Keep the suburban shopping mall alive by charging current shoppers an extra 1% tax

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Leaders in Skokie, Illinois want to approve a new 1% tax for purchases at Old Orchard mall in order to help keep the shopping mall going:

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Skokie lawmakers during their Feb. 7 village board meeting voted 7 to 1 to make the mall a “business district,” under Illinois’ Business District Development and Redevelopment Sales Tax provision, allowing businesses there to charge an extra 1% sales tax. The board will take a final vote on the proposal in March.

The $5 million generated annually by the additional 1% sales tax will be used by Westfield to do about $120 million in upgrades and rehabs in the mall, which is the largest tax generator in the village.

Mayor George Van Dusen said the new tax and upgrades are essential if the mall is going to remain viable…

Creating a “business district” includes designating the area as “blighted” to facilitate development and redevelopment by imposing an additional tax, Village Manager John Lockerby told the board.

“The viability of the mall is critical to the community, applicable school districts as well as other units of government,” he said, adding that the initiative will set the mall up for long-term success.

Shopping malls, in general, are struggling and not all will survive. This move is intended to help keep Old Orchard going amid tough conditions with COVID-19 and online retail.

But, this is an interesting choice. Here is a few reasons why:

  1. It takes money from private consumers to fund private development through and to ensure local tax monies. The profits go to the mall developers and the community benefits from ongoing tax revenues, jobs, and shopping opportunities. Would this be appropriately termed a “public-private partnership” or a “taxpayer subsidized” project?
  2. As the article notes elsewhere, other communities could use similar tactics to establish “business districts” and keep their own shopping centers alive. Does this just keep the competition going?
  3. The goal is to keep the mall going because it is already there. Is it a sunk cost? What other good might be done in the community with $5 million annually?

The popularity of the Beatles, informational cascades, and culture developed by champions and conditions

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Explaining the rise and fame of the Beatles is complicated but there may still be new arguments to be made:

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So how did the Beatles make it? Obviously, they had talent that was going unrecognized. But they had something else: early champions. They had a fanatically committed manager in 27-year-old Brian Epstein. They had two enthusiastic admirers who worked in the music publishing arm of EMI who pushed until the company offered the Beatles a recording contract. When “Love Me Do” was released in late 1962 with little support and low expectations from their label, a different kind of champion — fans back in Liverpool — helped build up a wave of support for the song.

I take this example from a paper by Cass Sunstein that is awaiting publication with The Journal of Beatles Studies (you knew there had to be one, right?). Sunstein is a celebrated Harvard Law professor who studies, among many other things, how informational cascades work…

In his paper, Sunstein cites a study done by Matthew J. Salganik and others that illustrates the immense power of social influence. The researchers recruited about 14,000 people to a website where they could listen to and download 48 songs. Some of the people were divided into subgroups where they could see how often other people in their subgroup downloaded each song. Sunstein summarizes the results: “Almost any song could end up popular or not, depending on whether or not the first visitors liked it.” If people saw the early champions downloading a song, they were more likely to download it, too…

These findings support the work of René Girard, a French thinker who is enjoying a vogue these days. Girard exploded the view that we are atomistic individuals driven by our own intrinsic desires. He argued instead that we explore the world by imitating other people. If we see someone wanting something, then that can plant a desire in us to want it, too. “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind,” Girard wrote…

If you are an artist, you probably have less control over whether you’ll become famous than you would like. Social conditions are the key. The better questions for the rest of us may be: Who am I an early champion for? Who are the obscure talents I can help lift up? How am I fulfilling my responsibility to shape the desires of the people around me?

This could be the start of a joke: “How many famous researchers does it take to explain the rise of a set of adolescent celebrities from Liverpool?”

Or, perhaps this simply illustrates Marx’s idea that (paraphrased) “people make choices in circumstances not of their choosing.” The Beatles did their thing but operated within a particular system and time.

More broadly, explaining significant cultural and social change can be complicated. Creativity often builds on the work of people that came before (as the Beatles did). Artists may be creative but not find an opening in the existing system or not be recognized in their time. Even “successful” change can take a long time to develop and be adopted. The Beatles has many things going for them including champions, changes in technology, the rise of teenagers, an ability to put together music and lyrics, etc…but, as noted above, they did not control the whole process nor survive the subsequent pressures.

You can buy the newly constructed home – without a garage door

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Supply chain issues have limited the availability of garage doors for new homes:

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In most parts of the country, a builder can’t pass final inspection for a home that is otherwise perfectly complete — but that is missing its garage door. That means builders don’t get paid and home buyers can’t move in…

These last two years, the garage has also become the answer to all kinds of pandemic problems. It’s the remote office, the home gym, the one-room schoolhouse and the makeshift bedroom for doubled-up family. The pandemic has effectively completed the decades-long evolution of the garage from a detached carriage house to a connected car annex to a space inseparable from the home itself.

Along the way, the garage door became, for many, the real front door. And so it can be surreal to see brand-new homes with their garages sealed in plywood, or to hear homebuilders talk of installing temporary ones. Welcome to your dream home! The real garage door will be coming later…

Amid all this variety, a few problems have been acute lately. Many doors contain spray-foam insulation, which has been in short supply since the plants in Texas that manufacture its chemical components were disrupted in last year’s winter freeze. (If you make garage doors, you’re also competing for polyurethane or polyvinyl chloride with window frames, vinyl siding, caulking — and the aerospace, cruise ship and automotive industries.)

Many other garage door components are made from steel, which has also been in short supply. And even companies that manufacture the finished doors domestically typically source parts from China that have been snarled in global shipping.

Having a garage is essential in many ways (hence the need for it in a final inspection): it protects whatever is in the garage from the elements, it seals up the opening for safety, it provides for entering and leaving, and it is part of the front that home presents to the world.

Indeed, with the development of the single-family home in the United States, the garage became a key, and sometimes, leading component. With homes in the suburbs dependent on cars plus the ownership of more and more vehicles, garages became larger and featured more prominently in the front facade. As the term “snout house” implies, some houses literally lead with the garage closest to the street. In other homes, the garage might be set further back or even discreetly turned or more hidden from the front. Regardless where the garage is placed and featured, it is very important to the American single-family home.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to rethink garages and how they might work. As noted above, many garages have been used in different ways during COVID-19. Is there a way to build them where they can be more quickly converted without the need for a traditional large door? In a possible future of electric car fleets, how would a home garage work?

Waiting for post COVID-19 flight traffic at the busiest airports

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New data on the busiest airports in the United States suggests there is room for more flights in 2022:

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O’Hare International Airport remained America’s second-busiest hub behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2021, but experts say the number to watch is a 27% rebound in flights compared to a dismal 2020…

At the same time, O’Hare continues to climb out of a pandemic slump of 538,211 arrivals and departures in 2020. To put that in context, operations totaled 919,704 in 2019 when O’Hare held the title for most U.S. flights…

What other airports are bustling? The third-most voluminous was Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, followed by Denver International Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport in sixth place.

I have been to the Chicago airports one time for a flight in the last two years and that visit in October 2021 seemed fairly close to normal. Theoretically, the pandemic provided a little space to make improvements or tackle projects at airports. I saw some improvements underway. At least a few big projects are in process at O’Hare:

An expansion of Terminal 5 is in full swing, with more than $1 billion earmarked to modernize the global facility.

At the same time, plans for major airports like O’Hare likely take place on the scale of decades, not necessarily a year at a time. For example, discussions regarding adding a new western terminal and entrance to O’Hare have gone on for years with some progress toward that goal.

It will also be interesting to see how the role of airports changes as the United States shifts to more electric vehicles. If longer road trips are different, will more people want to fly to destinations more than a few hours away? Flights are not exactly green but the transportation landscape could change in the next few decades.

Declaring a mountain lion sanctuary and other NIMBY efforts

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Wealthier communities have a variety of means by which to oppose or block cheaper housing or affordable housing. This can include emphasizing conservation in a Silicon Valley community:

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“Woodside declared its entire suburban town a mountain lion sanctuary in a deliberate and transparent attempt to avoid complying with SB 9,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a letter to notify the town that the move violates state law and must be amended.

After receiving a letter from the attorney general this weekend that threatened further legal action, the town ended its short jaunt into the world of conservation the next day. In a statement on Monday, the council said that the Department of Fish and Wildlife “had advised that the entire Town of Woodside cannot be considered habitat” and that “as such, the Town Council has instructed staff to immediately begin accepting SB 9 applications.”

Woodside is not alone in recent efforts:

Woodside is far from the only town that has attempted to come up with creative ways to block the statewide rezoning law. Since its introduction last year, local governments and homeowner groups have opposed the plan, claiming that it crushes single-family zoning.

There have been at least 40 cases in which towns attempted to block or limit SB 9 housing, according to affordable housing advocacy group Yes in My Back Yard Law.

I would not expect wealthier communities to just go along with new guidelines. The combination of local government authority over zoning plus wealth means that certain communities can delay and/or fight affordable housing or more housing. Or, state legislation or federal guidelines are written in such a way that communities escape scrutiny or any penalties (see the example of Illinois). Is the situation different now in California such that communities will not be able to delay any longer?

More broadly, how much do efforts to conserve open space in suburban areas really take place to protect wildlife and land versus limiting the amount of development? From my research in the Chicago suburbs, I recall numerous efforts to protect open land and expand Forest Preserves. These often occurred during mass suburbanization in the postwar area as open space quickly disappeared among new subdivisions and roads. Open space can help limit the number of nearby residences, reduce noise and traffic, and boost property values by limiting housing supply.

From Taylorism to Fordism to Bezosism

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I recently finished the book Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door – Why Everything has Changed about How and What We Buy. One argument the author makes is that Amazon and others practice a new kind of process, dubbed Bezosism:

Much of the rest of the book after this point considers the costs of this new system for workers. Even as technology enables new options – robots working in warehouses and distribution centers – humans still play a critical role but they work in difficult circumstances.

How far can Bezosism go? Amazon facilities and similar operations from other companies are one important sphere to consider. But, what about other areas? As automation increases and demands for productivity and profit increase, where does this leave workers in all sorts of industries?

Data on how higher housing prices are pushing more people to purchase fixer-uppers

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As housing prices rise, one potential option for homebuyers is to purchase a home needing repairs or renovation. Here are some numbers on this option:

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“When everyone else is looking for a move-in ready home, there’s less competition for the fixer-uppers,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin Corp. “I would not advise it for the faint of heart, but there are a lot of people who are willing to take on that risk because there is such a high reward.”

In 2021, homes in need of renovation sold at a faster pace than the two prior years, according to data from Realtor.com. Fixer-upper sales jumped 13.4% from 2020 to 2021, while the dollar volume of those deals surged 40.8% from 2019 to 2021, reflecting the high growth in sale prices across the broader market. Plus, listings described as “fixer-upper” or using other related terms by agents increased by 8% in December from the previous year…

In a survey by housing research firm Zonda, 33% of respondents said they would buy a fixer-upper for their first or next home but “only if I got a great deal.” Meanwhile, 27% said they would “if the repairs are minor.” Just 20% responded with a “no thanks.”…

On average, fixer-uppers cost 13% less than their move-in ready counterparts, or are about $40,000 less than the typical U.S. home value, according to Zillow. But if that home needs $80,000 to make it livable, that’s not such a great deal, Pendleton said. She recommends that those fixing up homes add an extra 20% onto their budget as a cushion for the unforeseen. 

As the article notes, not everyone has an appetite, resources, or the skills for renovation. But, if the housing options are limited, this appears to be an increasingly attractive option for some. The data cited above suggests a small bump in people selling and buying such homes.

This is also interesting to consider from the other side: the sellers. If someone had a home that needed significant repair, this might be the time to not do those repairs and still get a good price. All those homes needing “TLC” or sold “as-is” now might not linger on the market for months.

More broadly, this hints at how much housing in the United States is eligible for repairs and renovation. The postwar suburban boom started roughly 70 years ago now. Those homes have already likely experienced a lot of repair and change and will undergo more in the upcoming decades. The McMansions of the 1990s and early 2000s will be the fixer-uppers of the future. And since Americans tend to like DIY projects and homeownership, we could be in for more decades of renovations.

The superusers of Facebook

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A new study in the works examines the users who drive activity on Facebook:

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For more than a year, we’ve been analyzing a massive new data set that we designed to study public behavior on the 500 U.S. Facebook pages that get the most engagement from users. Our research, part of which will be submitted for peer review later this year, aims to better understand the people who spread hate and misinformation on Facebook. We hoped to learn how they use the platform and, crucially, how Facebook responds. Based on prior reporting, we expected it would be ugly. What we found was much worse.

The most alarming aspect of our findings is that people like John, Michelle, and Calvin aren’t merely fringe trolls, or a distraction from what really matters on the platform. They are part of an elite, previously unreported class of users that produce more likes, shares, reactions, comments, and posts than 99 percent of Facebook users in America.

They’re superusers. And because Facebook’s algorithm rewards engagement, these superusers have enormous influence over which posts are seen first in other users’ feeds, and which are never seen at all. Even more shocking is just how nasty most of these hyper-influential users are. The most abusive people on Facebook, it turns out, are given the most power to shape what Facebook is.

This connects to a point I have been considering for a while now: the social media activity we tend to see or hear about is often not representative of society as a whole. It depends who is on different platforms, who uses it regularly or are power users, how algorithms work to highlight particular content, and how it is all experienced by users. A social media trend may not reveal much about broader patterns even as particular conversations, sites, and pockets of activity could reveal much about smaller groups or sections.

More broadly, Facebook says it has the goal of connecting people. How do superusers fit into this? Abusive users might be able to connect people, albeit in specific ways that may not be what people generally hope for when they think of connecting. Is the goal to connect people by boosting “average” engagement rather than the users who post the most? On the flip side, how many users do not engage at all and what might effectively move them into engaging regularly?

Complicated urban repairs: 20 years to repair 11 blocks of Park Ave above and below ground

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Manhattan is dense, above ground and below ground. Hence, the city is planning for a 20 year project to to a portion of Park Avenue:

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The good news is the city finally has plans to restore 11 blocks of Park Avenue north of Grand Central to a semblance of its former glory, Bloomberg reports, expanding the median from a useless 20 feet to a potentially-rejuvenating 48 feet. That redesigned street could include bike paths, walking paths, and generally more space for things other than cars or pretty things for people in cars to look at as they drive by.

The bad news is many if not most of the people currently living and working in New York will not be around to enjoy it once it’s done. It will take 20 years to redesign these 11 blocks, according to the city’s Department of Transportation. Yes, you read that right. The project to redesign 11 blocks of a Manhattan street will not be completed until 2042.

But there is no mistake, according to both DOT and Kaye Dyja, Powers’s spokesperson. As Dyja explained, “The reason the construction is going to take a long time is because they’re improving the underground railroads leading to Grand Central, as well as redoing the ‘train sheds.’ This entails that they’re digging up the ground, so the construction will have to take place in stages which will end up taking many years to complete.”

The project Dyja is referring to is a massive $2 billion renovation of the Metro North infrastructure underneath Park Avenue from Grand Central to 57th Street. Park Avenue is a bridge over those tracks, and like many of the U.S.’s bridges, this one is falling apart, too. The project will involve ripping up sidewalks and the median of Park Avenue a couple blocks at a time, going section by section, down the stretch of Park Avenue. It is expected to cause more or less permanent disruption to the Midtown East area, to varying degrees, over the next two decades. 

As a kid, I remember reading books with cross-sections of underground Manhattan. Seeing all of that infrastructure needed for modern urban life – pilings for skyscrapers, subways, water pipes and sewers, etc. – was fascinating.

The flip side of that is the work it takes to make significant changes to such a system. It takes time (and money) to work around what is there and complete the work.

The time is one factor but I wonder about how the budgets will work over a 20 year period. Large American infrastructure projects can have a tendency to stretch in terms of time and budget as the work is underway.

I would love to say I will check in on this in twenty years but that is a long commitment…

Large disparities in risk of death across American transportation modes

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Here is the risk of dying in a vehicle compared to other modes of transportation:

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Northwestern University economics professor Ian Savage examined American crash data over a decade, concluding that 7.3 people died in a car or truck for every billion passenger miles, 30 times the risk on urban rail and 66 times the risk aboard a bus. (If you’re wondering, motorcycles are by far the riskiest vehicles of all, while airplane travel is the safest.)

Even with these numbers, there are multiple reasons why many continue to prefer to drive:

Studies show that people typically feel safer in vehicles they control compared to those they cannot (i.e., a car compared to a bus or train). Worse, the rare transit crash is often a top media story, while daily car collisions barely register. “It’s baked into how we talk about crashes,” says Millar, of Washington State. “We had an Amtrak train crash here, three people died, and it was international news. That same week 10 people died on highways in this state—and it was the same the week before that, and the week before that.”

According to psychology’s “availability heuristic,” the intense attention paid to exceedingly rare plane or train crashes can lead us to unconsciously exaggerate their frequency, while the media’s shrug at car crashes causes us to discount the dangers of driving. One extreme example: A study found that the shift away from flying toward driving in the aftermath of 9/11 led to over 2,000 additional traffic deaths in the United States.

Lots of interesting factors to consider here. Do the perceived advantages of driving block out any consideration of the risk? Even if people had these numbers at their fingertips, would they consider risks or numbers?

I have argued before that the preference for driving is strong. If people in the United States have the resources and opportunity, they will pick driving over mass transit. Of course, the system is set up to make this choice for driving easier with an emphasis on roads and linking important cultural values and driving (such as individualism, taking road trips, suburban life, etc.).

This may be a prime case where making an argument from the numbers simply will not get far given the cultural narratives and social systems already in place. Perhaps the numbers could be paired with a compelling story or narrative? Even then, it could take a long time to convince Americans that because driving is more dangerous than other options they need to switch to other modes of transportation.