Category Archives: Sociology

The “world’s longest fast train line” for the day after Christmas: Beijing to Guangzhou in eight hours

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While high speed rail continues to inch along in the United States, China continues to build. A new line opened yesterday connecting Beijing and Guangzhou:

The opening of the 2,298 kilometer (1,428 mile)-line was commemorated by the 9 a.m. departure of a train from Beijing for Guangzhou. Another train left Guangzhou for Beijing an hour later…

Trains on the latest high-speed line will initially run at 300 kph (186 mph) with a total travel time of about eight hours. Before, the fastest time between the two cities by train was more than 20 hours…

More than 150 pairs of high-speed trains will run on the new line every day, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Ministry of Railways.

Railway is an essential part in China’s transportation system, and the government plans to build a grid of high-speed railways with four east-west lines and four north-south lines by 2020.

When I see stories like this about infrastructure in China, I’m struck by three things:

1. The ability to construct these large infrastructure projects is remarkable. I wonder what China will do next. Faster trains? An even bigger rail network?

2. The contrast with transportation options in the United States is interesting. Our equivalent to high-speed trains is an extensive interstate network that connects all major cities. The interstate option plays on several American traits: it was built in the prosperous era after World War II, it allows more freedom for driving (which requires certain incomes and interest in driving), and it allows for more diffuse living patterns (meaning: suburbs).

3. I wish these stories were accompanied by ridership figures. Over 150 pairs of trains a day is impressive and these are two major population centers: Beijing has over 19 million people and Guangzhou has over 12 million people (and perhaps around 40 million in the Pearl River Delta). So are these trains going to be full? How much does it cost? Can the average Chinese resident ride these trains?

From the parking meters of Blade Runner to the parking meters of the future

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This Observation Deck video tackles the futuristic parking meters in Blade Runner that have come to fruition.

Adam Rogers hints at the end what the parking meters of the future might hold. I’m sure drivers would love to get information on their phones about what spots are available (perhaps for a low app price?). However, I wonder about a world where parking meters are not even needed. With the rise of GPS devices in cars and on car operators (through phones, GPS devices, etc.), couldn’t parking be tracked this way rather than through devices planted in the sidewalk? Imagine a world where you as a driver could pull up to an open spot at the curb and later drive away, all the while paying by a mobile transponder that kept track of the time you spent in that spot.

This also briefly reminds me of the fate of parking meters in many suburban communities. While cities still struggle with how to best raise revenues through parking meters or how to maintain and run the system (like with Chicago’s woes in recent years with the privatization of the parking meters), cheap parking at strip malls, shopping malls, and big box stores effectively killed the parking meter. This is unlikely to happen anytime soon in cities where space is at a premium but the contrast is intriguing.

Fighting over the most expensive Christmas tree lot in New York City

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Prices are higher in New York City. This even extends to the cost of renting Christmas tree lots which has led to a battle between two New York City Christmas tree entrepreneurs:

“SoHo Square,” says Scott Lechner, who pays the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation close to $50,000 a year to sell trees here, “is the most expensive site in the world.” He doesn’t sound proud of it.

But Lechner must bid high to stay ahead of his onetime protégé, George P. Smith, who has been on something of a spending spree since he outbid Lechner and took over his Washington Market space in 2007. Smith has also made waves with a huge takeover bid for the Marine Parkway spot in Brooklyn, and has tried to do the same in SoHo and elsewhere.

Smith now has seven locations; Lechner has nine. The two are bitter enemies. Lechner calls Smith an “unsavory individual,” who was “fired by my organization for malfeasance and dishonorable conduct.” (“He hates my guts,” Smith says.)…

The contested Washington Market space — one of 21 the parks department has auctioned off to vendors for the month — was the site, in 1851, of the first urban tree lot in the United States, for which a Catskill woodsman named Mark Carr paid a silver dollar in rent. Today, Smith says he plays close to $30,000 a year for a mere 33 days of sales.

Even in the nation’s most expensive ZIP codes, these rents are, for the moment, somewhat unusual. Rents for many other tree sales sites in the city remain in the low thousands. In 2011, a space on Central Park West was $1,150. DeWitt Clinton Park on West 44th St. was $2,500. Essex Playground, $3,960.

The rest of the story notes that this has been a good thing for the city’s parks department whose is raising more revenue in the competitive bidding for these lots. With many cities facing fiscal issues, I’m sure New York City is happy to have this extra money. Of course, this has repercussions: people buying trees at these lots now pay higher prices.

This could lead to an interesting discussion about whether Christmas trees should be treated more like public goods that shouldn’t be so expensive. For a resident of Manhattan who has no individual vehicle, acquiring a Christmas tree, real or fake, could be a difficult task. This sounds like a more limited market where the consumer is already behind and may not be able to comparison shop much. The average suburbanite, on the other hand, has more options.

This also reminds me of sociologist Mitchell Duneier’s ethnography Sidewalk. Toward the end of the book, Duneier discusses how a family who comes to the city for a month each year to sell Christmas trees is treated much differently than the homeless black men who are street vendors in the community all year long. The contrast is striking: because the tree vendors are white and respectable, local residents interact with them regularly while having more antagonistic relations with the black street vendors. Apparently, getting into the Christmas tree game in New York City takes some major money and this limits who can can sell such goods and participate in community life.

Looking at Seneca Falls, New York, “the real Bedford Falls” in It’s a Wonderful Life

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Social Explorer, a cool tool for looking at demographic data, takes a quick look at the New York community that was the inspiration for Bedford Falls in the holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life:

Producer and director Frank Capra set the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life in the fictional small town of Bedford Falls, NY.  The actual town of Seneca Falls, NY, claims to be Capra’s inspiration.   The town hosts the annual It’s a Wonderful Life Festival and visitors can explore the history at the museum dedicated to the legend…

Back in 1940, Seneca County had 25,732 residents, of whom 99.5 percent were white and 0.5 percent were black.  Nearly a third of the county’s foreign born population (32.0 percent) hailed from Italy, more than both statewide (one fifth) and nationwide (one seventh).  Many foreign born residents also came from Germany (10.2 percent) and England and Wales (9.1 percent).

Today, Seneca County has grown 37.1 percent to 35,285 residents, while the state grew 43.2 percent and the nation grew 133.0 percent.  Seneca County remains predominately white (92.9 percent) with a small but growing black population (4.3 percent).  According to 2006-10 ACS data, today 4.6 percent of the foreign born population comes from Italy.  Larger shares of newcomers come from other countries including Canada (17.4 percent), India (11.2 percent), Laos (6.1 percent), Ukraine (5.1 percent), and Poland (3.6 percent).

The top occupations in 1940 were:

  • Proprietors/Managers/Official (20.9 percent)
  • Craftmen/Foremen/Kindred Workers (16.4 percent)
  • Operatives/Kindred Workers (15.0 percent)
  • Laborers (13.9 percent)

Of the adult residents, 18.2 percent had completed high school (or more) and 3.0 percent had graduated from college, which were both smaller percentages than in the state (22.9 percent and 5.5 percent) and nation (24.1 percent and 4.6 percent).

Sounds like small town life that may not be much different today. The movie seems to provide more information about the “feel” of the community rather than the demographics. George Bailey is trying to build suburban-type homes and is thwarted by the evil banker in the community. By the end of the film, Bailey and other average citizens in the community are shown to be decent people who rally together in times of need. Does this story necessarily line up with the ancestry of the community or the top occupations? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps demography is not narrative destiny in this case. Perhaps the best way to attack this issue would be to compare the demographics of Seneca County in 1940 to other typical small towns and counties and see how “representative” the movie demographics might have been.

Pope: modern society doesn’t leave much room for God

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Pope Benedict’s Christmas Eve mass included this commentary about the role of religion in modern society:

“Do we have time and space for him? Do we not actually turn away God himself? We begin to do so when we have no time for him,” said the pope, wearing gold and white vestments.

“The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent. Our time is already completely full,” he said.

The leader of the world’s some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said societies had reached the point where many people’s thinking processes did not leave any room even for the existence of God.

“Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking, he has to be explained away. If thinking is to be taken seriously, it must be structured in such a way that the ‘God hypothesis’ becomes superfluous,” he said.

“There is no room for him. Not even in our feelings and desires is there any room for him. We want ourselves. We want what we can seize hold of, we want happiness that is within our reach, we want our plans and purposes to succeed. We are so ‘full’ of ourselves that there is no room left for God.”

This sounds like a secularization argument to me: the rational thinking that began off several centuries ago before and during the Enlightenment has squeezed out God. It also reminds me of the 2004 book Sacred and Secular by Norris and Inglehart that suggested the modern welfare state has met more people’s daily needs so there is less need for God.

Additionally, the Pope also suggests modern technologies that offered to help make our lives more efficient now just take up more of our time. Is the Pope simply a crank from an older generation or is this prescient commentary about the downsides of technology millions the world over have adopted?

Selling car insurance by the mile

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The idea of replacing the gas tax with a tax by miles driven is being tested so what about car insurance by the mile? One company has introduced the concept in Portland:

You wouldn’t buy an unlimited fare card if you only took a few transit rides per month, but when it comes to car insurance that’s pretty much how things work. Drivers who are similar in age, gender, and residence pay about the same premium even if some drive 5,000 miles a year and others 50,000 miles. The problem is not only that low-mileage drivers end up subsidizing high-mileage ones — it’s that everyone has an incentive to drive as much as they can.

One idea to undercut this system is pay-per-mile car insurance. Earlier this month at The Atlantic, Matthew O’Brien explained (via this 2008 Brookings report; PDF) just how much America stands to save with such a service. Driving would fall 8 percent nationally; oil usage and carbon emissions would drop 2 and 4 percent, respectively; fewer traffic and accidents could be worth upwards of $60 billion a year.

Since city residents have transportation alternatives at their disposal, they’re likely to benefit from mileage-based systems more than most. That’s the basic idea behind MetroMile, a new per-mile car insurance company that launched earlier this month in Portland, Oregon. While conventional car insurance companies dabble in mileage programs, MetroMile was created explicitly with that low-car lifestyle urban driver in mind — even down to the name…

MetroMile users receive a device called a Metronome (sadly, the “N” isn’t capitalized) that plugs into the car and tracks mileage in real-time. Drivers pay a monthly base rate that’s around $20-30, says Pretre, then pay 2 to 6 additional cents per mile. He says anyone driving fewer than 10,000 miles a year should start to save, and once you get down to 8,000 miles, the savings approach 20 to 25 percent over major car insurers…

While it makes sense to introduce this in Portland or a number of other dense cities where mass transit usage or alternatives to driving are common, would this work as well in the suburbs? Would the costs of paying car insurance be enough to prompt people to change their living patterns? Maybe it depends on how much cheaper that car insurance could be or perhaps the quest for the cheaper house that provides more bang for the buck would still win out.

The 2008 Brookings report cited above titled “Pay-As-You-Drive Auto Insurance: A Simple Way to Reduce Driving-Related Harms and Increase Equity” makes an interesting point: increased driving is related to increased income (see page 10 and 40). In other words, Americans who have the money to do so drive more. This helps explain the reluctance of higher-income Americans to use buses.

Opposition to permanent supportive housing for the mentally ill in the Chicago suburbs

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With the public discussion of mental illness in recent days, here is a look at trying to build housing for the mentally ill in the Chicago suburbs:

She would like to find a place close by, a place that’s affordable, a place that would provide independence and easy access to needed social services.

But local social service agencies and advocacy groups say that kind of housing — often referred to as permanent supportive housing — is rare in the suburbs…

Chicago-based Daveri Development Group, with help from agencies like the North/Northwest Suburban Task Force on Supportive Housing for Individuals with Mental Illness, has submitted three proposals during the past several years for supportive-housing developments in the suburbs — one in Arlington Heights, one in Mount Prospect and one in Wheeling.

Mount Prospect leaders approved Daveri’s plan in November 2011. That project, known as Myers Place, is expected to open at Dempster Street and Busse Road in the spring or summer of 2013.

The other two proposals, after encountering stiff resistance from neighbors, were rejected.

Many critics of those plans said the same basic thing: good concept, bad location.

The article goes on to talk about how several of these cases have gone to court. Despite the claims of opponents that their reactions are not based on fear, it is hard not to see this as a NIMBY situation: suburbanites living in typical subdivisions wouldn’t want such facilities near them. Saying it is a zoning issue sidesteps the problem; zoning is all about making sure different uses don’t mix and is often wielded in suburbs to protect more exclusive residential neighborhoods.

This leads to an interesting dilemma: what if the average suburbanite thinks such facilities would be good for helping deal with mental illness but no one wants to live near them?

Tradeoff between making a stricter energy code for new homes and higher costs for buyers

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While there is growing interest in more energy efficient homes, this doesn’t come without an upfront cost. This is illustrated by the debate in Illinois about how much new energy standards might add to the costs of new homes:

A new statewide building energy code that takes effect Jan. 1 strives to make homes more comfortable and residential energy bills less costly by making the building’s “envelope” tighter. The adoption of a substantial amount of the International Energy Conservation Code for homes puts Illinois at the forefront of such efforts among states.

But the updates to the building energy code, required by state law every three years, have not been without controversy. While proponents say the changes will increase the cost of a new home from $958 to $1,775 in Illinois, or about $1,500 in the Chicago area, detractors of the new rules peg that Chicago-area cost increase at $4,600, a sum they say will price some first-time buyers out of the market…

The changes won’t be obvious, and even the code’s proponents agree the upgrades in energy efficiency won’t be as easy to market to consumers as, say, granite countertops and crown molding.

They include upgraded insulation in attics and basements, more energy-efficient windows, upgraded bathroom vent fans, the use of some high-efficiency lights, insulated hot water lines to kitchens and air sealing around furnaces…

Supporters of the changes say consumers living in a Chicago-area home of 2,400 square feet with a basement should save an estimated $350 a year on their energy costs, compared with the current building regulations.

If these estimates about savings each year are correct, these code changes would be worthwhile over the the full lifetime of a home. However, how many homebuyers take this long perspective? In a mobile country, how many would be willing to pay upfront for costs from which they may not personally benefit?

This seems like the classic dilemma about a number of green products in the United States: will people pay upfront for savings down the road? It will be interesting to see how builders try to sell these code upgrades , massage the price points of home to account for these new costs, and also try to appeal to greener buyers overall.

Patterns in “the most cited works in sociology, 2012 edition”

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According to Neal at Scatterplot, here are the most cited sociological books and articles of 2012:

top25_2012

This is an interesting list. Three of the patterns in the data:

So, one in 33 articles cites Distinction. The majority at the top of the list are books along with a pair each from AJS, ASR and the Annual Review, along with one article from Social Forces. The authors and titles are truncated by Web of Science, so don’t blame me. Remember that the lists only counts citations in this group of sociology journals, so being famous in other worlds doesn’t get you on the list.

Fun fact: 2/3 of things that were cited last year were only cited once, and 95% of things cited were cited less than five times. And, unless one of your articles was cited nine or more times in one of these journals last year, you can consider yourself, like me, one of the 99%.

One thing that struck me was how old everything  on this top list was. The median publication year in the top 100 was 1992. Of the top 100, only one piece was published in the last five years.

A few other things stuck out to me from this list:

1. The list involves a number of big name sociologists. I assume they became big names because of the quality of their work, such as in the pieces cited here, but how much could it be that the works are cited more because they came from big names? There is some interesting work that could be done here with individual pieces to look at patterns of citations and how works become well-known.

2. There are several more methodological pieces on the list. The Raudenbush and Bryk 2002 book involves hierarchical linear modeling, a technique that uses multiple equations to nest individual cases within larger groups (like students within schools in the sociology of education). The Strauss and Glaser 1967 book is about the basics of grounded theory, a technique that has been adopted across a variety of qualitative studies. The Steensland et al. 2000 piece is about developing the measure RELTRAD which more effectively categorizes Americans into religious traditions. These methodological works have wide applications and were influential across a variety of subfields.

3. Could we interpret a list like this as one that tell us the “classic works” of sociology today? Could we hand a list like this to undergraduate majors or graduate students and tell them that this is what they need to know to understand the broader field? One way to check on this would be to compare the top cited works year to year to see how much the list changes and how consistently important these works are. Presumably, new works will be added to the list over time but this may not happen quickly.