middle of older neighborhoods are officially considered to be sustainable development.

How could this be?  After all, McMansions require huge amounts of energy to assemble their building materials and move them to job site.  Furthermore, the houses themselves are massive, which means enormous heating and air conditioning bills, even if their windows are double-paned, their walls padded with extra insulation, and their restaurant-sized refrigerators and stoves Energy Star rated.

Then we need to consider their multiple bathrooms and heated outdoor pools and spas, the most energy intensive features of modern houses.

Other McMansion features also have their detrimental environmental effects.  During demolition they release dust and asbestos into the air.  After construction, their large patios, pools, spas, and double driveways reduce natural open space.  Combined with their elimination of parkway trees and landscaping for driveway cuts, the cumulative result is a heat island with less penetration of rainwater.

Last, but certainly not least, we need to factor in their transportation system.  All McMansions are built on single-family residential lots located away from bus stops and transit stations.  This is why McMansion residents rely on their cars to get around; the only difference being that most of their vehicles are large, thirsty SUVs.

-And some photos of the McMansions in the neighborhood.

The full site seems to have a fairly comprehensive set of arguments against McMansions. Now, it remains to be seen whether this rhetoric is persuasive…

Bike sharing programs in Chicago, NYC, Boston, Washington D.C. skew white

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The Chicago Tribune looked at the locations of the new Divvy bike sharing stations in Chicago and found overall they were more accessible to white residents:

By design, the Emanuel administration’s freshly launched Divvy bike-sharing network is centered in crowded neighborhoods. But one byproduct of the strategy is that the new transportation alternative is far more convenient for white residents than those who are black or brown, a Tribune analysis shows…

Federal and local taxpayers bankrolled $22.5 million in seed money for the bicycle system, but to thrive and eventually expand it needs to quickly attract a solid customer base and demonstrate financial viability…

Nearly half of all whites in the city live within a short walking distance — a quarter mile or less — of spots the city has designated for bike rental and drop-off, according to the analysis, which overlaid census data on the locations announced for Divvy stations.

By comparison, fewer than 19 percent of Latinos and nearly 16 percent of African-Americans live within a quarter mile of the bike stations, the data show…

In New York, nearly three times the size of Chicago, about 20 percent of white residents but only 8 percent of blacks and Latinos live within a quarter mile of a docking station for that city’s new Citi Bike system, the Tribune found. The two-year-old Hubway system in the Boston area puts a docking station within a quarter mile of 44 percent of the white population, but just 26 percent of Hispanics and 19 percent of blacks.

The proximity gap closes somewhat in the Washington, D.C., area, where the Capital Bikeshare system places a docking station within easy one-quarter mile reach of half of all white residents, 44 percent of Hispanics and 31 percent of African-Americans, according to the newspaper’s analysis.

A recent user survey released by Capital Bikeshare concluded that not only are 80 percent of the responding customers white, but nearly six in 10 are men, nearly two-thirds are under 35 years of age, 95 percent have an undergraduate college degree and 56 percent have a postgraduate degree.

Are bike sharing programs a new strategy for attracting or retaining young professional males in cities? Is bike sharing primarily a program aimed at the Creative Class and tourists? This would not be surprising as plenty of cities are looking to expand their downtown populations of young professionals.

It would be interesting to hear more about the process that went into locating the bike stations in Chicago. How exactly did the city try to balance population figures with economic figures? Now that I think about, we tend not to hear such insider information from Chicago…

Another thought: why not also map the bike locations by social class? Even for whites, are the bikes located more in upper-end neighborhoods or are they aimed at the working class?