Category Archives: Sociology

End of the conversation about affordable housing in Winnetka

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I highlighted earlier this year (original post in March, update in April) a public discussion taking place in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka over affordable housing. After a vote last night, Winnetka has decided to table this discussion:

The six trustees were evenly split on a resolution to take several Plan Commission recommendations off the table. Village President Jessica Tucker broke the tie by supporting the resolution to drop talks about the issue.

The Plan Commission began studying affordable housing in 2005, and in April offered its recommendations to diversify the village’s housing stock by encouraging rental apartments and coach houses, as well as sub-market rate condominium units in qualifying future developments.

On Tuesday, village trustees cited a Winnetka Caucus survey in which a majority of respondents opposed affordable housing by more than a 2-to-1 margin…

The three most controversial components of the plan were “inclusionary” zoning, a housing trust fund, and a community land trust. After being sent back to the advisory panel for more consideration, plan commissioners voted to withdraw their recommendation regarding a community land trust.

I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. Wealthier suburbs, like Winnetka, often don’t desire affordable housing because of connotations the term has with poorer residents, lowered property values, and a diminished community image.

The Winnetka Caucus Survey is interesting in of itself. As the Causus notes, “One out of every four households in the village completed this survey.” This is not exactly a representative sample although this isn’t terribly different than the percentages of people who tend to turn out for local elections across suburbs. Here is how the survey gave background for the affordable housing questions:

Beginning in 1979, the Winnetka Plan Commission identified the need for modest-priced housing for seniors,
young families, and those who work in the community. For a variety of reasons, over the ensuing years
Winnetka lost many rental units and restrictions on renting coach houses further impacted the stock of modest priced housing. In 2004, the State of Illinois enacted the Affordable Housing Act, and under it Winnetka was required to file an affordable housing plan. However, in 2005, Winnetka adopted Home Rule and asserted its rights to have local control over the affordable housing issue. That same year, Winnetka filed an Affordable Housing Plan with the State declaring that Winnetka would assert its Home Rule authority and not be subject to the State’s standards for Affordable Housing. The Village Council instructed the Winnetka Plan Commission to conduct further studies and propose a customized affordable housing plan for Winnetka. The resulting proposal from the Plan Commission includes zoning, code changes and other options to foster the availability of modest priced housing. It expands its vision to establish a program to set aside some units as affordable housing units and creates tools that bridge the affordability gap for qualified households. This Affordable Housing program is limited to multi-family units within Winnetka’s commercial districts and includes preferential access to these units for long-time residents and those who work in the community. Because of the higher affordability standards, it would not qualify for state or federal affordable housing funds or fit under Section 8 housing. The new program would engage local government – either the Village Council or an appointed agency – in housing issues, as the new administrator would determine (according to the program’s guidelines) who may live in these affordable housing units and at what cost. Resources would be required to manage the program and properties on a permanent basis (i.e. forever) and, potentially, to purchase property. Further, the program would require developers of multi-family projects to dedicate a portion of their units to the Affordable Housing program in which the units would be sold or rented at below-market “affordable” rates.

On the whole, respondents were against the village getting involved in these housing issues with 85% of respondents saying “It is not appropriate for Village government to be involved in determining who can live here and what prices can be charged for housing in Winnetka” and similarly negative responses to specific pieces of the affordable housing proposal (pages 5-10 of the PDF). Interestingly, there was also strong support (over 60%) for Winnetka needs more affordable housing options for seniors” and “Winnetka needs more affordable housing options for those who work in the community.” Providing this kind of affordable housing is more of “workforce housing” for which some suburbs openly advocate. So if people want these housing options but don’t want the affordable housing proposal run by the village, how exactly might this get done?

Despite the low number of people who completed the survey, the Winnetka Caucus Council has a long history and likely is an influential force in the community.

Higher taxes might push companies to leave but not necessarily wealthy residents?

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Many municipalities and states are looking for ways to raise additional tax revenue and this has led to conflict with companies that either have had or want tax breaks to stay where they are (a prominent Illinois example here). But we could also consider whether higher tax rates prompt wealthier residents to move elsewhere. Some evidence from New York City suggests this did not happen:

According to the Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey, the average household income of those who left the state in 2010 was $44,739. The average for those who came was $55,419 — the largest differential in at least five years…

A separate analysis of census data found that the number of households making more than $250,000 who lived in New York a year earlier but left peaked in 2004 and has generally declined since 2007. About 14,000 households in 2009 and the about the same number in 2010 reported having left New York within the past year, the lowest numbers in that category since 2003.

That analysis did not take into account inflation, and could reflect lower migration rates in general across the country.

As this short piece suggests, we may not want to run and apply this to all wealthy residents in the United States. Additionally, if this can be done with American Community Survey data for New York City, why not do it with other areas of the country in order to make comparisons? Then we could find out whether this data is more reflective of New York City and its relative wealth and importance as a finance and cultural center than of larger trends about wealthy people.

I do wonder about the value of using short-term migration data to prove points about new legislation and revised taxes. People could move for a lot of reasons beyond just one change and I don’t think the ACS data tells us why people move. This could be a clever way to examine a “natural experiment” but there needs to be care taken in interpreting the results.

The “vibrant cottage industry in polemics against consumerism”

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In reviewing two new academics book on consumerism, Megan McArdle takes a look at the field of “polemics against consumerism”:

All this profligacy supports a rather vibrant cottage industry in polemics against consumerism. Authors as varied as the economist Robert H. Frank (1999’s “Luxury Fever”) and the political theorist Benjamin R. Barber (2007’s “Consumed”) have ganged up on what they see as the particularly unequal and excessive American spending habits. Unsurprisingly considering their abhorrence of waste, they are avid recyclers; the same arguments, behavioral economics studies and anecdotes appear time and time again. Access to credit makes consumers overspend. Materialistic people are anxious and unhappy. The conspicuous-consumption arms race is unwinnable. Down with status competition! Down with long work weeks, grueling commutes and McMansions! Up with family time, reading and walkable neighborhoods! The effect is rather like strolling down the main tourist strip in a beach town: Each merchant rushes out of his shop, gesticulating wildly and showing you exactly the same thing that you saw at all the previous stores…

Like their forebears in this robust polemical genre, neither Mr. Livingston nor Mr. Roberts gets us much closer to answering the essential questions: What makes American consumers spend as they do—and is it a bad thing? For some thoughts on these matters, I’d suggest turning to James B. Twitchell’s “Living It Up” (2002), a wry account of the author’s own complicated relationship with luxury brands that explores the moral and psychological aspects of our free-spending ways without seeming to be a paternalist rant against the folly of BMWs. “The pleasure of spending is the dirty little secret of affluence,” says Mr. Twitchell, a professor of English literature and advertising at the University of Florida. “The rich used to do it; now the rest of us are having a go.” He is keenly alive to the risks—and occasional risibility—of American-style consumerism. But he never pretends not to understand its undeniable appeal.

This could be a very interesting research project: what are the common arguments against consumerism, how many of these arguments are backed by data and social science theories (rather than just opinion), how do the authors position themselves within the debate (I assume generally they suggest they are above it), do these arguments have a sizable effect on readers, and do the books address structural issues and solutions or primarily peddle in individualistic concerns? Additionally, how often are these ideas tied to other ideas like environmentalism, New Urbanism, and other popular schools of thought?

This is also often a complaint within the Christian marketplace of ideas. And yet, have Christian consumption patterns changed or been reduced by these books/sermons/polemics? This reminds me of something one of my graduate school professors said: even the monks who took a vow of poverty couldn’t get rid of their books. (I don’t know the actual truth of this statement.)

Do any of these authors consider the irony that they are making money by selling books about reducing consumerism? Perhaps the book is supposed to be the last item purchased…

Keep McMansions out by adding cemeteries

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I have not heard of this strategy before: zone for cemeteries in order to limit the spread of McMansions.

Looking toward a time when cemetery space is likely to be in short supply, the Diocese of Trenton is seeking approval to eventually turn acres of farmland in the Crosswicks section of the township into a final resting place for local Catholics…

In Hamilton, the situation is not as dire as in North Jersey, where, Dressel said, high-rise mausoleums have been suggested as a solution for overcrowding…

Councilman Dave Kenny said a cemetery is preferable to other types of development. And since the land is already owned by the tax-exempt diocese, it’s not as if the township can wring more tax money out of it.

“It protects the hamlet to have cemeteries there to prevent it from more intense development, like McMansions, that would certainly be out of character there,” Kenny said.

Historic districts in order to keep McMansions away? A common strategy. Cemeteries? Interesting. I wonder if there are every NIMBY concerns about cemeteries. And if the diocese could have sold the land to developers who might then build McMansions, why can’t the land be sold and developed in such a way that local governments could get new tax revenues?

The suggestion in this article is that some municipalities don’t plan ahead enough so that there is adequate cemetery space when growth occurs. How often do local zoning boards consider proposals for cemeteries? Is it primarily the responsibility of dioceses or religious organizations to bring proposals forward?

This reminds me that Simcity made little provision for cemeteries (it may only have been a reward in Simcity 4). There has to be some place for people to be buried…

The “value of estimating”

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Here is another way to help students develop their mathematical skills: learn how to estimate.

Quick, take a guess: how tall is an eight-story building? How many people can be transported per hour on a set of train tracks in France? How many barrels of oil does the U.S. import each year?

Maybe you gave these questions your best shot – or maybe you skimmed right over them, certain that such back-of-the-napkin conjecture wasn’t worth your time. If you fall into the second, just-Google-it group, you may want to reconsider, especially if you’re a parent. According to researchers who study the science of learning, estimation is the essential foundation for more advanced math skills. It’s also crucial for the kind of abstract thinking that children need to do to get good grades in school and, when they’re older, jobs in a knowledge-based economy.

Parents can foster their kids’ guessing acumen by getting them to make everyday predictions, like how much all the items in the grocery cart will cost. Schools, too, should be giving more attention to the ability to estimate. Too many math textbooks “teach how to solve exactly stated problems exactly, whereas life often hands us partly defined problems needing only moderately accurate solutions,” says Sanjoy Mahajan, an associate professor of applied science and engineering at Olin College…

Sharpen kids’ logic enough and maybe some day they’ll dazzle people at cocktail parties (or TED talks) the way Mahajan does with his ballpark calculations. His answers to the questions at the top of this story: 80 ft., 30,000 passengers and 4 billion barrels. To come up with these, he guessed at a lot of things. For instance, for the number of barrels of oil the U.S. imports, he made assumptions about the number of cars in the U.S., the number of miles driven per car per year and average gas mileage to arrive at the number of gallons used per year. Then he estimated how many gallons are in a barrel. He also assumed that imported oil is used for transportation and domestic for everything else. The official tally for U.S. imports in 2010 was 4,304,533,000 barrels. Mahajan’s 4 billion isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough to be useful – and most of the time, that’s what counts.

It sounds like estimation helps with problem solving skills and taking known or guessed at quantities to develop reasonable answers. I tried this question about the barrels of oil with my statistics class today and we had one guess of 4 billion barrels (among a wide range of other answers). This also suggests that there is some room for creativity within math; it isn’t all about formulas but rather takes some thinking.

This reminds me that Joel Best says something similar in one of his books: being able to quickly estimate some big figures is a useful skill in a society where statistics carry a lot of weight. But to do some of this, do people have to have some basic figures in mind such as the total population of the United States (US Census population clock: over 312 million)? Is this a commonly known figure?

The article also suggests ways to take big numbers and break them down into manageable and understandable figures. Take, for example, the national debt of the United States is over 15 trillion dollars, a figure that is perhaps impossible to comprehend. But you could break it down in a couple of ways. The debt is slightly over $48k per citizen, roughly $192k per family of four. Or you could compare the debt to the yearly GDP.

How sociology can help explain the high prices of art

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Collecting art is an expensive hobby – and sociology can help explain why:

The top art prices may have little to do with classic economics. Noah Horowitz, whose Art of the Deal is a crucial text on the subject, says in the long run your investment in art may only do about as well as your holdings in bonds—and comes with greater risk. (But, as one major New York collector put it, that’s not so bad, if you have nowhere else to store your income. And anyway, “bonds aren’t that good to look at.”) At this moment, when the 1 percent has the cash to burn, buying art is less about finance than about the cultural value of money, and of art. “A dollar is not a dollar is not a dollar,” says Viviana Zelizer, the great Princeton sociologist who wrote The Social Meaning of Money. The dollars spent in Miami are “cultural dollars,” Zelizer says, and that makes them obey their own rules. Below, five reasons why art defies economics…

The sociologist Mitch Abolafia, who has made a study of Wall Street financiers, says that sometimes money speaks for itself. “A trader said to me one day, with glee in his eyes, ‘You can’t see it, but money is everywhere in this room. Money is flying around—millions and millions of dollars.’ It was a generalized excitement about money. Even I felt it.” That’s the excitement we all get from expensive art. One collector, who believes deeply that art should be bought for art’s sake, acknowledges basking in the “robust glow of prosperity” that his purchases give off once their value has soared.

The people who are spending record amounts on art buy more than just that glow. (And much more than the pleasure of contemplating pictures, which they could get for $20 at any museum.) They’ve purchased boasting rights. “It’s, ‘You bought the $100 million Picasso?!,’” says Glimcher. Abolafia explains that his financiers were “shameless” in declaring the price of their toys, because in their world, what you buy is less about the object than the cash you threw at it. The uselessness of art makes any spending on it especially potent: buying a yacht is a tiny bit like buying a rowboat, and so retains a taint of practicality, but buying a great Picasso is like no other spending. Olav Velthuis, a Dutch sociologist who wrote Talking Prices, the best study of what art spending means, compares the top of the art market to the potlatches performed by the American Indians of the Pacific Northwest, where the goal was to ostentatiously give away, even destroy, as much of your wealth as possible—to show that you could. In the art-market equivalent, he says, prices keep mounting as collectors compete for this “super-status effect.”…

I’m convinced that most collectors spend their surplus millions on art because they have a genuine belief in its aesthetic value. “We don’t consider art an investment. We get a psychic reward—I love to come home and look at our walls,” says Eli Broad, a prominent collector from Los Angeles, taking a break from shopping with his art-loving wife at the fair in Miami. (They’d just bought some early Cindy Sherman photos, for sale at Metro Pictures for a modest $150,000.) Aesthetics are the bedrock the art market is built on. But, for want of any other reliable measure, they often get tallied in dollars. One of New York’s biggest dealers told Velthuis, the Dutch sociologist, that collectors “permanently have to explain to themselves why they spend so much money on art, sometimes up to 40 percent of their total net worth. So that they want to hear all day long that it makes sense what they do.” And the easiest way to gauge the aesthetic “sense” of an art purchase is to check out the “cents” the thing is selling for. When you’re looking for great art, you may spot it by its price tag.

Sounds like a common sociological explanation: status matters. In order to show their social status or to break into elite circles, people with money buy art.

It would be interesting to read more about how this plays out with emerging artists. After watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, it looks like there is quite an interest in “discovering” and capitalizing on the “next best thing.” It’s one thing to be able to buy works by the masters but another to find the next Banksy and become a new patron.

And can the wealthy create a different kind of status by donating their works to museums or traveling exhibitions to show that they are sharing?

A bear asks for an apology for McMansions

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A New Jersey bear explains his point of view which includes asking for an apology about the McMansions that have been built:

You see, there are an awful lot of us these days – thousands when their used to be a handful. Twenty years ago I was something special, a character out of a storybook. I was mean or cuddly, depending on your personality. Today I am a nuisance, and I completely understand this. There’s not a whole lot of room anymore, thanks to our large and growing population combined with your government’s collusion with developers over the past few decades. As I write this they are taking down more land near me for what you folks call “affordable housing,” but of course it’s just a front for a massive shopping complex. You folks are pretty gullible, if you don’t mind me saying.

Occasionally, we get the urban sophisticate coming our way and he/she treats me like the old days. They look at me with wonder and awe, and I’m guessing it’s because they don’t have much wildlife around the outskirts of Trenton, Newark, or Hoboken. Usually the people are on their way to the Mount Airy Lodge or some other oasis and I give them what they want – an authentic outdoor experience (even if that experience is realized along a highway). Anyway, those same city dwellers are trying to protect me now and I appreciate it. I do. I don’t want to be hunted just as the woodchuck doesn’t want to fall under my claws. But it’s not reality. We are a safety hazard to you (and you to us), and while it’s not our fault, there are too many of us and too many of you. Someone has to be minimized. Both of us can’t pull up fake wicker chairs on a back deck and debate the healthcare bill. It is the natural order of things. A cat is territorial and will fight off any other cat that invades that space (and kill any mouse), so too are humans. I am only thankful that you are sensitive enough to minimize and not eradicate.

So there it is. I am sorry for the destruction around town and the occasional fright.   I am sorry for the debate we spawn between rural residents that have to deal with us on a constant basis and city residents that don’t. And I hope one day you apologize to us for taking so much of the woodland for your McMansions and strip malls. It made things difficult, to say the least.

I assume there is a (good?) reason for this piece. Regardless, it illustrates the sprawl argument that is often made about McMansions. Even more so than the particular features of McMansion homes, McMansion neighborhoods, or people who buy McMansions, a number of people consider McMansions to be the primary exemplar of suburban sprawl that brings highways, strip malls, and single-family homes. This doesn’t just ruin the landscape for humans but has other ecological consequences including flooding issues, a loss of open space, and a negative effect on animal habitats.

And perhaps sometimes you just need to hear it from a bear.

Arguments against Georgetown sociology course on Jay-Z

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In a story that continues to have legs, here is the summary of some arguments against the sociology class about Jay-Z at Georgetown:

While the chairman of Georgetown’s sociology department defends the class, outraged students like junior Stephen Wu have called it “poppycock” and said serious scholars should be delving into Homer not Shawn Carter (Jay-Z’s real name).

“The great bard inclines toward the divine; he brings to light much of the character of human nature and puts man in communion with higher things,” Wu sniffed in the Georgetown campus newspaper, The Hoya. “Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man’s wants.”

Other critics contend Dyson is giving a pass to a rapper who made his bones with raunchy lyrics that ripped women as greedy gold diggers in songs like “Big Pimpin’.”

The two arguments are these:

1. Whether colleges should be teaching about the best of Western Civilization, a constant argument on college campuses. Can any “popular” topics be taught about on campus? Can there be room in a curriculum for both the “great books” and modern topics? This is a broader issue about what belongs in a college curriculum.

2. The content of Jay-Z’s lyrics which can be crude. Should these lyrics simply be condemned and never discussed or could classes like these try to provide some context and explanation?

Another matter in this article: the professor of the class, Michael Eric Dyson, is described first as a “TV pundit.” It does appear Dyson is often in the media but he also has a doctorate so he is not simply another commentator. I don’t know Dyson’s work at all but does calling him a “TV pundit” also denigrate the subject of the class?

I wonder if underlying these arguments is also the idea that this class sounds preposterous compared to a perceived need for American students to pursue STEM degrees.

Occupy Wall Street to move into foreclosures?

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As Occupy Wall Street moves forward, here is one of the next steps is to move into foreclosures:

Occupy Wall Street has left the street and gone legit. They’ve rented office space in the Financial District and meet daily at a public atrium inside Deutche Bank.

“We’ve managed to, in basically two months, propel the issues of inequality and social justice to the top of our national discussion,” said one Occupier.

In various cities today there were marches on a variety of issues, but the movement plans new tactics. On Tuesday around the nation, it plans to occupy foreclosed homes. In mid-January, a call to pitch tents outside of Congress.

Foreclosures have generally taken a back seat recently to issues like jobs, stock markets, and Republican presidential nominees. Can OWS turn attention back to housing? It will be very interesting to see where they occupy homes (the worst areas like Merced, California or Las Vegas?), how they sustain their collective energy if they are more indeed spread out, and how neighbors respond.

Some recent polls on the most important issues in the minds of Americans:

–PwC Health Research Institute in mid-November: job creation is most important and healthcare and the deficit are tied at number two.

–Gallup in early November: the economy leads the way but there is no mention of housing or foreclosures.

–Rasmussen Reports in mid-October: economy leads by wide margin with 84% saying it is “very important.” No separate category for housing so hard to parse out jobs, stock market, housing.

Perhaps there aren’t many people tracking dissatisfaction with housing in recent months?

If these polls are correct, should the OWS focus on job creation and the economy rather than branch out into foreclosures/the housing market?

Adding sociology to the MCAT

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I’ve wondered recently about sociology in grade schools and here is news that sociology has been added to the MCAT, the entrance exam for medical schools:

The 2015 change marks the fifth major alteration of the MCAT since it was introduced in the 1920s.

The new MCAT will include the addition of an entirely new section titled “Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations of Behavior,” as well as a more intense examination of the biomedical sciences, such as genetics and biochemistry…

Koetje said the addition of psychology and sociology to the test was necessary because of the advances made in health care as well as the sociocultural changes within the health care system.

“Patients are more complex today, and medical schools have to ensure that these students will be capable of treating the whole person and everything that comes with that,” Koetje said.

As the article hints at, will more schools now have pre-med students take courses in sociology and psychology in order to prepare? In response to this question (part of a larger set of FAQs about the change), here is what the AAMC says:

Examinees who would not otherwise take biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, introductory psychology, and introductory sociology would need to study the concepts tested. We do not anticipate the need for additional coursework in research methods and statistics.

I wonder exactly what sociological concepts will be included on the test. I assume race, social class, and gender are non-negotiable?

This also gives sociology teachers more room to tell undergraduates in Intro to Sociology classes that sociology is helpful for many fields, including medicine.