Adding to the design lesson: “What makes a McMansion bad architecture?”

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Mcmansionhell on Tumblr begins with a well-illustrated post: “McMansions 101: What makes a McMansion bad architecture?”

We could add several additional dimensions to the negative design of McMansions:

  1. A lack of consistency around the entire home. (This post address the front.) Critics suggest McMansions are intended to impress others with their facades but the rest of the home gets little attention.
  2. Poor quality or a mish-mash of architectural materials. (Think fake stone siding.)
  3. Mixing a variety of architectural styles such as putting together English Tudor and Mediterranean.
  4. An oversized emphasis on the garage. (Hence the nicknames “Snout Houses” or “Garage Mahals.”) Critics suggest this emphasizes the private nature of large homes rather than having architectural elements that interact with the streetscape.
  5. A lack of proportions to the size of the lot, whether it is a large lot or a teardown McMansion sitting on a small lot and near smaller homes.

I look forward to the coming Tumblr posts on McMansions and it some of these design issues listed above will be covered.

Neither presidential candidate says much about helping the poor

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This has become common in recent election cycles: candidates focus on the middle class and ignore the poor.

The United States, the wealthiest nation on Earth, also abides the deepest poverty of any developed nation, but you would not know it by listening to Hillary Clinton or Donald J. Trump, the major parties’ presidential nominees.

Mrs. Clinton, speaking about her economic plans on Thursday near Detroit, underscored her credentials as an advocate for middle-class families whose fortunes have flagged. She said much less about helping the 47 millions Americans who yearn to reach the middle class.

Her Republican rival, Mr. Trump, spoke in Detroit on his economic proposals four days ago, and while their platforms are markedly different in details and emphasis, the candidates have this in common: Both promise to help Americans find jobs; neither has said much about helping people while they are not working.

So why don’t they address lower-class Americans? A few tentative guesses:

  1. More undecided voters are in the middle class.
  2. Candidates want a singular message and so they go with the largest group of Americans – a vast majority of Americans, even ones who are legitimately rich or poor, consider themselves middle class – as to not have to complicate their rhetoric.
  3. The efforts in the 1990s to limit welfare – changes to programs and public housing – were very effective in halting conversation about poverty on a national level.
  4. Candidates want to be associated with people who think they have made it on their own.
  5. Lower-class Americans don’t have as much money to give to campaigns.
  6. Even with growing inequality, Americans have settled on the idea that we are a middle-class country. Candidates want to go with what the country thinks.

Regardless of the reason, it does say a lot about the ability of Americans to even converse about being poor.

Sociology prof behind San Jose measure to raise business taxes

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Sociologist Scott Myers-Lipton has worked to raise business taxes in San Jose:

With little discussion, the council unanimously approved putting a November ballot measure before city residents that would double annual business tax revenue from $12.7 million to $25.4 million. But the business tax voters will decide differs significantly from what Scott Myers-Lipton, the San Jose State University sociology professor who had led a successful 2012 campaign to raise the minimum wage in the city, had proposed last year.

Myers-Lipton was close to gathering enough signatures to qualify his measure for the ballot, but withdrew it to allow for the city compromise measure.

The measure the council approved for the ballot would increase the annual “base rate” businesses pay by $45 and then charge companies with three or more employees $30 to $60 for each worker, depending on the company’s size, capping at $150,000 a year. It would include inflation adjustments. The city’s current tax is $18 per employee for companies with eight or more workers without inflation increases and caps at $25,000.

Myers-Lipton’s proposed measure would have charged large companies based on their gross receipts, either 60 cents, 90 cents or $1.20 for every $1,000 in revenue. The model, he argued, has been successful in other large cities like San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles. A city study estimated the change would put an extra $39 million annually into the city’s pocket for services like public safety, roads and libraries.

It sounds like a typical political conversation about taxes. On one side, proponents argue that businesses should pay more, particularly when needed local services are on the line. On the other hand, proponents suggest businesses will leave and/or not locate in San Jose and instead locate in places with cheaper taxes.

Yet, does it make any difference that this tax proposal was brought forward by a sociologist? Conversations about public sociology sometimes suggest that sociologists have limited ability to bring about policy change. This would seem to be a positive example: sociologist who helped bring about a raise in the minimum wage now has a chance to help pass an increased tax on businesses. Both measures could be viewed as moves toward lessening inequality; this is a cause that many sociologists would support. At the same time, do Myers-Lipton’s moves differ much from typical liberal proposals?

Perhaps many businesses in San Jose can afford such an increase with the wealth in the area. Such a tax may not hurt very much in a thriving area compared to a struggling Rust Belt city.

“We’re at peak multigenerational” housing?

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Pew recently reported on the increase of Americans living in multigenerational households:

In 2014, more young people were living with their parents than with a romantic partner. And a lot of these millennials’ parents were cohabiting with their own parents.

A new Pew Research Center analysis finds that a record-high number of Americans—60.6 million, to be exact—were living with with grandma and grandpa that year. In terms of share of the U.S. population, these people made up 19 percent in 2014. That’s almost as high as back in 1950, when 21 percent of the population, or 32 million people, lived in such an arrangement.

Money—or lack thereof—helps explain why this housing arrangement is back in style. The economic woes of the late-2000s brought millions of young adults boomeranging back to their childhood homes. But the trend also has to do with immigration and diversification of the U.S. population.

Two quick thoughts:

  1. If indeed money is a motivating factor, we might expect these numbers to drop when the economy improves or when younger adults do better in the job market and move out of such arrangements. Or, does this uptick herald a long-term interest in living in multigenerational settings regardless of financial imperatives?
  2. As noted later in the article, whites are the least likely (15%) to live in such settings. Will such differences persist in the future or will such arrangements decline in non-white groups as (1) their financial prospects increase and (2) more recent immigrants spend more time in the United States?

In other words, how exactly do we know that this is a peak? There is certainly a trend upward of more households with multiple generations and a higher percentage of such households overall. If the discussed causal factors remain fairly static – sluggish economy, high levels of immigration – then the rise may continue. However, circumstances could change and the trend line in the next few years could rise, plateau, or fall. And, these factors don’t account for changing cultural values where multigenerational or communal living may just become more popular regardless of those two factors. (In other words, perhaps we could see a reaction to the long-term trend from the 1950s to the early 2000s of wanting to get away and own one’s own single-family home.)

Stay tuned for another peak that may not be one.

The difficulty in returning to public housing

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Once people left public housing high-rises in Chicago so that they could be demolished, it was difficult for them to return to new (and limited) public housing units:

Despite the promises that everyone could come back, the numbers don’t add up. The decrepit, infamous Cabrini-Green had 3,600 public housing units. When the rebuilding is complete in 2019, there will be around 2,830 units. Only 30 percent are for families in public housing. Got that? Fewer than 900 units.

The screening process is the next barrier. People are kept out of the new neighborhood if a family member has a single arrest record—even if no charges were pressed. Public housing residents have to submit to mandatory drug testing every year. They can have no record of rent and utility delinquency. They cannot take in friends and relatives. New rules in the neighborhood include no smoking, no barbecuing, no loud music, no washing cars on the street…

But coming back to Cabrini was a huge disruption to her family. Her 17-year-old daughter had a misdemeanor for fighting at school. Brewster had to send her daughter to live with relatives in order to keep her lease…

Another reason most people from Cabrini haven’t come back: finances. Moving is expensive and disruptive, and poor families can’t easily absorb these hits twice when they move away from bulldozers.

And is there any surprise that some residents at Cabrini-Green fought the demolition? The alternatives to even bad public housing high-rises are often not much better. As is also noted in this article and backed up by research, vouchers only go so far as well as many former public housing residents end up in other poor neighborhoods.

It does seem that once the HOPE VI program started in the 1990s, public housing has become less and less of a public issue. Public housing has never been popular in the United States – it took quite an effort to even start a federal program – and efforts in recent decades have moved to decentralize public housing units, limit who can access benefits, and reduce funding for programs. Yet, there is still significant need in the United States for reasonably-priced housing in decent neighborhoods (for example, see the waiting list in Chicago). I would suggest the free market hasn’t done too well in this area; many builders and developers will go for more money rather than supplying needed housing, many residents don’t want cheaper housing or certain kinds of residents nearby, and local regulations including zoning laws often make it difficult to pursue affordable housing or innovative solutions.

“McMansion Boy” in McMansion satire

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McMansions are often treated with derision but how about a satirical approach? Here is one example from the Outer Banks:

The Cooper family of Piscataway, NJ was holding a reunion in the home over the weekend of July 4. Fifteen children from eight different families led to some confusion over which child belonged to which set of parents. As Dallas Cooper, Jr. explained, “There were so many kids running around that eventually we stopped worrying about it and just kind of communally watched over them all: feeding, supervising swimming and games, and bedtimes.”

Evidently, nobody claimed the twelve-year-old boy who wore a tattered T-shirt from the rental company and a pair of dirty blue board shorts every day, nobody remarked where he went at bedtime, and nobody except the other kids noticed that he hoarded extra food at every meal…

Nobody probably would ever have found out, either, had family patriarch Austin Cooper not realized that he had left his glasses on his night stand. The rest of the family had already left the house, but when Austin drove back to retrieve the glasses he found the boy later dubbed “McMansion Boy” cleaning the leftover food from the refrigerator. Mr. Cooper at first thought that one of the other Coopers had left him behind, but upon questioning the boy panicked and disappeared up the stairs.

Authorities later found the boy in an unfinished section of the attic: “He had built quite a den up there,” reported Officer Sleem. “He had a small bed that he had dragged up there from one of the bedrooms, a mini-fridge that he apparently found somewhere beside the road, and a large larder of junk food pilfered from vacationers. He had run an extension cord up there for electricity and a hose for water.”

While the story is about “McMansion Boy” finding plenty of space to blend in within a giant house, there is also some commentary here about those who rent such homes.

The possibilities of intentional community in McMansions

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A Craigslist ad for living in a Silicon Valley McMansion highlights the potential for intentional community:

What is Le Chateau McMansion?

At the end of the day, after everyone has gotten home from work, and we’ve shared good food and good stories with the people we find ourselves surrounded by, we are a family. It means we care for each other, for each other’s things, and for the home we’ve created. It means spontaneous trips to National Parks, creative and fun house projects, and weekends you wish would never end. Sometimes it is kitchen dance parties, rooftop lemon golf, costumed 7-course dinners, farmers market trips by bike, homebrew beer contests, or chill weekends of grilling and gardening balanced by late-night deep philosophical debates. Without a doubt, it is a place to experience learning and growth, friendship, adventures, acceptance, and awesomeness in our home. We are more than roommates. We are community.

Who lives at McMansion?

A French roboticist, a talented couple from Texas whose music will pluck on your heartstrings, a rowdy outdoorsmen who can prepare the best breakfast burrito this side of the Mississippi river, a spunky dude from the dark corners of Tennessee, a project engineer from the Chicago suburbs, a sweet heart from Boston, and a troop of native Californians.. each with a hand in the tech industry, rock climbing, and a passion for cycling. Oh, and another techie as well. He flies balloons. He’s always gone though. Forget we mentioned him.

McMansions are often criticized for having too much space for not enough people. Even as the average household size has shrunk in the United States, new homes have gotten larger. Does a family of four really need 3,000+ square feet? (Perhaps it is not for the people; perhaps it is for their stuff.)

Yet, McMansions could often house a lot more people. Those big spaces that may seem empty with just a few residents could easily accommodate a larger crowd. This is especially needed in tight housing markets like Silicon Valley. As noted in this ad, a renter would get a lot of space (and utilities and food) for $1,210 a month. And having a lot of residents doesn’t even require splitting the McMansions into multiple housing units. However, it does require living in close proximity to more people, a feature probably more amenable to (1) younger adults and (2) people in tight housing markets.

It is also intriguing that this McMansion opportunity is listed as an opportunity to participate in intentional community. Don’t many people buy McMansions (and perhaps many single-family homes) to get away from other people? Again, this sounds like a feature that would appeal to a certain demographic.

The Olympics increasingly studied by academics

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Nature reports an increase in published works about the Olympics. Here are two aspects of this increase related to urban life:

Beijing 2008 inspired the most papers, followed by London 2012. Beijing had imposed special restrictions on air pollutants, providing a rare opportunity for researchers to do relatively controlled experiments, says David Rich, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Rochester in New York. The London 2012 Olympics inspired topics ranging from urban development and sprawl to security and surveillance.

Graph: Papers per games. Beijing 2008 inspired the most papers, followed by London 2012.…

The Olympics are an “urban change-maker”, says sociologist Jacqueline Kennelly at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. They have led to expensive infrastructure projects and placed huge demands on public transport. And those that have contended with world wars, protests, boycotts and terrorist attacks have generated substantial literature…

The paper that has generated the most citations focuses on the Atlanta 1996 Games, and is followed closely by one about Beijing 2008. Both articles explore how policies such as increased provision of public transportation can improve air quality. The fifth most highly cited paper analysed levels of enthusiasm about the 2000 Olympics among different resident groups in the host city, Sydney. It is the most highly cited Olympics paper in the social sciences.

The paper that has generated the most citations focuses on the Atlanta 1996 Games, and is followed closely by one about Beijing 2008. Both articles explore how policies such as increased provision of public transportation can improve air quality.

There could be a variety of reasons for an uptick in research:

  1. Seeing the Olympics as unique opportunities to observe certain phenomena in a time-limited setting. They are a sort of natural experiment where one could study effects of phenomena before, during, and after the events. Or, one of the articles mentioned looked at athlete-coach relationships and the Olympics would provide the option of examining this in a number of sports at once.
  2. The increased globalization of the Olympics, both in geographic location (new cities such as Beijing and Rio) and global media coverage. Additionally, the Olympics can be viewed as an effort to bring the world together.
  3. Perhaps sport is a more acceptable research topic (whether the purpose is to study the athletes or the spectacle).
  4. There are more academics in general who are looking for things to study. Hence, more studies of the Olympics.

Better ways to signal pedestrian crosswalks

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The death of a cyclist recently in Mount Prospect has led to an examination of how to stop drivers for walkers and bicyclists:

Using data from studies of 16,716 vehicles at crosswalks equipped with amber beacons in seven states, including Illinois, researchers found on average 72 percent of drivers yielded to pedestrians. Interestingly, only 33 percent out of 1,402 vehicles yielded in Illinois.

Drivers tended to stop more frequently if the amber beacons were located overhead instead of alongside the road, near a school or transit stop, and on roads with fewer lanes, the study stated.

A different Federal Highway Administration report found a huge gap in drivers obeying amber beacons at crosswalks that ranged from 19 percent at one site in Illinois to 98 percent at a Colorado location…

Meanwhile, another type of crosswalk signal with a red light offers a promising track record. Known as a pedestrian hybrid beacon, the device typically hangs over an intersection and is dark until someone presses a button activating a yellow warning light, then a red beacon for drivers.

Studies of 3,504 drivers in Texas and Arizona showed 96 percent on average stopped.

All the road signs and traffic lights in the world will not lead to 100% compliance from drivers. Of course, some solutions are more effective than others. Later in the article, an expert explains:

“Traffic engineering is harder than drivers may think,” Fitzpatrick said.

Another problem that could be solved with self-driving cars. Until then, cyclists and pedestrians have to be really careful with cars driven by humans who can have all sorts of reactions to people crossing the road.

Building a new subway in a big city is difficult, Rio edition

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A new subway line in Rio illustrates the issues of constructing subway lines in large cities:

Though it was barely completed in time for the opening ceremonies on August 5, the fact that Line 4 opened this year, let alone this decade, is undeniably because of the Olympics. The state government, which funded the $3.1-billion line, argues that the subway will vastly improve transportation options in the city. The state department of transportation said in an emailed statement that Line 4 will “provide locals and visitors a transportation alternative that’s fast, modern, efficient and sustainable.”

But many outside the government worry that Line 4 was built to primarily serve the Olympics and the upscale real estate developments that are planned in the event’s wake. Critics say Line 4 prioritizes access to the main event venues and wealthy neighborhoods, and disregards the transportation needs of the rest of the city. “This is to serve only the higher classes,” says Lucia Capanema Alvares, an urban planning professor at the Federal Fluminense University. “It’s not to serve the people.”…

This linear design leaves much of the area inside the arc—and the millions of people who live there and in the hinterlands beyond—with little access to rapid transit.

While there are likely unique issues at play in Rio, I suspect these issues would be present in any major city that undertook new subway construction:

  1. Huge costs. Building under a major city is expensive and costs often go beyond budget. The best way to fight this is to have foresight and build such lines sooner rather than later.
  2. Disruption. Again, a large city has all sorts of systems already in place and construction on this scale can take a long time.
  3. Charges of inequality. Who should mass transit serve? Do many major cities primarily have subway and rail service to wealthier areas? (And are these areas better off because they have had mass transit access?) And, why does it take so long to provide service for people who need it?

Such large infrastructure projects are not for the faint of heart but if done well could provide benefits for decades.