Category Archives: Sociology

2010 Census director on suburbanization of minorities

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Sociologist Robert M. Groves spoke earlier this week “at an Advertising Research Foundation event.” In his comments, Groves noted one of the major demographic trends in America: more minorities are now in the suburbs.

Of course, if Groves — with a Ph.D. in sociology and a long-time Michigan professor — were to put out a “for hire” sign for TV networks, a bidding war could heat up between Univision and Telemundo. The story of the 2010 Census, which could have been written in 2005 (or 1995, for that matter), is the boom in Hispanic America…

Last year left Groves well-armed with figures about the Hispanic population, such as the prevalence of those speaking Spanish at home and English elsewhere. And he has much to say about a dispersal trend in the Hispanic community, the departure from cities. In the Atlanta area, for example, the number of Hispanic residents spreading to the collar counties is soaring.

“The suburbanization of the minority population is a phenomenon over the past decade,” Groves said.

While the American suburbs have typically been seen as places where whites attempted to escape the city and minority populations (“white flight”), the number of minorities in the suburbs has been on the rise (read about this on a national scale here and in the Chicago region here and here).

The article goes on to consider how Groves might also be in demand as businesses look to utilize this kind of demographic knowledge:

Broadly, Groves has some cred if he were to become a network ambassador to Madison Avenue. At some level, he’s overseen a massive campaign — stretching from a Super Bowl spot to targeted marketing in 28 languages — as with the Census spent $300 million to $400 million in advertising last year.

As the Bureau sought to get more Americans to return their questionnaires, it figured that for every 1% increase it produced, that would save $85 million in the costs associated with knocking on doors later.

“The message got through and it changed behavior,” Groves said.

The director can also say he can manage a budget. The Bureau returned $1.6 billion to the government last year as it completed its work.

Before becoming director of the 2010 Census, Groves was well known in sociology for his work with surveys. This article suggests that he could parlay this Census experience plus his prior research into a lucrative corporate position.

McMansions are Republican homes?

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In a humor/satire column in the Huffington Post, McMansions are tied to Republicans:

A Pew survey finds President Obama is polling quite well against a “generic” Republican opponent, better than George W. Bush was against a “generic” Democrat in 2003. Forty-seven percent of respondents said they would like to see Obama reelected while 37 percent opted for a generic Republican candidate. HuffPost Hill couldn’t reach “generic” Republican, Pleated Q. Pants IV, at his McMansion in suburban Columbus for comment. We hear he was shopping at a big box store and thinking about national security.

This is an interesting mix of characteristics: the “generic” Republican candidate shops at a big box store (why not say Wal-Mart? Is Target too trendy?) in central Ohio and lives in a suburban McMansion. There may be some truth to some of this: Joel Kotkin argued after the 2010 election that Republicans won the suburban vote even as both parties for fighting for this demographic.

I have seen other cases where McMansions are tied to Republicans. What exactly about the McMansion is Republican: the size? The bad architecture? The sprawl? The suburban lifestyle? The three (or more) car garage? The big mortgage? The wealth that made the house purchase possible?

What would a Democratic characterization in the same vein look like? In terms of the housing unit, how about an urban loft or a refurbished rowhouse or brownstone, all in a gentrified, atmospheric, and trendy neighborhood?

Sociologist argues sexual revolution may have begun in the 1940s

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A recent study published in American Sociological Review suggests that the sexual revolution, typically attributed to the 1960s, may have begun earlier:

“When we refer to the sexual revolution, we typically refer to something that happened suddenly in the 1960s, that took place mainly in the U.S. or Western countries, and that lifted restrictions on all kinds of sexual interactions,” says [David] Frank. “None of these is entirely true.”

In a study published in the December issue of American Sociological Review, Frank and co-authors found that as early as the mid-1940s societal views of the role of sex began changing from a predominantly procreative activity to one focused on individual satisfaction and self-expression. Among the sexual revolution’s most widespread and enduring effects, they found, was the significant change in how sex crimes are classified and regulated around the world.

Using global data collected from 194 nation-states on sex crime laws from 1945 to 2005, they analyzed the effects of reconceptualization on sex crime regulation. They found that as societal models shifted to an individualistic focus, laws regulating sodomy and adultery – acts generally defined as consensual transactions among adults – became more relaxed. Laws regulating rape and child sexual abuse – crimes committed without individual consent – expanded in scope.

If Frank is right (and he is working with some interesting data), then it might change perceptions of the 1950s. This decade is often considered to be a sort of “golden era,” the time of Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, and housewives taking care of the kids and home while the father in a coat and hat traveled to work. And the events of the 1960s seem to fit with this as there was a reaction against this pleasant but restrictive earlier decade.

But Frank suggests that the seeds of the 1960s were sown earlier. This would mean that the 1950s were not as homogeneous as they are commonly portrayed – the legal foundation was already laid for the more contentious 1960s. And it would be interesting to trace out this cultural process as the changes in these laws translated into changed attitudes and behaviors among the general public.

More on people living beneath Las Vegas

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I first ran into a story on people living under Las Vegas in The Sun (UK) two years ago. The most recent edition of Newsweek also briefly discusses this situation as part of a larger article about Las Vegas and the impact Celine Dion has had on the city:

At the south end of the Strip, near the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, a hidden concrete path leads into a 500-mile warren of wet, trash-strewn drainage pipes that function as an underground shelter for hundreds of the city’s most downtrodden. Several have been laid off from the same well-paid, benefits-packed service jobs that give Vegas its rep as a working-class paradise. The pipes are one of the few places police and hotel security don’t bother to tread, and since the recession, they’ve become increasingly populated, according to Matthew O’Brien, author of a 2007 book about the tunnels, Beneath the Neon.

Life here is spare and dangerous. Aside from floods that can fill the space in minutes, there is ever-present crime. Jody Alger, 48, an unemployed casino waitress, guards her tunnel with a BB gun. Another camp has two makeshift barricades at its entrance; inside, its 32-year-old inhabitant huddles on an old bed with a flashlight strapped to his head. In a nearby tunnel, John Tondee sleeps on a sagging leather couch that he found in a Dumpster. His clothes are in a messy pile, and his entertainment is a guitar with a broken string, which he uses for playing country gospel. “I’m at the point of coming out of here,” he says. “I’ve had enough.” Tondee says he’s a former maintenance worker who lost his job a year ago and couldn’t afford to pay the $675 in rent. “I’ll do whatever it takes to survive,” he says. “I’ll go around and wash windows.” At night, he used to dress in drag and walk down the Strip. But someone came into the tunnel and stole his 16 wigs. Now he has only one head of fake black curls left.

These two paragraphs are meant to set up a comparison between the glitzy and popular Celine Dion shows at Caesar’s Palace and the desperate times some residents are facing.

But from what I can gather, people living underneath a city is not a limited phenomenon perhaps tied to difficult economic times. The space underneath cities can be easier to access than people might realize: this story about Paris suggests all sorts of people end up exploring this area (though many of them are on tours of the Paris Catacombs). And the 1995 book The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City, which I first read for my undergraduate Introduction to Sociology class, is a fascinating look at how a number of people have carved out a life in a space that most would avoid.

Declining number of children in San Francisco

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The City of San Francisco is facing an interesting problem: a declining population of children.

Families that remain in The City are bucking the trend that has plagued San Francisco for years as the number of children — defined as people up to 17 years old — has dropped from 181,532 in 1960 to 107,524 today, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures. The 2000 census counted 112,802 youths.

The decrease is disappointing news for city officials, who have attempted to counter the family-flight trend by creating more affordable housing, improving schools and cutting costs, such as a college savings account for kindergarten enrollees.

What is interesting in this article is that it is not said why having children in a city is so desirable. What if a city decided that it didn’t really want to attract families or children – would this be acceptable to Americans? Children cost money, not only to families but particularly due to schools and other city services.

I could think of a few possible reasons why not having children in a city would be a problem: this means that younger families who work in certain jobs and pay taxes will not be present, a lack of children suggests the city is not a “family-friendly” place which would cut down on tourist money, or children might be considered a symbol or sign of vitality and passing down the values of the city down to a new generation.

I wish the article said more about what San Francisco officials, including more than the ones involved in children-centered agencies, really thought about this issue.

If President Obama kicked teams out of the NCAA tournament for low graduation rates

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The discussion over the graduation rates of men’s basketball players on NCAA tournament teams has grown in recent years. One columnist wondered what President Obama might say if he addressed the issue:

“While nine of every 10 white players graduate on the top-32-seeded men’s teams, only five of every 10 black players graduate. As an African American, I am personally outraged that 21 of the 68 men’s teams have black player graduation rates ranging from 44 percent down to zero.

“Thus, beginning today, I will do my bracket with this new stipulation: I will not write in your team if either your team or black player graduation rate is under 50 percent.

“This decision is not an easy one to make for a basketball purist. It leaves out nearly a third of the teams, including prestigious programs that account for 10 of the last 21 titles. It is with regret that I will leave blank spots for Syracuse, Indiana State, Missouri, Southern Cal, Michigan State, Tennessee, Florida, Nevada-Las Vegas, UC-Santa Barbara, Michigan, Morehead State, Kentucky, Georgia, Temple, Connecticut, Alabama-Birmingham, Texas, Washington, Arizona, Kansas State, and Akron…”

If Education Secretary Arne Duncan already made a similar suggestion, why not the President, who is an avid basketball fan and fills out men’s and women’s brackets on TV?

This is a complex issue that the NCAA doesn’t seem to want to talk about. Instead, they would rather run commercials (one example here) saying that “most [college athletes] go pro in something other than sports.” This may be true in many sports but there are racial gaps in a number of schools in both men’s basketball and football (read about troubles at Auburn here), the major revenue-generating sports.

Chicago suburbs consider more roundabouts

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The roundabout has had a sort of renaissance in American traffic and road design in recent years. While many Americans might consider roundabouts to be European, there are more being built in the Chicago suburbs:

At least 10 roundabouts have recently been considered or launched in the Chicago area. The intersections consist of a center island surrounded by a one-way lane of traffic where drivers yield to circling cars without the instruction of stop signs or traffic signals.

South Holland in 2008 was one of the first in the area to build a modern roundabout. Another was finished in Lincolnshire in November. Kane County is planning one west of Elgin. Another proposal was recently unveiled for Chicago’s West Lakeview neighborhood, and the Illinois Department of Transportation is looking to convert the despised Cumberland Circle in Des Plaines into a modern roundabout as well.

Because the design forces vehicles to slow down and eliminates left-hand turns, the possibility for multicar accidents is much lower than at a traditional intersection, safety experts say.

In addition to the safety improvements, I recall reading that roundabouts also accommodate more traffic. Instead of having cars stop (at either stop signs or traffic lights), there is more continuous flow.

It is also interesting to read how suburban residents seem afraid of these roundabouts: how does one drive through them? Perhaps suburban drivers all have seen how Clark Griswold (played by Chevy Chase) got stuck in a London roundabout for hours in European Vacation. At least at the beginning, this unfamiliarity may contribute to the reduction of accidents: people have to slow down in order to figure out their next course of action.

In the long run, this is a good reminder that driving habits and behavior are very much conditioned by what we are used to. This reminds of Hans Monderman, the Dutch traffic engineer, who went to great lengths to get drivers to readjust their behavior (and the American way of just adding traffic signs doesn’t help – read about it in Traffic).

(As a side note: speaking from experience with a roundabout in northern Indiana that I drove through for several years, it is pretty easy.)

Are Section 8 vouchers now being used for McMansions?

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WalletPop has a story with a provocative opening line: “In what may be one of the strangest twists to the housing market crisis, Section 8 housing tenants are moving from urban housing projects and into high-end condo complexes and single-family McMansions that just a few years ago sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.” The premise makes some sense: in an unstable housing market with a lot of potential for vacancies and foreclosures, landlords are looking for steady money. While Section 8 users were “treated by landlords as the tenants of last resort” in better times, now landlords are looking for this consistent money from the government.

But as I read this article, I tried to figure out where the McMansions come into play: most of the examples here feature Section 8 users moving into nicer condos or apartments, not large homes out in the suburbs. So are Section 8 vouchers really be used for McMansions, which at the most basic level are large, single-family homes? Does a Section 8 voucher provide enough funding to allow people to live in McMansions, even ones with reduced prices? There is not much information here to back up this assertion although it does sound as though the housing crisis has allowed Section 8 users to access a broader market.

Also, the headline of the article, “Section 8 Tenants: the Housing Market’s Salvation?,” doesn’t really address if there are enough Section 8 vouchers to help the broader housing market. For this to happen, the federal government would need to free up more money for more people in this housing assistance program.

New Census figures on Hispanics in US: over 50 million

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Data from the 2010 US Census continues to trickle out (see stories on the shifting US mean population center, the growth in the multiracial population, and the population changes in places like Chicago). With almost all states accounted for, demographers expect that the Hispanic population in the United States has exceeded 50 million for the first time. The Hispanic population growth was also higher than expected for the last decade:

In a surprising show of growth, Hispanics accounted for more than half of the U.S. population increase over the last decade, exceeding estimates in most states…

Racial and ethnic minorities are expected to make up an unprecedented 90 percent of the total U.S. growth since 2000, due to immigration and higher birth rates for Latinos…

“This really is a transformational decade for the nation,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution who has analyzed most of the 2010 data. “The 2010 census shows vividly how these new minorities are both leading growth in the nation’s most dynamic regions and stemming decline in others.”

Currently the fastest growing group, Hispanics now comprise 1 in 6 Americans; among U.S. children, Hispanics are roughly 1 in 4.

With relatively low birth rates for whites (though these rates are not as low as other industrialized nations such as Western Europe or Japan), most of the recent population growth in the United States is non-white.

I would really like to hear more experts comment on this sort of data. What do they expect America to be within a few decades? How will these figures affect social life, politics, work, culture, and more?

Chicago Tribune calls for phasing out of mortgage-interest deduction

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What interesting arguments people will make in the midst of an economic crisis. While one commentator has a number of reasons why he is “never going to own a home again,” the Chicago Tribune argues that the United States needs to phase out the mortgage-interest deduction. The main reason seems to be that the deduction primarily benefits wealthier homeowners, not the middle class:

Trade groups such as the National Association of Home Builders portray the benefit as a middle-class tax break. But it does a lot less for most Americans than those with a vested interest in promoting home sales would have you believe: If you rent, you get nothing. If you have reasons not to itemize deductions, you get nothing. If you pay off your mortgage to live debt-free, you get nothing.

Borrow a fortune for a McMansion, however, and the Internal Revenue Service provides a big discount, at the expense of every other taxpayer. More than three-fourths of the benefit from the mortgage-interest deduction goes to the 14 percent of tax filers reporting six-figure incomes. Almost one-third of the subsidy goes to the population reporting incomes of $200,000 or more. Those 3 percent of tax filers at the very top receive about the same amount as do the 86 percent earning less than six figures.

As a consequence, this deduction does little to promote homeownership — supposedly its main objective. Data suggest that almost no one now benefiting from the break would flee the real-estate market. People just wouldn’t borrow as much to fund home purchases.

What is remarkable to me about both of these arguments is that such arguments might have been unheard of before this economic crisis. But since the economy has gone downhill, the housing market in particular (and the most recent housing figures are not good), desperate times apparently call for desperate measures.

All of this bears watching: will homeownership remain a cornerstone of the American Dream?