Category Archives: Sociology

Portraying fear and multiculturalism in the Australian suburbs

Posted on by

An Australian playwright talks about what he saw in the suburbs that prompted him to write his first play titled Little Borders:

Several years ago, my family home in Adelaide was knocked down and rebuilt. The suburb was once a new development, built onto what had originally been swampland. Over the years, the house had begun to sink; the kitchen was slightly lower than the adjacent rooms, and a crack ran through the length of the ceiling. Despite the suburb’s swampy foundations, our street was pristine. It was quiet, lined with trees, and curved alongside a man-made lake. People jogged. They walked their dogs. They smiled at strangers.

While our family home was being rebuilt, we moved to a rental property in a nearby suburb. The house was on a main road. We woke up at night to the sound of motorists loudly hammering their horns. My brother and I started walking to the corner store barefoot, in board shorts, to buy frozen peas and schnitzels.

We came home one day to find the house across the street sealed off by police tape, with hazmat-suited officers wandering in and out. The same prostitute kept making conversation with me at the bus stop. She was very friendly-and liked that I was half-Maltese, as she herself was born in Greece and was planning to return there later that year – but it was still a bizarre culture shock.

When we finally moved back to our rebuilt home, I remained fascinated with the idea of suburbs that are geographically close, but socioeconomically divided. I overheard our smiling, jogging, dog-walking neighbours talking in racially incensed language about the new residents of the housing commission homes down the road, reminding each other to lock their cars at night.

At the same time, both major political parties were battling it out over the issue of asylum seekers, with each leader attempting to court votes by promising a stronger brand of xenophobia than their opponent. From both sides, the message was clear: Boat People are approaching fast, they pose a threat to our national security, and the only rational response is mass panic.

I became interested in exploring how these notions of class difference and fear of outsiders clashed with the image of Australia as an egalitarian nation that celebrates its multiculturalism. At some point in my research, I struck upon the idea of setting the play in a gated community, which gave these issues potency, etching them into the physical world of the play. It was from this point that Little Borders really started to take shape.

This sounds like it could be an interesting play. I wonder how much it will be able to escape common cliches about suburban life that have been bandied about around in the United States since the 1950s.

The description of the suburbs quoted above does hint at the changes that American (and apparently Australian?) suburbs have experienced in recent years: they are becoming more diverse in terms of race and ethnicity as well as social class. Of course, there has been an uptick in gated communities as some suburban residents don’t look on these changes fondly and there are still profound divisions between certain suburbs.

A question: are there any plays that see suburbs as good places? For example, you could flip the above story a bit and suggest that suburbs that were once closed off to “others” are now slowly opening up which means new opportunities for some. The suburbs will likely never be ideal but there have been some notable changes in recent years.

Abundance in DuPage County: 45 mosquito abatement agencies

Posted on by

Illinois is well-known for having many government units. The Chicago Tribune makes this point by talking about fighting mosquitos in DuPage County:

DuPage has 45 separate entities — special districts, townships, municipalities — providing mosquito abatement services, Of those, 36 have signed separate contracts with the same vendor for the bug spray they use to keep the mosquito population down. If they pooled their buying power, no doubt they could get a better deal.

Here’s the worst part: Spraying for skeeters has little lasting impact. The anti-bug mission could be carried out much more cheaply and efficiently under the county Health Department. The citizens of DuPage don’t need any other mosquito abatement agencies, let alone 45.

So why do all these governments cling to this dubious mission? “They’re very protective of their turf,” DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin tells us…

Unfortunately, it’s the same story across the state of Illinois — which has 7,000 school districts, townships, library boards, fire-protection districts and other government units, generally with separate oversight and taxing authority. The Census Bureau says that’s far more than the total in any other state.

This is not a new story in Illinois and across many places in the United States. Americans like having local control over all sorts of things and this can get in the way of regional cooperation. Intriguingly, the argument made in other parts of this editorial is that taxpayers could save money if communities would consolidate some of these separate bodies and have better purchasing power. Is this an argument more likely to be made in tougher economic times?

One thought came to me when reading this: is the presence of more taxing bodies tied to political conservatism? DuPage County is well-known for its political conservatism and presumably, local communities like having this many taxing bodies as it allows people to have more direct input rather than handing off tasks to larger, bureaucratic bodies. Perhaps the political leanings of a community have little impact on this and it is more about a historical legacy (could be something in Illinois that came out of a state/county/township/municipality system) or specific system of government.

Similarity between US and France: right-wing voters in the suburbs

Posted on by

Although American and French suburbs are often different kinds of places, here is one intriguing similarity: voters in both American and French suburbs have leaned to the right in recent elections.

Her strong showing gives her National Front (FN) hope of its first seats in parliament since the late 1980s. It also casts the spotlight on a new phenomenon: the success of the far right among lower middle class suburban voters.

“In 2012, the far-right vote has crystallized in these communities far from the big-city centers,” said Nice University sociologist Gilles Ivaldi.

In the past decade, soaring real estate prices have forced the working class and lower middle class out of urban centers and into soulless suburban housing estates, inconveniently far from their jobs and often with few public services.

These people are not the poorest of the poor, but squeezed between the bourgeoisie and an immigrant class living in drab tower blocks on the edge of the big cities, they fear they have the most to lose…

A study by the left-leaning Jean Jaures Foundation shows Le Pen scored the highest vote in suburban communities located between 20 and 50 km (12 to 30 miles) from metropolitan centers. In the cities, her score averaged less than 15 percent.

Could we see a political convergence of disaffected, conservative right-wing voters from suburbs on both sides of the Atlantic?

One big difference: this article is primarily about far right-wing voters in France who have a ways to go before becoming a sizable political presence compared to Republicans.

Encouraging sprawl or downtown growth

Posted on by

A recent Canadian conference brought together scholars and practitioners interested in strengthening downtowns. Several of the participants made comments regarding the relationship between a city downtown and the suburbs:

By themselves, speakers warned, studios, galleries and quaint little bistros won’t solve the problems of troubled downtowns. Real solutions will have to overcome public policies that favour urban sprawl and punish core businesses with excessive parking requirements.

Consultant Pamela Blais pointed an accusing finger at municipal development charges that she argues favour suburban “McMansions” over turning downtown buildings into condos.

As one example, she pointed to one Ontario municipality that collects lot levies of $31,000 per parcel regardless of size — that means a house with a 30-foot frontage actually pays more toward the cost of water and sewer mains and parks than a bigger property.

Michael Manville, of Cornell University’s city and regional planning department, argued minimum parking requirements in city centres actually harm development by driving buildings farther apart.

“Most parking policies turn downtown into a sorry imitation of a mall,” he said. “We have to stop this quiet process of turning downtowns into suburbs one parking lot at a time.”

He argued for maximum parking requirements, rather than minimums, a policy he said will make downtown living attractive to people whose lives aren’t centred on their cars.

There are a lot of moving pieces here including big cultural forces favoring suburbs over denser environments (though perhaps not with younger generations). For planners in individual communities, it can be difficult to counter all of this at once.

At the same time, this is not a new issue. Urban (and suburban) downtowns really started to face these issues in the 1950s with the advent of the strip mall and shopping mall. Some of these same issues are reflected in the comments above: what to do about parking? How can a downtown compete against a mall where there are a number of interesting stores within a climate-controlled space? Other communities may not be completely on-board with promoting condos over single-family homes, particularly when condos can be tied to higher densities and bigger buildings which might clash with a community’s character.

One thing I have wondered before: is it always worthwhile for a community to try to revive a downtown? On one hand, a core is a valuable asset as it represents an opportunity to bring people together and to share a common history. Some newer communities have no real core or public space. On the other hand, downtowns can require a lot of revitalization and it can require fighting an uphill battle in some communities to put the kind of money and attention needed to get a downtown up and running again. It is one thing to present people with a thriving downtown that is attractive and exciting (see: downtown Naperville, which can lead to its own issues) but another to ask a lot of people to undergo a 5 to 20 year project to really transform a downtown. Frankly, some people don’t care about having a downtown and see it as a relic of the past – why not just build the newer versions of downtowns: lifestyle centers?

Here seems to be the primary strategies for downtown revitalization these days:

1. Promote mixed-use development, preferably buildings with retail on the first floor and then condos or offices above. This ensures social spaces and residents to use them.

2. Take advantage of transportation advantages such as mass transit. If you can increase density around important rail or subway lines, you can attract more people.

3. Generally aim to attract two sets of residents: younger professionals and creative types (a la the creative class). These groups like the idea of denser, exciting areas and are more willing to try things out. If you need a third group, aim for downshifters and young retirees who are also looking for a new scene.

Mitt Romney and his neighbors disagree about his plans to quadruple the size of his La Jolla home

Posted on by

Mitt Romney has another battle on his hands: some of his La Jolla, California neighbors are not happy about his plans to renovate and expand his home.

Four years ago, when he was just a well-heeled civilian in search of a quiet beach house, Mr. Romney paid $12 million for a three-bedroom Spanish-style villa with unobstructed views of the Pacific and a rich history: Maureen O’Connor, the former mayor of San Diego, once lived there, and Richard Gere had used it as a vacation rental.

Little did Mr. Romney know that his efforts to quadruple the size of his house would collide with a bid for the White House, foisting the unpredictable dramas of home renovation and presidential politics onto a community that prides itself on low-key California neighborliness…

Three houses away from Mr. Romney is Mark Quint, a Democrat who said that he is tired of watching neighboring homeowners bulldoze small beach houses to make way for McMansions, fearing a “nightmare of construction.” He sees a discrepancy in Mr. Romney’s ambitious renovation plan…

The Romneys have said that the current configuration cannot accommodate their family of 5 children and 18 grandchildren. The new house, by contrast, will be 11,000 square feet with a split-level four-car garage equipped with an elevator to ferry cars up and down. (There is currently a cramped two-car garage, and little street parking available.)…

Mr. Romney has hired a lawyer to shepherd the project through the local zoning process and has spent about $22,000 to lobby city officials for various permits. But construction is not expected to begin anytime soon.

Reading some of the comments from the neighbors, some would not be happy if Romney and his lived in a trendiest and greenest tiny house.

One lesson to take away from this: perhaps no one is immune from incurring the scorn of one’s neighbors if they try to make drastic changes to their home.

A second note: a 11,000 square foot home is quite large, bigger than most American houses. Yet, if the Romneys, 5 children and spouses, and 18 grandchildren were all in the house at once, each person gets 367 square feet of living space. This is less space than the average American household (2.63 people in 2009) has in the average sized new house of around 2,500 square feet (2011 figures).

A dark and polluted Pittsburgh in the early 1940s

Posted on by

This gallery of pictures of a dark and polluted Pittsburgh in the early 1940s is fascinating:

In 1941, influenced by a similar policy introduced in St. Louis four years earlier, the city of Pittsburgh passed a law designed to reduce coal production in pursuit of cleaner air. Not willing to cripple such an important part of the local economy, it promised to clean the air by using treated local coal. The new policy ended up not being fully enacted until after World War II.

While the idea was a small step in the right direction, other factors ultimately helped improve Pittsburgh’s notorious air quality. Natural gas was piped into the city. Regional railroad companies switched from coal to diesel locomotives. And, ultimately, the collapse of the iron and steel production industries in the 1980s led to rapidly improved air quality leading into the 21st century.

Control of coal smoke made it possible to clean soot-covered buildings and to re-plant hillsides, helping provide the city a look it could hardly envision in the depths of its industrial heyday.

I’ve seen some of these pictures before and they are hard to believe: how did people survive in a city that looked like this? Despite some of the debate over environmental regulations today, I think everyone could agree that Pittsburgh and other cities have benefited from having cleaner air.

This is also a reminder of how far some communities will go for their signature industries. Industry may bring in money and provide jobs but it is often not without downsides.

Republican secret to success: “a rich-poor alliance of affluent suburbs and poor rural counties”

Posted on by

In discussing the outcome of the recall election in Wisconsin, one analyst argues Republican electoral success is based on combining votes from two geographic areas:

McCabe argues the secret behind Walker and decades of Republican success nationwide is “a rich-poor alliance of affluent suburbs and poor rural counties.” In the recall election, Walker swept Milwaukee’s suburbs by huge margins and dominated the countryside. McCabe says in 2010, “Walker carried the 10 poorest counties in the state by a 13% margin”; these counties used to be reliably Democratic. He elaborates:

“Republicans use powerful economic wedge issues to great impact. They go into rural counties and say, do you have pensions? ‘No.’ Well, you’re paying for theirs, referring to public sector workers. Do you have healthcare? ‘No.’ Well, you’re paying for theirs? Do you get wage increases? ‘No.’ Well, you’re paying for theirs.”

The scenario was far different 50 years ago, explains McCabe:

“The Democrats were identified with programs like Social Security, the G.I. Bill and rural electrification. People could see tangible benefits. Today, they ask, ‘Is government working for us?’ And often their answer is no. They see government as crooked and corrupt. They figure if the government is not working for us, let’s keep it as small as possible.”

Another way to look at this would be to say that Democrats tend to get votes from large cities and less affluent suburbs. This is not the first time this suggestion has been made: Joel Kotkin has discussed how Republicans appeal to suburban voters  and others noted in the 2004 election how George Bush won a clear majority of votes in fast-growing exurban counties.

In the lead-up to the November 2012 elections, when there is commentary about geography, it tends to be about which states are toss-ups between the two candidates. But you can rest assured that the advisers for the candidates are looking at much finer-grained data and how to get more votes from more specific geographic areas like inner-ring suburbs, monied burbs, and the metropolitan fringe. States are too large to analyze quickly: think of Illinois and the differences between Chicago, Chicago suburb, and downstate voters. The analysis in the media could at least be about the areas in the states where there are greater population concentrations. Will Mitt Romney primarily campaign in “affluent suburbs and poor rural suburbs” while Obama will stick to the big cities and middle to lower-class suburbs? Is Romney making a suburban/rural pitch in a majority suburban nation while Obama is promoting a more urban campaign?

Vehicles miles-traveled tax in “five to ten years” as states run pilot studies

Posted on by

With more fuel efficient vehicles and higher federal government standards, several states are starting pilot programs to test a vehicles miles-traveled tax:

Minnesota and Oregon already are testing technology to keep track of mileage. Other states, including Washington and Nevada, are preparing similar projects.

The efforts are being prompted by the fact that gasoline taxes no longer provide enough money to pay for roads and bridges — especially when Congress and many state legislatures are reluctant to increase taxes imposed on each gallon. The federal tax of 18.4 cents a gallon hasn’t been raised in nearly two decades. More than half the states have not raised their gas tax this millennium. Fuel-efficiency also is behind the efforts. Electric-powered vehicles are growing in numbers. In 2009, President Obama set the nation’s most aggressive fuel-efficiency standards for new vehicles, ordering a 40% increase by 2016.

“As the (national vehicle) fleet becomes more fuel efficient … we’re going to lose a lot of revenue from the gas tax. If it’s not replaced, we’re going to see our transportation infrastructure deteriorate,” says Joshua Schank, president of the non-partisan Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, D.C. He expects to see a state vehicle miles-traveled (VMT) tax within the next five to 10 years…

The greatest obstacle to a miles-traveled tax has been privacy concerns. When Oregon ran a pilot program six years ago, motorists’ major objection was to in-vehicle boxes used to track miles driven, says James Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation. “They didn’t like the government boxes. They didn’t like the GPS mandate,” he says…

In Minnesota, 500 volunteers in largely urban Hennepin and mostly rural Wright counties have been testing a system using software installed on smartphones, says Chris Krueger, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. “We can collect trip info and be able to simulate what it would be like to have a mileage-based user fee,” she says.

This blog has covered this issue before here, here, and here. This is a classic case of unintended consequences: trying to improve fuel efficiency may be a good goal but it has revenue ramifications.

Several thoughts about these pilot studies:

1. If citizens say they don’t like the programs, will that matter in the long run? States still need revenue whether drivers like the method of getting that revenue or not.

2. I haven’t seen this addressed: would drivers continue to pay a gasoline tax as well as a miles-driven tax? We are a long way from even a sizeable majority of people owning electric cars. How would you balance the two taxes to insure certain levels of revenue?

3. This is somewhat tongue in cheek but would you prefer to have the government tracking you by in-vehicle GPS or your smartphone? Or in Illinois and other similar states, by your toll transponder? Remember, you may not be able to answer “none of the above.”

4. Is a vehicles miles-traveled tax something that could get a politician voted out of office? Americans do like their freedom to drive…without considering how much it costs all-around.

h/t Instapundit

Microsoft promo videos feature a preponderence of McMansions?

Posted on by

In the middle of a “Xbox music preview,” Paul Thurrot makes an interesting observation about the homes shown in Microsoft promotional videos:

A promotional video then ensued. It was loud and peppy and featured the same overly-white, McMansion-living trendy families that always seem to exist in Microsoft’s promo videos since this is the only life that Microsoft employees in Redmond area understand. But it reveals a few interesting clues about how the Zune Music service will be changing and evolving as it becomes Xbox Music…

I don’t know how accurate this observation is as I don’t regularly watch tech industry promo videos. However, let’s assume it is true. Perhaps McMansion owners are more likely to purchase Microsoft products so Microsoft is simply portraying its target demographic. Perhaps Microsoft critics would love to tie Microsoft to McMansions and put together ideas that Microsoft simply mass produces products that don’t work well in the long run.

What are particular companies or perhaps products that would work well in advertisements with McMansions? A few ideas:

1. McDonald’s. An easy connection: mass production, supersizing, quantity over quality. Both have their enthusiastic detractors. Both seem to continue on anyhow (see this recent piece about a recent jump in sales of McMansions).

2. SUVs. These are commonly put together as symbols of excess and environmental waste. A Hummer would work well here. But what about a Honda CR-V or a Toyota Rav4?

3. Home Depot or any other big box home improvement store. Your mass produced McMansion is falling apart after five years or you need materials for a big brick fireplace on your 300 square foot patio? Save money and buy whatever you need here.

Contrast this with companies that might rather drop dead than be caught advertising with McMansions. Apple: not exactly the image they are trying to portray. Ikea tends to go with smaller spaces. Trendy companies as well as green products likely want to avoid being tied to McMansions.

Ninety percent of Americans still say “homeownership is part of the American dream”

Posted on by

Commentators may be touting the virtues of renting but according to a recent poll from the Woodrow Wilson Center, a clear majority of Americans still think homeownership is a worthwhile goal:

Voters personally put very high importance on homeownership. When asked to indicate on a scale of zero to ten where zero means homeownership is not at all important and ten means it is extremely important, voters rate the importance of homeownership as a mean score of 8.597.

-Fully 62% of all voters rated homeownership as a ten out of ten. Those most likely to indicate homeownership is extremely important are voters in states with lower unemployment rates as well as rural (71%) and urban (67%) areas.

-Importance placed on homeownership increases with age where just 53% of 18-44 years old indicate it is extremely important but 64% of those 45-64 and 72% of those over 65 years old would rate it as a ten out of ten…

When asked to consider the importance of homeownership compared to five years ago, one-third of voters feel homeownership is more important (33%) and 51% feel it is just as important. Only 12% of voters say homeownership is less important than it was five years ago…

A majority (54%) of voters believe that “increasing homeownership should be a national priority.” By comparison, voters universally (90%) believe that “homeownership is part of the American Dream.”

Considering some of what I have read in recent years, this is overwhelming support for homeownership. The economy may be bad, foreclosures may be more common, some 15 million homes have underwater mortgages, and homeownership rates are trending down, but it will take a long time before Americans give up the dream of homeownership. It is interesting to note in the figures above that younger American adults see homeownership as less important. It is also interesting to note that there are more mixed opinions about how much the government should be involved with the mortgage industry or promoting homeownership.

This is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 “registered ‘likely’ voters.”

A NPR story on these poll results suggests the dream of homeownership runs deep in American history:

The term “American dream” became popular in the 1930s, says Bob Shiller, a housing economist at Yale. “But I associate it with the suburban movement that developed after World War II,” he says…

The American tradition of actively encouraging home- or farm ownership dates back even further, he says.

“That was the real American dream — [owning] your own farm. So we had the Homestead Act in the 1860s that made it possible for anyone with modest means to buy a farm,” he says.

Still earlier, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville noted the importance of homeownership in his book Democracy in America, published in the 1830s and based on his travels around the country.

“He noticed the independent streak of Americans and their desire to own their own farm and their own home,” Shiller says. “He thought that that represented a kind of anti-feudal feeling — that each person in this country is an independent agent. There is no landlord or lord with his thumb on you.”

History doesn’t change overnight though feelings about homeownership could change within a generation or two.