That’s why, for the past two weeks, a huge chunk of the internet’s attention has been focused on one baffling phenomenon in particular: What, exactly, is a Stanley cup, and why are suburbanites willing to scuffle over it in their most sacred space (their local Target)?
Let’s recap. As the new year began, Stanley, a century-old company that for much of its history made reinforced lunch boxes and drinking vessels for outdoorsmen and blue-collar workers, launched three pink, limited-edition Valentine’s Day versions of its jumbo-size Quencher cups, all in different shades of pink and only available at Target. The third of these cups, which came out a few days after the first two, was the grandaddy of them all—a new addition to the brand’s ongoing partnership with Starbucks, glazed in a shimmer finish instead of Stanley’s standard matte. All three flew off the shelves. Fans lined up in parking lots in the predawn hours to increase their chances of snagging one. In at least one instance captured in a now-viral video, an argument erupted over who was cutting whom in line, fingers were pointed, and a store manager was summoned to referee. A few videos of rushing shoppers and tepid interpersonal conflicts, plus one that appears to show store patrons trying to tackle a man who had grabbed a box full of tumblers and made a run for it, did the rounds on TikTok before jumping to local news broadcasts and the generalized zeitgeist.
As the internet watched this extraordinarily mild suburban chaos unfold, people understandably had some questions.
In a consumer-driven economy, trends come and go. What is more interesting to me here are the descriptions of how this fits with and/or upsets suburban life. The implication is that suburbanites at Target do not typically act this way. One study suggested suburbanites tend to avoid open conflict. Additionally, Target might be sacred space where a customer can savor the shopping experience. This kind of behavior does not fit within a calm setting. The suburbs are not typically about chaos; residents want to achieve the American Dream and have stability and predictability.
So far, I have not heard of anything involving Stanley that has seriously affected the suburban lifestyle. These are momentary interruptions to everyday life. Of course, they will likely be repeated for another desired item at some point.
Central to the pitch of the American Dream is a house. Homeownership, the traditional thinking goes, is the surest way to build wealth. Save up for a down payment, buy a starter home, and definitely don’t spend too long throwing money away on rent.
That dream has become more fantasy in the Covid-era economy.
The second sentence goes a different direction. Buying a house is about making money. This might be in addition to other reasons for buying a home including: the status of owning a home; enjoying the home; maintaining and improving a piece of private property; and being a part of the community.
I often typed “hipster coffee shop” into the search bar as a shorthand because Yelp’s search algorithm always knew exactly what I meant by the phrase. It was the kind of cafe that someone like me – a western, twentysomething (at the time), internet-brained millennial acutely conscious of their own taste – would want to go to. Inevitably, I could quickly identify a cafe among the search results that had the requisite qualities: plentiful daylight through large storefront windows; industrial-size wood tables for accessible seating; a bright interior with walls painted white or covered in subway tiles; and wifi available for writing or procrastinating. Of course, the actual coffee mattered, too, and at these cafes you could be assured of getting a cappuccino made from fashionably light-roast espresso, your choice of milk variety and elaborate latte art. The most committed among the cafes would offer a flat white (a cappuccino variant that originated in Australia and New Zealand) and avocado toast, a simple dish, also with Australian origins, that over the 2010s became synonymous with millennial consumer preferences. (Infamous headlines blamed millennials’ predilection for expensive avocado toast for their inability to buy real estate in gentrifying cities.)
These cafes had all adopted similar aesthetics and offered similar menus, but they hadn’t been forced to do so by a corporate parent, the way a chain like Starbucks replicated itself. Instead, despite their vast geographical separation and total independence from each other, the cafes had all drifted toward the same end point. The sheer expanse of sameness was too shocking and new to be boring…
My theory was that all the physical places interconnected by apps had a way of resembling one another. In the case of the cafes, the growth of Instagram gave international cafe owners and baristas a way to follow one another in real time and gradually, via algorithmic recommendations, begin consuming the same kinds of content. One cafe owner’s personal taste would drift toward what the rest of them liked, too, eventually coalescing. On the customer side, Yelp, Foursquare and Google Maps drove people like me – who could also follow the popular coffee aesthetics on Instagram – toward cafes that conformed with what they wanted to see by putting them at the top of searches or highlighting them on a map…
Simply existing as a coffee shop isn’t enough; the business has to cultivate a parallel existence on the internet, which is a separate skill set entirely. “It almost feels like, you must have a social media acumen, you must be savvy in this area that is adjacent to your business, but not directly embedded in your business, in order to be successful and visible,” Walsh continued. That means plenty of tagged photos on Instagram and positive user reviews on the business’s listing on Yelp or Google Maps…
The other strategy is to remain consistent, not worrying about trends or engagement and simply sticking to what you know best – staying authentic to a personal ethos or brand identity in the deepest sense. In a way, coffee shops are physical filtering algorithms, too: they sort people based on their preferences, quietly attracting a particular crowd and repelling others by their design and menu choices. That kind of community formation might be more important in the long run than attaining perfect latte art and collecting Instagram followers. That is ultimately what Anca Ungureanu was trying to do in Bucharest. “We are a coffee shop where you can meet people like you, people that have interests like you,” she said. Her comment made me think that a certain amount of homogeneity might be an unavoidable consequence of algorithmic globalisation, simply because so many like-minded people are now moving through the same physical spaces, influenced by the same digital platforms. The sameness has a way of compounding.
As a different kind of place, fast food restaurants are often criticized for their sameness. As part of a larger brand, individual locations feature similar food, aesthetics, and signs that provide familiarity for patrons.
Coffee shops are supposed to be the antithesis. They are cool while fast food is formulaic and bad for you. They offer sophistication rather than mass production. They allow space for quietly working or interacting with friends while fast food places are about efficiency and moving people in and out.
But, this piece suggests the Internet and a particular class of people have helped contribute to sameness across continents. These may be independent coffee shops but they are trying to respond to global patterns. Do customers really want a unique place or do they want some predictability? The McDonaldization (from sociologist George Ritzer) of space is worth considering more as physical spaces are shaped by Internet realities. People operate and interact in both realms. The suggestion here is that the Internet is driving the shaping of physical spaces and the reverse could happen as well.
Some of these comments excessively attributed a positive outcome to personal influence and merit. Others obscured good fortune while elevating narratives of bold triumph over one’s circumstances (even though the former was a prerequisite for the latter). What they shared, though, was a focus on individual agency and control that seemed rather incongruous with the reality of becoming a parent.
For most people, becoming a parent (or merely trying to become one) represents a headlong leap into an existence of radically diminished control over high-stakes outcomes. To successfully welcome a child into a family, whether by adoption, surrogacy, IVF, or paleo-style conception, relies on the cooperation of many factors that lie beyond our control. Getting pregnant is not as easy as pulling an all-nighter to finish a presentation, carrying a healthy pregnancy to term is not like training for a half-marathon, and having a healthy newborn is not like acing an exam, although our expectations of agency may be anchored to such prior experiences with goal achievement.
What accounts, then, for these tendencies to assume personal agency and overlook external factors, especially in life chapters when so much is out of our hands? I nominate Western individualism, the myth of the American dream, the platitudes of self-help and positive thinking, and the justifications of meritocracy…
One of the great puzzles of parenthood, and life in general, is learning to accurately draw the boundaries of our control and act accordingly. Within those boundaries, plenty of opportunity remains to exercise judicious self-efficacy and responsibility for our actions. But so many crucial outcomes rest at least partially on factors beyond our bubble of agency. And when their influence is in our favor, the soundest response is not meritorious pride but humble gratitude.
Sociologists describe the two sides described above as agency and structure. Individuals have choices they can and do make. Structures – institutions, systems, groups and networks, etc. – organize the world and constrain or empower actors. Compared to the American perspective described above that tends to emphasize individualism and outcomes based on one’s own efforts, sociologists tend to emphasize structures and the ways individuals and actors are situated within them.
Parenting provides an interesting context in which to consider this: babies are dependent on adults, but how much influence do parents have in the long run? Some but not total. And parents are influenced by particular contexts and their own settings. Yet, it would likely take a long time for American parents to move to a perspective emphasizing structures in raising kids.
But the legal avenue available to opponents was through environmental law because, across this country, if you want to stop the government from doing something—such as building a border wall or just allowing new housing—an environmental lawsuit is the clearest way to challenge it.
The lawsuits may not win but they serve their purpose by providing significant delays. The lawsuits also require resources and provide time for the public to think further about the sides. Delays can drive up costs and plans for communities and developers can change in the mean time.
The basis of the article about Minneapolis is the premise that the city and region need more housing, particularly with growing populations. But, building housing and changing regulations about housing is contentious and time-consuming. People disagree, even among those who might appear to be on the same side (environmentalists, pro-housing, etc.). Are lawsuits the way decisions about development and the environment should be made? Environmental lawsuits can help check problematic plans but they can also be less helpful. Are there better systems for working out differences of opinions about development?
McBroom said Naperville has provided migrants safe passage to Chicago without spending taxpayer dollars to house or aid them.
But with more migrants arriving in the area, McBroom says the city should look into whether any residents or organizations are willing to help.
“My idea would be let’s find out … let’s find out who’s willing to help,” he said, adding that Naperville is an affluent community with many large homes. “If there are people who would do that, God bless them.”
There are no known organized efforts in the suburbs for residents to take in asylum-seekers…
Meanwhile, McBroom acknowledges there are many unanswered questions about his idea to have Naperville residents voluntarily house migrants. Some of those include the impact the proposal may have on local schools and what role the city would play in managing a list of volunteer hosts.
This idea has the potential to bypass community-level initiatives and instead coordinate efforts of residents and property owners. How much space might be available in homes and buildings in a suburb with nearly 150,000 residents? How many people would volunteer?
I could only imagine what might happen among (1) neighbors of people who are willing to house migrants and (2) if names and addresses of individual hosts became known to the public.
We will see where this goes, but I imagine it would not go too far if there is the possibility of state money available to communities in the near future.
As a result, empty-nest Baby Boomers own 28% of large homes — and Milliennials with kids own just 14%, according to a Redfin analysis released Tuesday. Gen Z families own just 0.3% of homes with three bedrooms or more…
This is a change from the historical norm, according to the research. Ten years ago young families were just as likely as empty nesters to own large homes…
For those who own their home outright, the median monthly cost of owning a home, which includes insurance and property taxes, among other costs, is just $612, according to the report.
“Logically, empty nesters are the most likely group to sell big homes and downsize,” said Bokhari. “They no longer have children living at home and don’t need as much space. The problem for younger families who wish their parents’ generation would list their big homes: Boomers don’t have much motivation to sell, financially or otherwise.”…
This speaks to one of the assumptions of American housing: older adults are expected to move out of larger homes and move to smaller homes or ones that better suit their needs later in life. This frees up their homes for the next generation to move into.
Is this the way it has always worked? Might patterns change heading into the future?
Several thoughts on these trends:
Americans like bigger homes. As the size of American homes has increased, might Americans want to keep these larger homes as long as possible?
Houses are places to live and strategic investments. Older residents may not need all that space but wouldn’t they want to cash out as late as possible on this large asset?
An emphasis on living independently and youthfully may mean that staying in a house is a sign of vitality (while moving would be a sign of weakness). Why sell if you can still live in a big house?
This could be the product of a unique confluence of factors in recent decades: a sizable birth cohort, a change in what housing is and what housing is available, and an unprecedented growth in housing values.
Many cities across the United States could become ghost towns by 2100, according to new research published Thursday.
“Close to half of the nearly 30,000 cities in the United States will face some sort of population decline,” researchers from the University of Chicago in Illinois wrote in a journal article published in Nature Cities.
Major cities in the Northeast and Midwest are already slowly losing population. While cities in the South and West regions are experiencing a population increase, some major cities in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee are slowly depopulating, the researchers found.
Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh could see depopulation of 12 to 23 percent by 2100 while cities like Louisville, New Haven and Syracuse — not currently showing declines – likely could soon.
But, even more interesting is the use of the term “ghost town” in the headline and opening paragraph. Losing 20% of residents over the next 80 years is undesirable but this is different from making these communities a ghost town. These are typically empty communities. Perhaps they are communities wiped off the map.
Take Cleveland since it is cited above. If it loses 20% of its population by 2100, it would lose 75,000 residents. Even after these loses, roughly 290,000 residents would still live there. Is this a ghost town or a significantly changed city? Cleveland will continue to be a major regional center and the region has over 2 million people.
I wonder if being less sensational about population loss figures and exhibiting willingness to be adaptable to changing conditions could go a long way toward adjusting to these realities. Some cities will lose people and some will grow. Both kinds of changes mean communities change.
UIC professors David Merriman and Rachel Weber, experienced researchers on property taxes and government finances who led the report, said this is one of the first attempts to measure the impacts of exemptions on the county as a whole. In total, $15.8 billion worth of property value in Cook County was unavailable for governments to tax in 2021 because of those breaks, their research found.
That translates into about $1.6 billion in tax revenue, which governments simply shift onto other property owners…
To respond to tax spikes or inflation, state lawmakers have expanded breaks over the past half century. They now include eight types of homestead exemptions: homeowners, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and those making improvements on their home. Exemptions typically cut down the taxable value of a home to provide relief.
The report noted the effects of these exemptions are not the same in every community. The tax base of the community matters:
Those unintended consequences also aren’t the case everywhere. The effects of homestead exemptions are negligible in cities and villages with a bigger industrial property base, like McCook and Bedford Park, with a concentration of more valuable properties like Winnetka or Kenilworth, or with a lower share of homeowners who qualify, like Chicago.
It sounds like this affects communities that do not have great tax bases to start with. Already behind, homeowner’s exemptions then contribute to a lack of community funds compared to other communities.
I could not tell exactly what was happening because I caught this recently on TV but I was still interested to see what was on the scoreboard at the United Center during a Bulls game:
Was this a cheering contest between Chicago residents and suburbanites? Some camera shots on the big screen? A trivia contest?
Given the population of the Chicago region, there were probably a lot of suburbanites at the game. In 2020, Chicago had 2.74 million residents and the region had 9.61 million residents. This puts the suburban population at 6.87 million. This means over 71% of people in the region live in the suburbs.
The Chicago Bulls tend to have good attendance, even if the team is not doing great. This year, the team is under .500 and the team is second in the league in home attendance. (They also have one of the largest arenas.)
Suburbanites have ideas about Chicago and its residents and vice versa. Does identifying the two groups at a Bulls game exacerbate these differences or help bring them together around their common Bulls fandom? (I am guessing it is the second as Bulls games usually are good experiences, even if the home team is not great.)
Legally Sociable 