Wealthier kids go to nearby schools; poorer kids travel further

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Living in a poorer neighborhood means the resident children travel further to go to school:

Julia Burdick-Will found it was actually children in affluent neighborhoods who stayed close to home for school. In lower-income neighborhoods, kids in search of better options dispersed to dozens of other schools, often commuting alone for miles.

In Chicago neighborhoods with a median household income of more than $75,000, most students attended one of two or three schools. But when the neighborhood median income dropped to less than $25,000, students dispersed to an average of 13 different schools…

In affluent neighborhoods almost no one traveled 4 miles to school; the average commute was about 1.7 miles. But in disadvantaged neighborhoods, the average commute for children was 2.7 miles, with 25 percent of the kids traveling more than 4 miles. Ten percent of the low-income kids traveled more than 6 miles…
In low-income neighborhoods the problem isn’t just access, Burdick-Will said, but the potential social costs of traveling far across the city every day, possibly alone—costs that don’t apply to similarly achieving students in higher income neighborhoods.

An interesting paradox. Typically, wealth means mobility: they can seek out opportunities far and near, move to new locations when need by, afford the transportation costs. We imagine poorer residents stuck in neighborhoods with little opportunity to leave – and evidence from Robert Sampson in Great American City suggests even when afforded the opportunity to leave, many poor residents turn to similar poor locations.

Yet, public schools are one of the more local institutions in the United States. People move to neighborhoods and communities for the quality of their schools. The majority of property taxes go to local schools. Local school board officials are often elected and want to shape their local institutions. Community events are often held in these schools. They are a source of pride if the schools do well, a source of concern if they are not doing well.

Given that, it makes sense that Burdick-Will would suggest it is a burden for kids to go further for school. And that burden is on top of the other obstacles children in poorer neighborhoods face.

With fewer fire escapes, where do NYC residents escape to?

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Fire escapes are not needed in newer buildings but a number of New York City residents enjoy having them:

New York City’s 1968 building code no longer allowed fire escapes in new buildings. Modern buildings are equipped with sprinkler systems and interior stairwells.

Yet fire escapes are so woven into the urban fabric of the city that the Landmarks Preservation Commission is often called on to decide whether an old building that is being renovated should keep its metal appendage, as the commission did in March, when residents protested a developer’s plan to remove fire escapes from two buildings on Greene Street in SoHo. (The commission allowed the change.)…

Introduced in the mid-1800s, the iron Z’s that still cling to thousands of city apartment buildings became so synonymous with New York life that they made cameos in “West Side Story,” “Rear Window” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Since then, air-conditioning and modern fire prevention have chipped away at the necessity of fire escapes. But the romance remains: In a city of people starved for space, light and air, fire escapes double as storage closets, front porches and back gardens, a perch of one’s own above the bustle of the street…

Even then — to say nothing of now — fire professionals had their doubts about fire escapes. The National Fire Protection Association noted in 1914 that they were often hard to reach; poorly designed and badly maintained; lacking ladders or stairs from the ground to the second floor; and blocked by residents’ possessions. (People often aired their mattresses and chilled their perishables there.)

While fire escapes may be on the way out outside of protected buildings, I want to know about the effect of their disappearance: where exactly do New Yorkers go now to get their moment alone? In a city with some of the highest real estate prices in the world and a booming luxury market, space is at a premium. Cities often have a reputation for bombarding the individual with all their activity and potential social interactions. Georg Simmel made such a point in his famous piece “The Metropolis and Mental Life” where he suggested people respond by developing a blase attitude to block out all the stimulus.

Perhaps city residents have traded older versions of private spaces – like fire escapes – for new ones like smartphone screens and headphones which allow the user to be more private in public settings such as a park or Starbucks.

Quick guide to 10 common Chicago housing styles

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Chicago has some unique residential architecture. The design shop ALSO put together a quick guide:

The Bungalow

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With more than 100,000 bungalows in the Chicago metro area, this structure was the Windy City’s new workers cottage for the 20th century. Constructed between 1910 and 1940, the bungalow was originally built for working-class owners and is characterized by it’s one-and-a-half stories, brick construction, street facing verandas, and full basements. The Chicago bungalow was commonly built with limestone accents, dormered roof, and concrete entry stairs. The typical interior layout consisted of a living room, dining room, and kitchen on one side of the building, while the other side contained a series of bedrooms and a bathroom. The attic had ample storage and many homes featured a back porch, all of which was decorated in Arts and Crafts style woodwork. This truly was a new way life in the 20th century…

The Courtyard Building

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The distinct U-shaped courtyard building was built around green space visible from the street. Largely constructed between 1910 and 1930, the units were initially sold as luxury housing. With a front entrance stairwell shared with only 5 neighbors, a large back staircase, and a design that allows for good cross ventilation, these buildings made for very pleasant city living. Courtyards were rarely built taller than 3 stories as Chicago ordinance made it expensive for developers to build higher, due to fire-code restrictions and elevator requirements.

See the print options here.

Some of these are more iconic than others. For example, there is a non-profit group dedicated to Chicago bungalows but classic Dutch Colonials or Four Squares don’t get as much attention. And I’m a little surprised that some version of a bigger multi-story building didn’t make it here. What about all those big and bland lakefront condo buildings from the 1950s-1970s?

I wonder what such a list would look like in 50 years. While the options presented here might still dominate the list – not all neighborhoods are going to have major renovations – there will certainly be additional options. The South Loop Loft? The Slick Brick Renovated Three Flat?

Insight into the highest status western suburbs of Chicagoland

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An Internet journey led me to West Suburban Living‘s 2015 Best of the West which included this question to readers:

TOWN YOU’D WANT TO LIVE IN (OTHER THAN YOUR OWN)

Best: Geneva
2nd: Naperville
3rd: TIE: Glen Ellyn and Hinsdale
Other Favorites: Downers Grove, Elmhurst, Geneva, St. Charles and Western Springs

I’m sure there are all sorts of sampling issues here: who exactly reads this magazine and who votes? Yet, this may just provide a hint into how suburbanites in the western suburbs view their communities. All of these suburbs mentioned are majority white and pretty wealthy. They all have downtowns and fairly long histories (they were all founded before post-World War II suburbanization). Generally, they have high scores in quality of life: good schools, parks, good local services, low crime, nice houses, relatively competent local governments.

Sampling issues aside, this may get at the social status ranking of western suburbs. Or, at least, it hints at the geographic and lifestyle aspirations of the voters.

Where are the Latino families on HGTV?

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After watching plenty of HGTV over the years, a question hit me: why don’t more of the shows feature Latino families and home buyers?

-According to recent figures from the Census, Latinos comprise 17.1% of the US population.

-According to the 2014 State of Hispanic Homeownership Report, the Latino homeownership rate is 45.4% (down from 2000), Latinos have the purchasing power of $1.5 trillion (comparable to all of Canada), and the number of Latino households is growing. In other words, there is a market here.

Put these two factors together and I would expect to see more Latinos. Actually, if I had to guess, whites are overrepresented on HGTV, particularly among hosts.

What is the economic benefit of O’Hare Airport to the Chicago region?

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Noise complaints may be up but local officials say O’Hare Airport has a big economic impact:

Chicago estimates O’Hare contributes more than $38 billion to the economy of the six counties and sustains about 450,000 jobs directly and indirectly. Airport expansion could generate an extra $18 billion and create 195,000 new jobs, the city projects.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in a speech to the City Club in June, attributed recent economic successes to O’Hare and Midway International Airport. “Out of the 10 major metropolitan areas (in the U.S.) last year, Chicagoland had 12,000 businesses created,” Emanuel said. “That’s No. 2 in the United States.”

I’m guessing these statistics won’t quiet the critics of the new noise patterns yet it should remind the region’s residents how an airport might indirectly help them all beyond providing easier and cheaper access to points around the globe.

Increasing number of abandoned homes in Tokyo

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As the population declines, Tokyo has more abandoned homes:

Despite a deeply rooted national aversion to waste, discarded homes are spreading across Japan like a blight in a garden. Long-term vacancy rates have climbed significantly higher than in the United States or Europe, and some eight million dwellings are now unoccupied, according to a government count. Nearly half of them have been forsaken completely – neither for sale nor for rent, they simply sit there, in varying states of disrepair.

These ghost homes are the most visible sign of human retreat in a country where the population peaked a half-decade ago and is forecast to fall by a third over the next 50 years. The demographic pressure has weighed on the Japanese economy, as a smaller workforce struggles to support a growing proportion of the old, and has prompted intense debate over long-term proposals to boost immigration or encourage women to have more children.

For now, though, after decades during which it struggled with overcrowding, Japan is confronting the opposite problem: When a society shrinks, what should be done with the buildings it no longer needs?…

Tokyo could end up being surrounded by Detroits,” said Tomohiko Makino, a real estate expert who has studied the vacant-house phenomenon. Once limited mostly to remote rural communities, it is now spreading through regional cities and the suburbs of major metropolises. Even in the bustling capital, the ratio of unoccupied houses is rising.

The population loss in Detroit and Tokyo are driven by different factors yet the Motor City could help other cities around the world think about what to do when the population decreases.

This particular article doesn’t talk much about negative consequences of having a lot of abandoned homes. Any problems with squatters? People tearing apart the buildings for scraps? Animals? Neighbors unhappy about the lack of upkeep? Bloated infrastructure costs that need to be reined in? Perhaps the consequences of abandoned homes are quite different across national contexts.

Gentrification as violating UN Human Rights

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Some opponents of gentrification argue the process is a human rights violation:

It is the resulting displacement of people who can’t afford increased rents that, in the eyes of these activists, amounts to a human-rights violation. (Homeowners, at least economically, stand to gain from the changes, since their property values often rise as a result.) Drawing on Le droit à la ville, a 1968 work by the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre whose title translates to “The Right to the City,” the organization argues that all people, including the disenfranchised, have the right to remain in their apartments and homes and shape the political and cultural landscapes of their communities. The UN Declaration of Human Rights already asserts that everyone has the right to be protected against “interference with his… home.” Lenina Nadal, the communications director for Right to the City, says the group hopes to build on this idea. “It is an ideal time to  expand the idea that inhabitants not only have a right to their home, a decent, sustainable home,” she said, “but also to the community they created in their city.”

This is an interesting argument that suggests people are being moved from their homes and communities against their will. Americans generally don’t like the idea of others dictating where they can live; see the emphasis on local control, property rights, and opposition to eminent domain. Yet, social factors push and pull people to leave their homes and communities all the time as well as limit people from leaving their communities.

How exactly would this work out in a court of law or as an argument at the United Nations? I suspect there could be a lot of argument about what exactly the right to a home and community is. Could a suburbanite who doesn’t like that a big box store is being built nearby make a similar argument? What about residents who are moved through eminent domain or urban renewal?

Houston as world’s fourth most popular refugee resettlement country

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While most immigration policy debates take place at the national level, large cities are also involved:

Out of every 1,000 resettled U.N. refugees, more than 700 come to America. Though all 50 states accept some refugees, 75 of those 700 find their way to Texas, according to U.S. State Department numbers. And more of those will come to the Houston area than to anywhere else in Texas: The state health services department reports that nearly 40 percent of Texas’ refugees land in Harris County.

This means that Harris County alone welcomes about 30 of every 1,000 refugees that the U.N. resettles anywhere in the world — more than any other American city, and more than most other nations. If Houston were a country, it would rank fourth in the world for refugee resettlement…

In fact, Al Sudani said, some cold American cities host enormous groups of warm-region natives. Nearly 45,000 Iraqis live in Detroit and other parts of Michigan — more than in any other state, according to Census Bureau data assembled by the Migration Policy Institute. More East Africans live in Minnesota than in Texas; Minneapolis-St. Paul has a massive Somali population. “People, they adjust really quickly to their environment,” Al Sudani said…

The single most important factor in Houston’s ability to absorb all of the new refugee arrivals appears to be its vibrant, growing economy. “The focus of refugee resettlement in the United States is early employment,” said Sara Kauffman, Houston area director for Refugee Services of Texas. “We have a pretty fast economy, a lot of jobs available. People can get started working pretty quickly.” One of her clients found himself a job at a car dealership within two weeks of arriving.

Houston doesn’t often draw much discussion as a global city but this would suggest it is an important player in the 21st century world. Indeed, it might be the quintessential American city today.

Tracking the transformation of Houston’s population in recent years would make for a fascinating long-term study: oil capital transforms into cosmopolitan center. There is already some good sociological work on this and it is worth tracking. It may be out there but I haven’t yet seen work on how Houston residents are adjusting to these changes. Perhaps as long as the economy keeps growing, there aren’t many issues…

LA may be the only US city that wants the Olympics

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The Los Angeles City Council just voted to go forward with a 2024 Summer Olympics bid:

Los Angeles, which will be competing against Paris, Rome, Hamburg and Budapest among other potential cities, got the formal USOC endorsement after city council members voted 15-0 to support the bid.

The move comes after the USOC’s calamitous initial selection of Boston as its 2024 bid city, which resulted in massive public opposition and ultimately a reversal of the decision.

The potential for cost overruns that would have had to be covered by the city, in line with an agreement that the International Olympic Committee forces host cities to sign, was one of the principal concerns for Boston 2024 opponents. According to the Los Angeles Times, the new bid city’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, has promised to sign such a contract.

Recently, numerous cities have turned down opportunities to bid for the Olympics as the costs don’t seem to justify being a host. Yet, LA may have some unique advantages including a number of stadiums and venues, some mass transit, and a sprawling region that would spread out the events and locations. Could its other amenities – location in southern California with warm weather, the ocean, and nearby attractions (ranging from the desert to Las Vegas) along with being the home to Hollywood – also boost the city’s chances of being selected?