Religiosity of 116th Congress both does and does not reflect changes in American religion

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Comparing the religious makeup of the newest Congress to previous Congresses shows several interesting patterns:

http://www.pewforum.org/2019/01/03/faith-on-the-hill-116/

A few patterns to note:

  1. The number of Protestants has dropped dramatically – roughly a loss of 100 from sixty years ago – even as the percent of Protestants in Congress (54%) continues to be higher than the percent of Protestants in the U.S. population (48%).
  2. The number of Catholics in Congress increased from the 1960s into the late 1970s and early 1980s and then has stayed relatively stable. There are more Catholics in Congress (30%) than in the U.S. population as a whole (21%).
  3. The number of religious others is still low and hasn’t changed much over time.
  4. As noted in the summary of the findings:

But by far the largest difference between the U.S. public and Congress is in the share who are unaffiliated with a religious group. In the general public, 23% say they are atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” In Congress, just one person – Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who was recently elected to the Senate after three terms in the House – says she is religiously unaffiliated, making the share of “nones” in Congress 0.2%.

When asked about their religious affiliation, a growing number of members of Congress decline to specify (categorized as “don’t know/refused”). This group – all Democrats – numbers 18, or 3% of Congress, up from 10 members (2%) in the 115th Congress. Their reasons for this decision may vary. But one member in this category, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., announced in 2017 that he identifies as a humanist and says he is not sure God exists. Huffman remains categorized as “don’t know/refused” because he declined to state his religious identity in the CQ Roll Call questionnaire used to collect data for this report.3

In summary, Congress is overwhelmingly religious and Christian. While America as a whole is still solidly majority religious and Christian, Congress is even more so. This seems to suggest Americans still like to elect people who have a faith affiliation even if there is less information on the actual beliefs and practices of the Representatives and Senators (this data “does not attempt to measure their religious beliefs or practices. “).

Illustrating the importance of truck deliveries to American life

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A 2012 infographic shows how vital truck delivers are in the United States:

Infographic Trucking Industry Facts

Four quick thoughts:

1. By days two and three, things are getting ugly. No new food? Certain supplies not available? No more gasoline?

2. This highlights the on-demand nature of many of our underlying social systems. We expect to have supplies readily available if needed and do not stockpile much (from food to medicine to fuel).

3. Many fictional apocalyptic tales feature major natural disasters, diseases, or government issues but a much more prosaic reason could cripple the trucking industry. It may not make for a thrilling story but this could be the real way the apocalypse comes quickly.

4. Shouldn’t we consider the trucking industry part of the national infrastructure? We often consider highways and railroad tracks important but the trucking industry itself matters.

American men have 30 minutes of more leisure time a day and use half of it to watch TV

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Sociologist Liana Sayer tracks the leisure time of Americans by gender, finds a half hour gap between men and women (5 hours and 30 minutes versus 4 hours and 59 minutes), and looks at how men spend that extra time:

What are men doing with that extra half hour? Some of it is spent socializing, exercising, and simply relaxing, among other things. But “about half of the gap is from TV,” says Liana Sayer, a sociologist at the University of Maryland and the director of the school’s Time Use Laboratory…

Sayer, in a 2016 paper, called American time use “stubbornly gendered”: On average, women continue to devote more time each day to chores and looking after children than men do. Further, the average American woman spends 28 more minutes a day than the average American man on “personal care”—a time-use category that encompasses activities such as showering, getting dressed, and applying makeup…

Sayer laid out two possible theories. The first: “The idea is that men are able to watch more television, perhaps because they enjoy it, and the reason men are able to exercise greater preference in their time use choices is because they have [more] power than women,” she has written…

The second theory has to do with the ranks of men who have become more socially isolated, whether because they’re out of work, less involved in family life, or both. Women, in addition to working more than they used to, tend to have stronger networks of friends and are more likely to raise children as single parents—which together could make women more socially connected than men. Thus, as Sayer has written, “men may devote a greater share and more time to television because this type of leisure does not require social integration.”

Television continues to have an outsized pull on the leisure time of Americans. This could change over time and the options for leisure seem to have exploded in recent decades, but even younger Americans seem drawn to television, just in through different means such as watching on phones or computers. I wonder for how many Americans television is the default leisure activity when they have no other other or limited leisure options.

I’m sure others have explored this but these time use findings would be interesting to connect to what it means to be a man in the United States: you watch a certain amount of television. Does it matter more what men watch (sports, action shows, etc.) or how much they watch? What cultural expectations do they pick up regarding how much television to watch and how exactly is this passed down?

 

 

Deciding at which social level to counter a social problem

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Once groups of Americans agree that an issue in society needs to be addressed, they encounter an important question: at what social level should we target our efforts? There are numerous options for many important issues. For example, see an earlier post about how efforts to fight smog in Los Angeles did not seriously address driving but rather pushed Detroit to create more efficient vehicles.

Two social institutions regularly come to mind when I think about how many Americans want to address social problems: schools and the federal government. Even as different sides might not agree which problems they think schools or the federal government should, the country has regular debates about how these institutions should be doing something different.

Start with schools. Because attendance is compulsory, children spend so much time there, learning may be the universally recognized need in a knowledge economy, and what is learned as a child can carry through a full lifetime, they seem like they are great places to address issues.

For similar reasons, it may appear prudent to operate at the level of the federal government Because it has broad oversight over the United States, it has the potential to shape numerous lives. Certain issues are so big and/or affect so many people that the federal government may seem to be the only way to adequately address a concern.

Both institutions are important in our society yet enacting change at these larger levels can be very difficult. Change brings a lot of attention. Politicians on all sides get involved. Those opposed to large-scale government action can be energized. Crafting one-size-fits-all policies is difficult.

What, then, are alternatives? Here are three common ways Americans go if they do not want to go large-scale:

Work through local or national voluntary associations. This can range from the local Rotary to religious congregations and a group of neighbors who get together to do something. With de Toqueville’s oft-repeated quote about the zeal with which Americans joined such groups, this option could offer hope (even as Americans are not participating in these like they did before – see Bowling Alone).

Voluntary associations benefit from the eagerness of their members to participate but Americans can also work through local governments which are always present. Americans tend to like smaller-scale government activity and oversight. Why get the federal government or the state involved when a city or community, township, or county could try to address the matter? For some issues, this social level may be too local – larger issues are hard to deal with one community at a time. At the same time, these smaller governments could try a variety of options and this can provide information on what might work at larger levels.

Finally, Americans can work through individual action. There is a reason that we celebrate certain notable individuals who worked tirelessly and successfully to fight for their convictions: it is rare to see such individual level success (and often, these famous figures benefited from organizations and support behind them). The actions of one person may typically not accomplish much but the aggregate actions of thousands or millions of people can add up or passionate individuals can help start movements.

All together, it is not easy to figure out which option might be the most effective in order to address important social problems. For many issues, it is likely that people are trying to find solutions at all of these levels: schools, the federal government, voluntary associations, local governments, and individual action. Actions at these various levels can occasionally intersect and enrich each other, helping provide energy for a broader movement or consensus. Indeed, truly finding solutions to social concerns likely requires broad action, even if the efforts began at just one of these social levels.

Looking for the HGTV show that prioritizes fit and well-being, not budget and square footage

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Reflecting on yesterday’s post on the dissonance of watching Marie Kondo in a McMansion, I wondered: where are the television shows that prioritize finding a home based on the social and psychological needs of the owners and their long-term health rather than emphasizing running up against the budget and maximizing the size of the home?

The easy answer is that these are not the homes or stories that Americans want to see. People want to get as much as they can within their budget. The overall price of the home and the size makes for interesting viewing across different locales.

Yet, I imagine there is some sort of viewership market for those who would rather emphasize how a home would fit their lifestyle. This occasionally comes through on HGTV but tends to be subsumed under concerns about budget and the size. Where are the people buying smaller homes and or cheaper homes because they appreciate the aesthetics of a particular home or because a smaller home is easier to clean and maintain or that cheaper and smaller home is near friends and family which are more important than their private home? Or, perhaps there could be a show about how relatively normal people purchase homes and then tweak them to fit their particular needs or interests.

If more homeowners are truly interested in long-term well-being, evidenced by interest in decluttering or options like the Not So Big House, it may be a while before they see this reflected on TV. Too many current shows are limited by budget and square feet to truly consider the well-being of the owners.

Can you tidy up with Marie Kondo in a McMansion?

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A review of the new show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo contrasts organizing with purchasing a McMansion:

Stylistically, Tidying Up is gentle. Marie Kondo is a soothing presence—never soporific, somehow, but always engaging. She is twee, almost unbearably so, which is an affect not really seen in American television personalities. About 15 minutes into every episode, Kondo takes a moment to commune with the house, selecting a spot in the residence and kneeling in silent reverence. This goes on for longer than feels comfortable; sometimes the subjects join her, and sometimes they seem like they’re enjoying it. Conflict, when it happens, feels softer than it would on House Hunters, where couples routinely argue with increasing venom over the necessity of a mudroom in the home of their dreams.

The beauty of Marie Kondo’s world is that tidying is not punishment. She subverts the chore of cleaning by imbuing it with a radical sense of self-improvement. Unlike the underlying economic status anxiety that colors all of HGTV’s offerings, Tidying Up is more self-help than self-defeat. The home improvements, and by extension, life improvements, come not from buying a McMansion in Indiana, but from clearing life’s detritus out of your home to make way for something else.

The end of the review posits a dichotomous choice: either buying a McMansion to assuage status anxiety or tidying up to feel better.

But, I imagine many Americans would want to try to do both: purchase the McMansion or a large home and find a way to organize and declutter that home so that they feel better. Yet, this path seems to go against the path Kondo and others would prefer where Americans can’t have it all and have to make choices about their lives to prioritize well-being. Having a large home helps people feel like they can purchase and acquire more stuff. Having a bigger home is part of a consumer culture where buying bigger and more is a good thing.

One important step to the Kondo life would then be to not purchase the biggest home possible. How many Americans would be willing to do that or is it simply easier to buy into a tidying strategy that could be utilized in any home?

Deep Tunnel as the wrong solution to water issues (plus alternative uses)

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Henry Grabar poses an interesting question: what if the Deep Tunnel project, one of the largest civil engineering feats in the world, does not solve flooding and stormwater issues in the Chicago region?

What if Chicago took a wrong turn in 1972 when, in the spirit of civic grandee Daniel Burnham (“Make no little plans”), it opted to build the world’s largest sewers instead of making all possible efforts to keep rainwater out of them? Scott Bernstein, the founder of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, says that the Deep Tunnel imposed a massive opportunity cost because the city and the district did little else to adapt. The MWRD spent billions on what engineers call “gray infrastructure” (pipes, tanks, pumps) and virtually nothing on “green infrastructure”: rain barrels, detention ponds, green roofs, porous pavements, and other adaptations that would have kept water out of the system…

The project proceeded regardless. Even with downsized reservoirs and a longer time frame, Chicago’s ambition captured the attention of civil engineers around the world. Today, most U.S. cities whose combined sewer overflows are governed by consent decrees with the EPA are working on Chicago-style digs. St. Louis, which has the fourth-largest sewer system in the country, is under a consent decree to commit $4.7 billion to ending its overflows through deep tunnels…

While engineers’ penchant for megaprojects endures, some American cities are preaching deterrence. If Chicago built a bathtub, Philadelphia is trying to transform itself into a sponge with park space, street trees, and permeable pavement. The city is spending $2.4 billion to implement the nation’s largest green infrastructure plan, an experiment that positions it as the anti-Chicago. The city thinks keeping water out of the system will save billions of dollars compared to a rejected tunnel proposal—and that green initiatives will produce positive externalities, like improving air quality and creating verdant streets.

In Chicago, meanwhile, the MWRD has committed to creating just 10 million gallons of green infrastructure capacity under its EPA consent decree. Compare that to neighboring Milwaukee, a deep-tunnel city that now believes its green infrastructure will, by 2035, surpass the capacity of the tunnels and hold up to 740 million gallons of rain where it falls.

Hindsight may always be a little tricky in these cases as we have the advantage now of being able to see the Deep Tunnel project in action. Does it actually accomplish its goals? Was all the spent money worth it? At the same time, a project of this magnitude should have generated plenty of discussion and at least a few alternative options.

If Deep Tunnel does not work as intended or does not solve all of the flooding and stormwater problems, I wonder if it could be used in other ways. I’m thinking of other major infrastructure projects that have been reversed or reused, like urban highways that are torn out (like in Boston or San Francisco) or former railroad lines turned parks or recreation areas (think the High Line). Some other options for the Deep Tunnel:

  1. Underground roads. With Elon Musk’s Boring Company working on underground roads plus Chicago’s legacy of Lower Wacker Drive, perhaps traffic could be rerouted deep underground.
  2. Underground freight movement. Given Chicago’s railroad bottleneck, this could be an interesting solution.
  3. An underground park and recreation area. It would certainly be unique. Think a combination of spelunking, rock climbing, and exploration.
  4. A military installation and testing area.

When saying that Harry Reid lives in a McMansion, is this meant as a negative?

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The term McMansion is rarely used in a positive manner. Yet, a recent profile of former Senator Harry Reid’s life after politics describes his home as a McMansion:

Early on the afternoon of Dec. 11, about an hour after an Oval Office meeting between President Trump, the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and the incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi devolved on live TV into a shouting match — a “tinkle contest with a skunk,” in Pelosi’s postgame grandiloquence — I pulled up to a McMansion in a gated community outside Las Vegas. I presented my ID and pre-issued bar-code pass to a security guard. Another guard emerged from a sedan in the driveway, instructed me to leave my rental car across the street and pointed me to the front door.

And a later paragraph says more about the location of the home:

Reid has decided to live out his last years in Henderson, a fast-growing and transient Las Vegas suburb. His house is in the upscale Anthem neighborhood: a fortified village of beige dwellings of various sizes and otherwise indistinguishable appearances. There is a Witness Protection Program vibe to the place, accentuated by the security detail.

The descriptions of Reid’s home draw on several traits of McMansions: an “indistinguishable appearance,” located in a gated and wealthy suburban neighborhood. Presumably, the home is large though little is said about this.

To the main point: few people use McMansion as a positive term. By saying that Reid lives in a McMansion, the writer is suggesting the home is a negative. And in the way that Americans tend to operate – what you own says something about you – then Reid himself is a negative figure. This may fit with the overall tenor of the article which suggests Reid is an unusual and odd guy:

One of Reid’s assets as a leader, when he was in office, was his willingness to feed the egos of his colleagues before his own; he was happy to yield credit, attention and TV appearances. Yet when I visited Reid in Nevada, I detected a whiff of, if not neediness per se, maybe a need to remind me that he has not been forgotten. He told me that he received a lovely call that morning from Barbara Boxer, the former Democratic senator from California. He gets calls from his former colleagues all the time, he said, and they tell Reid he is missed. He had a final conversation with John McCain over the summer, just before McCain died, punctuated with “I love you”s.

Reading Reid can be difficult. Is he playing a game or working an angle or even laughing at a private joke he just told himself? When speaking of his final goodbye with McCain, he broke into a strange little grin, his lips pressed upward as if he could have been stifling either amusement or tears. It occurred to me that Reid, typically as self-aware as he is unsentimental, could have been engaged in a gentle playacting of how two old Senate combatants of a fast-vanishing era are supposed to say goodbye to each other for posterity.

Do odd or hard-to-read politicians live in McMansions? Can a leading Senator truly be a person of the people if he lives in a McMansion in a wealthy suburban neighborhood? The choice of calling Reid’s home a McMansion at least hints at these possibilities.

 

Housing bubble fallout: lost jobs in land subdivision

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The long-lasting consequences of the housing crisis of the late 2000s continues: an analysis of the American industries losing the most jobs by percentage includes the land subdivision sector.

9. Land subdivision

• Employment change 2008-17: -49.3%
• Employment total: 40,207
• Wage growth 2008-17: +35.5%
• Avg. annual wage: $71,744

The U.S. housing market is beginning to return to normal following the Great Recession and housing market crash. Housing starts in 2017 were similar to 2007 levels, before the crash. The land subdivision industry, which divides land into parcels for housing and other purposes, suffered as a result of the market’s struggles. As of 2017, industry employment is just about half of what it was a decade before.

This was never a large sector but a drop in jobs of nearly 50% is substantial.

Since I know little about what land subdivision requires on a daily basis, I wonder if this decrease is primarily because of a slowdown in housing starts or are there other significant changes in the industry such as new efficiencies and approaches?

Comfort of suburbia allows for the flourishing of comedy and creativity?

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I recently ran across a Will Ferrell quote where he discusses where his brand of comedy developed:

“I’ve got no dark secrets, I wasn’t beaten up, my parents were kind to me and there was a low crime rate where we lived. Maybe that’s where the comedy comes from, as some sort of reaction to the safe, boring suburbs. Although, I gotta say, I never had any resentment of the place. I loved the suburbs”, he told The Observer.

Right before this quote, the profile suggests this bucolic upbringing is unusual:

Oddly for a comedian, his was a golden and uneventful Californian childhood.

Rather than a reaction to adversity, it sounds like Ferrell had a number of advantages – including later attending USC – that gave him freedom to explore comedy. Or, perhaps this relative comfort channeled his energy into more zany humor rather than dark humor.

I am not sure it is worth a full study to explore the connections between place of upbringing and how this affects comedians but a broader look at place of upbringing and artistic creativity more broadly could provide interesting. Given that America is largely a suburban nation today, are the majority of its creative types from the suburbs or from cities? The biggest cities have long been upheld as more cosmopolitan and cultured places in addition to often serving as homes of clusters of artists and performers. In comparison, stereotypes of conformist and homogeneous suburbs abound even as a good number of those who grew up there would have had opportunities that may not have been available elsewhere.

Another quick thought: how many celebrities and famous today would freely admit “I loved the suburbs”?