Fighting math-phobia in America

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The president of Barnard College offers three suggestions for making math more enticing and relevant for Americans:

First, we can work to bring math to those who might shy away from it. Requiring that all students take courses that push them to think empirically with data, regardless of major, is one such approach. At Barnard — a college long known for its writers and dancers — empirical reasoning requirements are built into our core curriculum. And, for those who struggle to meet the demands of data-heavy classes, we provide access (via help rooms) to tutors who focus on diminishing a student’s belief that they “just aren’t good at math.”

Second, employers should encourage applications from and be open to having students with diverse educational interests in their STEM-related internships. Don’t only seek out the computer science majors. This means potentially taking a student who doesn’t come with all the computation chops in hand but does have a good attitude and a willingness to learn. More often than not, such opportunities will surprise both intern and employee. When bright students are given opportunities to tackle problems head on and learn how to work with and manipulate data to address them, even those anxious about math tend to find meaning in what they are doing and succeed. STEM internships also allow students to connect with senior leaders who might have had to overcome a similar experience of questioning their mathematical or computational skills…

Finally, we need to reject the social acceptability of being bad at math. Think about it: You don’t hear highly intelligent people proclaiming that they can’t read, but you do hear many of these same individuals talking about “not being a math person.” When we echo negative sentiments like that to ourselves and each other, we perpetuate a myth that increases overall levels of math phobia. When students reject math, they pigeonhole themselves into certain jobs and career paths, foregoing others only because they can’t imagine doing more computational work. Many people think math ability is an immutable trait, but evidence clearly shows this is a subject in which we can all learn and succeed.

Fighting innumeracy – an inability to use or understand numbers – is a worthwhile goal. I like the efforts suggested above though I worry a bit if they are tied too heavily to jobs and national competitiveness. These goals can veer toward efficiency and utilitarianism rather than more tangible results like better understanding of and interaction society and self. Fighting stigma is going to be hard by invoking more pressure – the US is falling behind! your future career is on the line! – rather than showing how numbers can help people.

This is why I would be in favor of more statistics training for students at all levels. The math required to do statistics can be tailored to different levels, statistical tests, and subjects. The basic knowledge can be helpful in all sorts of areas citizens run into: interpreting reports on surveys and polls, calculating odds and risks (including in finances and sports), and understanding research results. The math does not have to be complicated and instruction can address understanding where statistics come from and how they can be used.

I wonder how much of this might also be connected to the complicated relationship Americans have with expertise and advanced degrees. Think of the typical Hollywood scene of a genius at work: do they look crazy or unusual? Think about presidential candidates: do Americans want people with experience and knowledge or someone they can identify with and have dinner with? Math, in being unknowable to people of average intelligence, may be connected to those smart eccentrics who are necessary for helping society progress but not necessarily the people you would want to be or hang out with.

Mismatch between the slightly smaller homes millennials want and bigger homes builders want to construct?

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Some data from recent years suggests builders and younger homebuyers may not see eye-to-eye on what kinds of homes they want:

A new survey from the National Association of Home Builders suggests that millennials — the demographic that should be the big driver of home buying over the next decade — is growing increasingly pragmatic about size. In 2018, one-third of millennials said they would trade smaller size for greater affordability; in 2007 just one in five millennials found that tradeoff palatable.

Indeed, in its most recent annual report, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies notes the builder vs. buyer mismatch. “With millions of millennials moving into their prime home-buying years, demand for smaller, more affordable homes seems poised for a surge,” the report stated.

Yet builders aren’t interested in ponying up the supply.

The JCHS says that in 2017 small homes represented just 22% of new homes, compared to an average of 32% between 1999 and 2011. And to be clear, the JCHS is not talking about tiny homes for millennials. It defines small as 1,800 square feet or less. That is still bigger than new homes’ median size a generation ago.

Just how much smaller are the homes that millennials desire? The median new home size decreased last year to around 2,300 square feet. What exactly is the range of home size millennials most desire (and how does this size interact with other important factors such as locations or features of the home)?

On the other side, builders are likely interested in constructing larger homes because they can make more money off each unit. Additionally, there is still some demand for larger homes though this could change in the coming years with more millennials in the housing market alongside older residents who are no longer buying homes or who are looking to sell their own large homes.

All of this is of interest to the housing industry (and other related observers): will millennials kill McMansions? Where are the newly constructed starter houses? On the whole, Americans still have large homes on a global scale and an intertwined set of social and cultural factors that keep that going. There is both money to be made here and new dwellings younger homebuyers would like to explore (if they can afford them).

Considering housing shortages and gentrification together

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An MIT economist looks at the relationship between gentrification and a shortage of cheaper housing:

Unsurprisingly, the geography of a place and the community residing there are linked. Along the most measurable dimensions, richer people tend to live in places with attractive geographies. Conversely, places with undesirable attributes like industrial or transportation pollution, poor access to jobs, and uninviting climates are usually left for the poorest and most marginalized.

Usually—but not always. Occasionally, physically attractive locations come to be occupied by low-income communities, immigrant communities, black communities. Neighborhoods like these are ripe for gentrification. Changes in labor markets, large investments by public or private institutions, or even just changing preferences among the wealthy move these neighborhoods into the sight lines of richer people, and then they gentrify.

The housing shortage, meanwhile, is a region-wide round of musical chairs, in which the winners sat down before the music even stopped. Whereas gentrification reshuffles which communities occupy which parts of the city, the housing shortage can operate at the scale of cities and regions as well as neighborhoods…

Policies introduced to fight gentrification—rent control and tenant protections—may ameliorate the effects of neighborhood change, but they won’t build new homes. We must allow new construction somewhere, despite the changes this will bring. Of course, we must do so in a way that avoids gentrification.

Four quick thoughts on this argument:

1. This reminds me of my post from the other day comparing the perspective that there is not enough housing and there is plenty of housing but it is not cheap enough. This piece suggests there are multiple housing issues at work and policies might tackle one particular issue and not others (or even make other housing issues worse).

2. Does the multiplicity of housing issues require that Americans prioritize which issue matters to them most? If middle-class people want cheaper housing, that will lead to different approaches (public policies, legislation, urban planning, decisions by developers, etc.) compared to a consensus that gentrification is not desirable. Historically, Americans have tended to prioritize housing for the middle-class (broadly defined) at the expense of housing for the poor or homeless.

3. To truly address all of these issues, metropolitan-wide approaches are needed. Individual neighborhoods or municipalities are often left to tackle these on their own even though decisions by nearby neighborhoods or municipalities have significant effects on their housing.

4. Additionally, a comprehensive housing policy is needed, not just one that tackles the most important or noisiest issue at the moment. On one hand, many Americans would not want the government to become involved in such issues even as the government has promoted suburban homeownership for roughly a century.

When local government meetings go past midnight

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Suburbanites like smaller local government. But, local government meetings or hearings that go past midnight can be inconvenient. A recent example from an Illinois suburb discussing marijuana sales:

Angering residents who showed up in droves to oppose the sale of recreational marijuana in the village, Buffalo Grove trustees at about 1 a.m. Tuesday approved zoning regulations to allow it.

For 4½ hours, residents spoke passionately against recreational pot sales. But in the end, only one trustee, David Weidenfeld, voted against the regulations, which will allow recreational dispensaries as a special use in nonresidential areas — three business districts and the industrial district.

There are two issues at work here. The first is this: the article suggests there was a vocal set of residents opposed to marijuana sales who were not happy with the results. Local residents can become active if they perceive a change in the community will negatively affect their quality of life and/or property values (see recent suburban cases in Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, and Itasca). If the decision does not go their way – and there are plenty of cases where there are vocal residents and leaders on both sides – then resentment and long-term conflict can develop.

But, the second issue is what I want to focus on here: how late the meeting ran. How many residents, even if they are energized by a particular cause, can afford to stay out past midnight at a public meeting or hearing? Staying up that late can put a severe damper on the next day’s activities, particularly depending on jobs, family situations, and health. Residents may feel they need to stay to the end of a meeting to be heard but that comes at a cost.

Local officials may also be in a bind regarding time. Many municipalities already have rules in place so that individual speakers do not run too long and that plenty of people get a chance to speak. There is other business that needs to be conducted at many local meetings, including considering a variety of proposals, approving payments, and considering reports from other staff or committees. The meeting can only start so early as residents and leaders may be coming from jobs, dinner, and other responsibilities. Stretching meetings over multiple days may not be optimal though multiple meetings or hearings can happen if leaders want to provide more opportunities for people to voice their opinions.

In the particular case above, it looks like the public had a chance to speak – 4.5 hours – and therefore the approval could not come until later (and the approval was overwhelming). The late ending may have only rubbed salt in the wounds of those opposed to pot sales. But, as best practice, local officials should work to avoid concluding meetings in the wee hours in the morning.

Identifying “the wrong side of the tracks” in wealthy suburban areas

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In wealthier suburban areas, where are the “wrong side of the tracks”? One writer explores this question in Chicago’s North Shore suburbs:

Pity the poor people of Wilmette. Most of them have done quite well in life. They’re doctors, academics, architects, attorneys. But they have the misfortune of living down Green Bay Road from — and sending their children to New Trier with — people who’ve done even better…

They don’t just do it in Wilmette, either. I once met a woman from Kenilworth — the second wealthiest municipality in Illinois, in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the nation — who told me, “In Kenilworth, there’s a ‘kennel’ side and a ‘worth’ side.” She, of course, was from the kennel side, presumably west of Green Bay Road, where the houses are slightly smaller.

There’s nothing more North Shore than trying to convince people you’re not as rich as everybody else on the North Shore — that you’re a member of the lower-upper class who grew up on the wrong side of the Metra tracks. Saying “I’m from the North Shore” — especially to someone whose first exposure to that world was Risky Business, Mean Girls, or Rahm Emanuel’s biography — paints a picture of elitism that many residents would understandably like to disassociate themselves from…

Sociologists would say that poor-mouthing in rich suburbs is a result of the fact that we measure our wealth not in absolute terms, but in relation to those around us. Economist Robert H. Frank conducted a study in which he asked people whether they would prefer to live in World A, a 4,000-square-foot house in a neighborhood of 6,000-square-foot mansions, or World B, a 3,000-square-foot house surrounded by 2,000-square-foot bungalows. Most chose World B.

Three quick thoughts:

1. The term hinted at in the last paragraph above is “reference groups.” Who do people tend to compare themselves to? It is often not in absolute terms but comparisons to people they aspire to be to.

2. Continuing from #1, this reminds me of some recent commentary on the top 20% or so of Americans who feel anxiety about their status and are chasing people higher up in the class ladder even as they are comfortable compared to most Americans. (See the book Dream Hoarders.)

3. Of course, there are residents of the North Shore who are not as well off. Or, suburbs without as much wealth or with significant numbers of poorer residents are not that far away. Are they even visible when the middle to upper classes are only looking at their level and above?

Pondering one of the tricks of academia: juggling tasks, work

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As my school takes several days for Fall Break (and I nope students, faculty, and staff get a little respite), I am reminded of one of the secrets of academia: the academic work is never-ending and there are numerous tasks that are all vying to be done now.

I hear this from students in several different forms. They will discuss the various assignments and requirements across the four or so classes they are taking at the same time. This is a lot to handle; which tasks should they prioritize? Or, students will describe feeling like there is always work to do, whether they are in the classroom or back in their dorm or apartment. At least during the course of semesters, it seems like there is more to do.

Faculty face similar pressures. With teaching, publishing, and service responsibilities, let alone life off campus, faculty have plenty to do. Even when the semester ends and the grading is all done, breaks can only last so long because there are ideas to pursue and work to catch up on before another round of on-campus activities begin. In order to do good research, faculty need time to mull over ideas and make revisions and carry out the research process – but all this takes place while doing other things.

And for both students and faculty, there can often be a nagging feeling that others are doing more (it is not hard to find peers who have amazing productivity) or that we should be doing more (and giving up time in other areas). The anxiety lingers: what should I be doing now?

All of this is not easy to manage. Even if the work is invigorating or the tasks sometimes not that difficult, just the number of them and changing nature of the work can be daunting. Staying organized, having a strong support system as well as activities that bring relief, and finding accomplishments can go a long way.

This means that the flexibility of the student and faculty roles comes at a price: more tasks await even during breaks. From the outside, the summer breaks look nice – and they can be – but there is also work to do during these times. Finding a way through these challenges is something students and faculty must navigate.

Paraphrased future: “Love or hate McMansions, the ones in Chicago deserve to be recognized”

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Brutalist architecture may have few admirers but this does not stop people from suggesting the style is worth examining or saving. Here is a recent headline from Curbed Chicago: “13 Brutalist masterpieces that every Chicagoan should know; Love or hate the style, Chicago’s concrete buildings deserve to be recognized.” And this is the argument made about why these buildings are worth looking at:

Popular during the 1960s and 70s, Brutalism should not be overlooked for its historical importance. Though Chicago lost a few Brutalist buildings—most famously Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital, which was demolished in 2014—the style might even be poised for a comeback.

“In many cases, concrete buildings captured the aspirations of the city at critical times,” Chicago-based architect Iker Gil said in a statement last year. “As we shape the future of Chicago, it is worth trying to learn from the lessons and opportunities represented by these remarkable buildings.”

If this argument is successful, then it is a short step toward a similar argument for all kinds of architectural styles and buildings. In particular, the same case could be made for McMansions. Even though many critiqued such homes, what buildings better capture the consumeristic exuberance and grandiosity of the 1990s and 2000s? What buildings better illustrate the sprawling of America and a dedication to private single-family homes that flaunt the status of the homeowners? Why not preserve at least a few McMansions for future generations to remember and learn from?

Somehow, I suspect the calls for preserving McMansions will be more muted or absent. Brutalism seems to attract the attention of enough elite or leading proponents that some of its most interesting buildings will survive. Few leading architects, critics, or designers will stand up for McMansions. Still, I would suspect enough of them will last 50+ years and the legions of McMansion buyers and builders may just come together to make sure some survive much longer.

Competing claims: America has a shortage of housing versus it has plenty of housing (albeit overpriced or inaccessible)

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Does the United States have lots of housing units or a shortage? The two sides of the argument:

  1. A few years ago, I had a conversation with a sociologist who studies housing. When I brought up the issue of not enough housing units in connection with a need for more affordable housing, they said the problem was not a lack of units. Rather, more of those units needed to be made available to the people who for a variety of reasons could not easily access them now.
  2. A recent opinion piece states the other side of the argument:

“Stephen, you’ve been proven right on housing, and I think you’re about to be proven even more right. The most important driver of home prices is supply and demand. And right now, there is a chronic undersupply of homes in America.“

As I said, the 2008 bust turned a lot of folks off from investing in housing. It shattered the confidence of homebuilders, too. Census Bureau data shows an average of 1.5 million homes were built each year since 1959. Yet since 2009, just 900,000 homes have been built per year. In fact, fewer homes were built in the past decade than in any decade since the ‘50s!

We have a serious housing shortage in America today. It would take less than six months to sell every existing home on the market, as you can see here…

…In the past year or two, the first wave of young homebuyers came into the market. But every year for the next decade, tens of millions of Millennials will hit home-buying age.”

I could see a possibility where both prognosticators could be true: there are many dilapidated or older units that need to be updated and priced in ways that more people can access them and there is a relatively shortage of new homes that meet the demands and tastes of younger buyers.

But, this gets at some bigger questions about housing in the United States:

  1. How many older housing units can be renovated to today’s codes and standards? And who should pay for this?
  2. Should anyone be put in charge of or help set housing prices so that more housing units are within economic reach of more residents?
  3. Should developers and builders primarily focus on profit or do they also have a responsibility to communities (beyond paying a fee for affordable  housing or sprinkling in a few cheaper units)?
  4. Can housing be revitalized in areas without significantly changing the population composition or housing values or other ways that might significantly disrupt what current residents like about the location?

Amenities, ROI on housing, and social class

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A recent piece linking amenities to higher return on investment for housing left unnamed a key factor: social class.

It turns out that if Trader Joe’s is nearby, your house might be worth more than if it were close to other grocery chains. The average return on investment, or ROI, for Trader Joe’s-adjacent homes is 51 percent, 10 percentage points more than the runner-up, Whole Foods (41 percent), and almost 20 percentage points more than Aldi (34 percent)…

“When we overlay points of interest (like transit, shopping, and amenities) on top of prices, we see trends in the distance to these features,” Marshall says. “In urban areas, ClearAVM has found that access to public transit has a large correlation with higher property prices. We have found the same with access to restaurants, coffee shops and groceries in urban and suburban areas.”…

Some of the positive location amenities that can impact home values and equity include high-ranking schools, hospitals, shopping centers, green spaces and being near the waterfront (think oceans and lakes), as well as access to highways and main thoroughfares.

Negative location markers include things like high-traffic and high-noise areas, crowded commercial properties, high-tension power lines or other utility easements, a poorly maintained home or neighborhood, and not being near the appealing attractions mentioned earlier, Hunt says.

While I don’t doubt these factors do influence housing values, there is a common factor that helps join them all together: the social class of residents. Grocery stores, like many other businesses, figure out where to locate at least in part on looking at the residents who live nearby. Whole Food’s is generally not going to move to a community where residents do not have the resources to pay their prices. Aldi, in contrast, appeals to a different market. Going further, think of the differences in locations between Walmart and Target, McDonald’s and Chipotle, Dollar Stores versus chain drug stores, and more.

A number of the items on the list of “positive location amenities” are also closely connected to social class. High-ranking schools tend to be in wealthier communities. The same is true of shopping centers and higher property values mean only certain kinds of residents can afford homes on the waterfront.

This does not mean that there is not more affordable housing in these areas with positive amenities. There may be. But, I would guess the zip codes connected to the higher-class grocery stores tend to be wealthier and more educated zip codes overall. The habitus of social class extends even to what grocery stores people prefer, the desired appearance of nearby homes, and close amenities that help reinforce their social class, practices, and tastes.

Seeing changes in suburbs through the presence of religious congregations

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Suburban diversity, such as through having more non-white residents and more less wealthy residents, can be seen through what religious congregations are present in a community (and which are not). Three quick examples of congregations near the college campus where I work. Example #1:

It’s a poignant time for Sublett, who grew up in the church and today runs its deacon ministry. His grandfather, Carl Lewis Sublett, was one of the workers on the old Aurora, Elgin and Chicago Railway who helped start the church.

After meeting in the home of Charles Lucas, the church’s founders bought a $150 lot just south of the train tracks at 412 Crescent St. — today the location of St. Joseph’s Christian Orthodox — to build a church of their own.

It went up in an area referred to as “the Bottom,” a patch of lower ground along Crescent and Washington Streets. That, along with a neighborhood to the east of higher ground near Avery Avenue and Prospect Street called “the Hill,” were the two neighborhoods where it was acceptable at the time for African-Americans to live…

Eventually, the church outgrew the building, and on March 17, 1975, members dedicated the new, white-steepled church by walking about a mile east to where it stands at 1520 Avery Ave., according to church records. Sublett has pictures from that day and recalls the work church members put into erecting the church.

Example #2:

St. Joseph’s Orthodox Christian Church was established by a small group of faithful in March 1989. After meeting for five years in rented facilities, the present site was purchased from the DuPage AME Church. The present church was built in 1999. The community, which today serves well over 600 adults and children throughout the Chicago suburbs, is dedicated to proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ through worship, fellowship, stewardship, and discipleship.

Example #3:

In late August, the Islamic Center of Wheaton bought and moved into the 26,193-square-foot former First Assembly of God Church at 900 E. Geneva Road, at the southwest corner of Geneva Road and President Street. Records show that, through a bank trust, the Islamic Center of Wheaton paid $3.15 million for the church and its 7.08-acre property.

Mosque spokesman Abraham Antar said he and his fellow congregants are excited about their new home, which he said is Wheaton’s first Muslim community.

“Wheaton is a city of faith, and we’re very privileged to be able to establish an Islamic community for Wheaton and especially for the western suburbs,” he said. “There are a lot of Muslims in Wheaton and the surrounding towns. It’s unfortunate for the (First Assembly of God) church that they lost their opportunity to stay there.”

That these three congregations meet and worship in a community known for its wealth, political conservatism, and concentration of evangelical residents and organizations says something. And these changes in religious groups are happening across many American suburbs; religious groups that even a few decades ago would not have been present now have thriving congregations.

The best scholarly text I know on the subject is the 2015 book Religion and Community in the New Urban America. The authors draw upon decades of research in religious change in the Chicago region, examine patterns across different religious traditions in suburbs, and look at different ways new congregations engage with the communities in which they are located.

(At the same time, the presence of new religious groups does not necessarily guarantee significant other changes in communities. Indeed, attempts by new religious groups to construct, purchase, or renovate buildings can invite concern and backlash.)