Category Archives: Sociology

The Rust Belt as potential “climate refuge”

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If climate change prompts people to move, could the Rust Belt provide good places to live?

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Gibbons, who now works at the climate consulting firm Farallon Strategies, sees Michigan’s future in the Californians unsettled by wildfire. Those people are going to move somewhere. And so they should be persuaded to come to Michigan, she says, before they move to places like Phoenix or Austin. The Great Lakes region should market itself as a climate refuge, she thinks, and then build an economy that makes use of its attributes: the value of its water, its land, its relative survivability. In her vision, small northern cities, invigorated by growing populations, somehow manage to blossom into bigger, greener, cleaner ones.

“There’s no future in which many, many people don’t head here,” Gibbons told me. The only question is whether “we don’t just end up being surprised by it.” And so Gibbons wants to see the Great Lakes states recruit people from around the country, as they did during the Great Migration. Back then, recruiters spread across the South to convince Black people there that opportunity awaited them in the factories of the North: That’s what helped make Ypsilanti.

Internal migration has shaped the United States before, such as in the Great Migration cited here and the move of many West in different waves. But, has decades of decline in an entire region been reversed by internal migration?

Later in the article we read that some residents would not be thrilled with the idea of lots of outsiders moving in. I wonder how this might play out. Take a city like Detroit. Once one of the most populous American cities, the city lost hundreds of thousands of residents. The city’s status has dropped precipitously. Lots of people moving in could change things but don’t Americans tend to see population growth as a sign of health and vitality?

One last thought: would Rust Belt communities be willing to offer climate-related incentives to further entice people to move? A number of American communities already offer incentives. Imagine a “green moving package” that provides some assistance in finding affordable housing and work with limited climate impact.

We need solutions to continued low turnout – less than 20% – in Illinois elections

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The primary elections earlier this week in Illinois excited few voters:

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Though thousands of properly postmarked mail-in ballots are still being tallied through April 2, state election officials believe it will be hard to crack 20%.

Unofficial results from the 20 most populated voting jurisdictions in Illinois — which represent more than 81% of all voters in the state — show less than 17% voter turnout combined.

Turnout tallies in the suburbs remain below 20% as well, with Lake County currently showing only 11.7% of registered voters cast a ballot.

Why so few voters?

“Most of the races were completely uncontested, with just one contested county board race on the Democratic side,” said Lake County Clerk Anthony Vega. “That lack of motivation could have resulted in voters not coming out.”

With that lack of choice, combined with the fact that Democratic President Joe Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump had all but secured their nominations ahead of Tuesday’s vote, low turnout was inevitable, experts said.

These are plausible reasons. Yet, I have heard little about significant solutions. Such options could come from multiple angles: local officials, voters, advocacy groups, the state government, employers, civic organizations, etc. Illinois may face serious problems in numerous areas but this strikes me as one that affects numerous others and is foundational for the supposed American system of government.

The one feature of this I think about is the ways that the suburbs grew, in part, because Americans like being closer to local government. Compared to big cities, states, and the federal government, a suburban resident can more easily interact with local officials and local government activity. But, if people do not even want to vote for those local measures – and there is a suggestion in this article that local referendums might have pushed voter turnout up a few percentage points – then this interest in or connection to local government may be severed.

A Japanese experimental city to test self-driving vehicles and other new tech

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A new community being built by Toyota offers opportunities to test self-driving cars:

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First announced in 2021, Toyota has been hard at work constructing their Woven City just miles away from Mount Fuji on the island of Honshū, with the first of 2,000 anticipated residents now expected to move in before the end of the year. 

News of the project’s imminent completion comes not long after photos were shared of progress being made on Saudi Arabia’s behemoth ‘mirror city’ project The Line, though they’re hardly the only megacities currently under construction around the world. 

Marketed as a ‘mass human experiment’, Woven City will provide a ‘living laboratory’ for Toyota to test prototypes of their renewable and energy-efficient self-driving vehicles, dubbed ‘E-palettes’.

The car manufacturer expects to gather data from the use of these driverless cars, guided by sensors in lights, buildings and roads across the city…

Woven City is also expected to feature ‘smart homes’ running almost entirely on hydrogen, reducing emissions so that the futuristic habitation, with its whopping price tag of £7.8 billion, will be as sustainable and eco-friendly as possible.

Imagine a future email that reads like this: “You are invited to live in a new brand-new community built and owned by [megacorporation name]. You have an exciting opportunity to be part of a new community featuring all sorts of innovative technologies. In exchange for a reduced rent, you will participate in testing numerous new technologies that have the potential to improve the world and our profits (wait they would not say this second part). All your experiences outside of your residence are subject to use by the company.”

How many people would take this opportunity? Given that people so freely give up their information for social media, wouldn’t an enticement of cheaper housing prove attractive? And you get to try out new technology? It may be a company town – but it is one with benefits (at least, according to the company).

It would also be interesting to see what would need to change in terms of local governments and zoning to make such a community possible.

What if a significant portion of residents and leaders want to provide lots of public money for stadiums?

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Plenty of professional sports teams owners have been in the news recently asking for public money to fund sports stadiums. I am against such funding (see examples here and here) as the benefits tend to primarily go to the owners.

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But, what if plenty of people want to give this money to teams for stadiums? What if they value sports? What if they see this as a good use of public resources?

Those who argue against stadiums may pitch it another way. Here is an example looking at the recent request by the Kansas City Chiefs for public money. How is the Chiefs’ owner thinking about the fans?

The Chiefs are hoping, it seems, that voters are either very dumb or very scared.

This is an easy story to go with: the wealthy team owner is threatening the people. Out of fear or not knowing the full situation (the team has limited options, the money tends to enrich owners, etc.), residents and leaders will go along with it. If fear can be reduced or ignorance limited, people would oppose these proposals.

Is there another possibility? Some people like the Chiefs, think they are good for the community, and want to give them public money. They hear the opposing point of view and disagree with it. They would rather spend public money this way. Americans tend to like sports and spectacles.

In many ways, this is not just about sports and wealthy owners. These are civic questions about the public good, how money should be spent, and how we collectively make these decisions. People with all sorts of perspectives will try to persuade each other. And the fate of future sports stadiums and communities depends on these processes.

Are falling housing and rent prices good or bad for a community?

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The cost of housing in Austin, Texas has recently fallen. Is this good or bad in the long run for the city? Some details on the falling prices:

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Home prices and apartment rents in Austin, Texas, have fallen more than anywhere else in the country, after a period of overbuilding and a slowdown in job and population growth. 

That marks a sharp reversal from previous years when Austin’s real-estate market was sizzling. The city attracted waves of remote workers on six-figure tech salaries. Others arrived after companies such as Tesla and Oracle moved offices there, taking advantage of lower taxes and less business regulation. Austin’s economy grew at nearly double the national rate, and it became the country’s 10th-largest city. 

Now, it is contending with a glut of luxury apartment buildings. Landlords are offering weeks of free rent and other concessions to fill empty units. More single-family homes are selling at a loss. Empty office space is also piling up downtown, and hundreds of Google employees who were meant to occupy an entire 35-story office tower built almost two years ago still have no move-in date. 

On one hand, falling prices are good news for residents. Housing is more affordable. People have more options. Getting in to better housing can mean better day-to-day experiences plus the opportunity to develop wealth.

On the other hand, falling prices mean less demand for development. This could mean slower population growth. Status is tied to population and interest actors have in snatching up properties. Tax revenues will be lower than they could be if property values do not shoot up.

Many American communities experience this tension. Property owners want values to go up. They do not necessarily want to pay higher taxes with these rising values but they will be happy when they sell the properties. More people want housing at reasonable prices. But, relatively few people want to live in places known for low housing values or people may not want to live in places where property values do not go up.

Who suburban leaders say affordable housing is for – another example

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Federal money will help in constructing a new affordable housing apartment building in suburban Glen Ellyn. Who might live there?

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Chicago-based nonprofit Full Circle Communities is seeking to build an apartment complex with up to 42 units. The developer would set aside no less than 30% of the units as permanent supportive housing for people with disabilities under the terms of an agreement to purchase a portion of the village-owned property.

U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez requested federal dollars for demolition and site remediation work to make room for the proposed affordable housing project. Ramirez, whose 3rd Congressional District runs from Chicago’s Northwest Side into DuPage County, announced the funding at a news conference with Glen Ellyn Village President Mark Senak and other elected officials last week.

Affordable housing allows “senior members of our communities to stay close to their families so that grandparents can see their grandchildren,” Senak said, echoing remarks he made at a village board meeting last month.

“It gives adults with developmental disabilities the opportunity to remain in the community where they went to school, where they grew up, where their families live, where their friends live, and where many of them work,” Senak said.

This follows a common pattern among west suburban leaders in recent years. Affordable housing is for (1) seniors who want to stay in their community and (2) adults with developmental disabilities who want to stay in their community. These are indeed groups with housing needs.

Would more communities be open to affordable housing for people who do not have much money? The two examples above suggest affordable housing is for people already in the community who want to stay. Is there interest in housing for workers with lower wages?

My study of suburbs suggests that in wealthier suburban areas there is less interest in affordable housing that is open to any residents who might qualify. Americans generally do not like the idea of government money for public housing, with some exceptions. This is probably even more true in suburbs where a primary focus is on single-family housing.

25% of Parisian residents live in public housing; hard to imagine this in the United States

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A sizable portion of Paris residents live in public housing:

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This summer, when the French capital welcomes upward of 15 million visitors for the Olympic Games, it will showcase a city engineered by government policies to achieve mixité sociale — residents from a broad cross-section of society. One quarter of all Paris residents now live in public housing, up from 13 percent in the late 1990s. The mixité sociale policy, promoted most forcefully by left-wing political parties, notably the French Communist Party, targets the economic segregation seen in many world cities.

“Our guiding philosophy is that those who produce the riches of the city must have the right to live in it,” said Ian Brossat, a communist senator who served for a decade as City Hall’s head of housing. Teachers, sanitation workers, nurses, college students, bakers and butchers are among those who benefit from the program.

Making the philosophy a reality is increasingly hard — the wait list for public housing in Paris is more than six years long. “I won’t say this is easy and that we have solved the problem,” Mr. Brossat said…

City Hall has a direct hand in the types of businesses that take root and survive in Paris because it is the landlord, through its real estate subsidiaries, of 19 percent of the city’s shops. Nicolas Bonnet-Oulaldj, the city counselor who oversees the city’s commercial landholdings, said his office is constantly studying neighborhoods to maintain a balance of essential shops and limit the number of chains, which can usually pay higher rent.

Three related reasons come to mind for why this would not happen in an American city, even with significant needs for housing:

  1. A supposed free market approach to housing. Americans prioritize policies and programs for single-family homes, not denser urban housing with subsidized rents. Why should public housing take up valuable real estate that would go for much higher prices on the open market?
  2. Many Americans think public housing has already failed in the United States. The story might go like this: the limited project that began in the first few decades of the twentieth century led to disastrous high-rise public housing projects in big cities and a subsequent retreat from public housing (shifting to providing housing vouchers).
  3. Less interest in centralized planning and government control. Would Americans want the government choosing housing and business opportunities in major cities? You mean Paris is not organically developed?

Overall, American cities pursue market approaches to social issues.

Crows take to American cities

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The humble – mighty? – crow is congregating in some American cities:

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Across North America, crow populations have been declining for decades. But crows appear to be flocking to cities more than ever before. Cities from Sunnyvale, California, to Danville, Illinois, to Poughkeepsie, New York, host thousands of crows each winter. Some popular urban roosts host more than 100,000 crows each night.

Crows are territorial during the spring and summer breeding season, but during the rest of the year, they sleep in large groups known as roosts. Sometimes a roost occupies a single tree; sometimes it’s spread over multiple perching sites—usually flat roofs or treetops—in a consistent area. Roosting has clear advantages for crows, especially during winter. “They’re better off being in a big group, where they get the benefit of all those eyes looking out for danger. It’s also warmer,” John Marzluff, the author of Gifts of the Crow, told me.

City roosts offer even more advantages. The very features of urban life that harm other species—fragmented landscapes, bright lights at night, and open stretches of grass in parks—benefit crows. Lights make it easier to spot predators, such as owls. Grass doesn’t offer much in the way of food or shelter for many animals, but crows will happily dig through it for beetle larvae and other snacks. Also, Marzluff told me, crows like that we humans often plant grass close to clusters of trees, where they can sleep or nest, and other food sources, such as our trash. Fragmented habitats, such as a group of trees in a park surrounded by asphalt, harm other species because they aren’t big enough to foster genetic diversity. But they are ideal for crows, who can fly between pockets of greenery and like to have a variety of options for their nesting areas and foraging sites.

Crows, in other words, move to urban areas for the same reason humans do: Cities offer just about everything they need within flapping distance. During the breeding season, Marzluff said, crows even decamp to the suburbs to raise their families, just like humans. And once even small roosts are established, many of them grow year after year, from perhaps a few hundred birds to a few hundred thousand. News spreads fast through the crow community, Marzluff said: Crows share information with one another and develop traditions and culture within populations, including roosting habits, though scientists still don’t know exactly how they do it.

These birds are real!

This reminds me of the book Subirdia which suggested some bird species can thrive with human development and others do not. Crows are likely not the only birds or animal species that finds cities to be a good habitat.

The article ends with suggestions from some that humans should embrace crows in cities. However, if the headline is prescient, would crows go the way of pigeons? Or might some another birds take over from the crows?

Using community wayfinding signs for religious congregations

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Drive through a community in the Chicago area and you see a lot of signs. One small set of these direct travelers toward religious congregations. Here is one example from Google Street View:

Image from Google Street View

See the small blue sign on the traffic light pole? It directs people to a church a half a mile down the road.

A few observations in seeing such signs:

  1. Not all congregations have a sign. Could all congregations request one and then have at least one pointing toward them?
  2. The signs are pretty small. How many drivers see them.
  3. The signs tend to be posted at busier intersections. Some drives from those intersections are shorter and easier to navigate than others. For example, a driver might see a sign pointing in a direction but it may take a little while before finding the congregation roughly in that direction.

Given that these signs are likely provided as a community good, can their use be improved in significant ways?

Low turnout elections and planning tax-related questions on the ballot

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A low percent of eligible suburban voters turn out in some years, meaning relatively few people often decide the fate of certain questions on the ballot:

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But a Daily Herald analysis of vote totals for 22 ballot questions posed to suburban voters in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties last April showed District 101’s turnout was the highest of those initiatives. Fifteen of the 22 were decided by less than a quarter of the eligible voters, including four that were decided by less than 10% of eligible voters, records show…

Another analysis showed similar findings of recent ballot questions in Cook County:

The study showed that 75 property tax-related questions posed to voters during that time were decided by less than a third of those eligible to cast ballots.

Having these tax-related questions on the ballot in low-turnout elections may be intentional:

Ryan Tolley, executive director of Change Illinois, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that advocates for ethical government and elections, said taxing bodies are deliberate about when they decide to pose questions to voters that could affect their property tax bills.

“They’re thinking about it strategically by putting them in an election when voter turnout is traditionally low,” he said. “Low voter turnout is often advantageous to them at the ballot box.”

Because voter turnout is traditionally highest for presidential elections, many taxing bodies try to avoid posing expensive ballot questions to voters then. Instead, they rely on voter apathy during local elections in odd-numbered years, nonpresidential general elections or primaries like the one coming up in a few days.

Suburbanites have opinions about local taxes in Illinois, a state with a lot of governmental bodies and high property taxes. Yet, voter turnout is often low, even with questions involving taxes up for vote.

In the short term, I do not think it is easy to boost turnout. This has been a trend for years now. Many people do not exercise their right to vote.

In the long term, one solution would be to limit the number of election cycles governments have. Why not limit local elections to 2 and 4 year cycles that line up with House and national elections? This would also save money as governments could consolidate election resources.

Another option would be to reduce the number of local government bodies in Illinois, thus reducing the number of elected members and initiatives. For example, abolishing townships would eliminate one layer of government whose services could be picked up by others.