More painted lawns in California

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Why tear out your drought-stricken lawn in California when you can just have it painted green?

Wasting no time, a Lawnlift employee gets to work in Pearson’s yard by mixing up a potion of water and natural pigments which bring to mind cosmetics used by women every day.

Within minutes, the dessicated lawn is rejuvenated before its owner’s astonished eyes.

“I love it! This is the color of my grass when I water it every day. I absolutely love it. I am thrilled,” she said.

The product is non-toxic, lasts for 12 weeks and is water-resistant — even if the lack of rain is the main threat to California’s gardens.

Power acknowledges that his company is cashing in on the drought, in particular over the last 12 months.

“Sales from last March to this March have easily doubled and in fact we are 150 percent higher than last year and we attribute most of that to the drought,” he said.

California is not the only market for his products: he also sells in Canada, and a few weeks ago made a $15,000 sale to Algeria.

No need to give up that symbol of the American Dream – the manicured lawn – when you can take advantage of ingenuity – non-toxic paint that lasts 12 weeks! I’ve seen numerous articles on this in recent years and I would love to see some pictures of what lawns look like after 12 weeks rather than view more images of the initial verdant pictures from the initial spraying. Perhaps now is a good time to get into the lawn painting industry…

Is Starbucks really a “third place”?

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Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz likes to claim his stores operate as “third places,” a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg. But, do they really fill this role?

Now that so many street corners seem to have a Starbucks, has the international chain truly become that “place on the corner” where people connect? In fact, Oldenburg dismisses the Starbucks coffee shop as an “imitation”, debilitated by the company’s pursuit of that other quintessentially American obsession, security, and the sterile, predictable environment it produces. “With its overriding concern for safety,” Oldenburg told Bryant Simon, author of Everything But the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks, “it can’t achieve the kind of connections I had in mind.”

Walk into a Starbucks today, and you may not notice much connection going on: some customers come in chatty groups, but many others arrive in search of nothing more than a place to open their laptops and get some work done; in effect, using Starbucks not as a third but a second place — their workplace. Most simply grab their coffee and go, never pausing to avail themselves of the chairs and couches provided, while others prefer to keep human interaction to an absolute minimum by using the drive-through window, a resoundingly un-urban feature Starbucks introduced in 1994.

Starbucks’ ongoing retooling and experimentation suggests that Schultz, for all he talks about his company’s resurrection of the “third place”, has yet to hear a sufficient amount of political banter and schoolchildren’s chatter in his stores. Starbucks’ enormous scale and need to service the American demand for frictionless convenience contradicts its mission to replicate the appeal of continental coffee-house culture: how much of a neighbourhood-rooted venue for chance encounter can you provide when you have to run thousands and thousands of them, making sure they all do more-or-less the same thing?

Maybe you could make a case either way. In favor, coffee shops serve as third places in numerous cultures and their presence almost everywhere means Americans have a common place outside their private homes and workplaces to get together. Yet, Starbucks present a common “McDonaldized” experience (it may be coffee but it is still fast food and often dependent on a car-driven society) that is primarily controlled by corporate interests. Perhaps only in a society that is so privatized (emphasis on single-family homes, cars, moving away from urban problems, individualism, etc.) could a chain coffee store even make the case that it is about community.

More centers for growing ethnic senior populations in the suburbs

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A more diverse suburban population has contributed to an increase in community centers for ethnic seniors:

Without public transportation to get around or language skills to communicate in their suburban surroundings, many of these seniors — feeling isolated and lost — have turned to adult day care service providers that cater to immigrant communities. The number of such suburban centers with a cultural sensitivity has exploded in the last 10 years, from two in 2005 to 14 today, serving an estimated 3,500 seniors, according to Marta Pereyra, executive director of the Coalition of Limited Speaking Elderly.

Despite the growth, centers can’t keep up with demand. There are still hundreds of senior immigrants in the suburbs left home alone because the day cares cannot accommodate them, the centers’ directors say. And with proposed changes to the state program that distributes Medicaid funding to cover the cost of the care, advocates contend that droves of ethnic adults may soon lose the sense of community that keeps them from becoming a further drain on public dollars in state-funded nursing homes.

“They’re following their adult children and their grandchildren (to the U.S.) and are ending up in the suburban areas, and then they discover that these locations don’t have much in the way of services that are culturally specific,” Pereyra said. “They need to have some access to their peers, their ethnic foods, some kind of meaningful activities.”…

“For seniors in suburbs, they’re just isolated in the home. They feel useless, their self-esteem is hurt, they just feel depressed,” Yang said. “We need to give them some time and space for themselves, and we need to teach them English.”

There will be even more need for such centers as (1) more immigrants move directly to the American suburbs (and the numbers several years ago were around 40%) and (2) the American population ages. As the article notes, the suburbs presents a unique challenge for putting these centers together as they have to range wider to pull in people who are more spread out. As opposed to cultural centers in urban enclaves in the city, people can’t just hop on public transit or walk a few blocks – they need to be rescued from their private homes.

And the next question to ask is: what happens to all of these seniors once they can’t make it to these community centers and instead need more medical care or assistance?

When neighbors sue over a teardown McMansion

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Can this end well? One Sioux Falls family sues their neighbors over the construction of a teardown McMansion and alleged violations of local ordinances:

In court documents, Pierce and Barbara McDowell charge that the new house is too close, too tall and negatively impacts use of their own property.

Not only does it block natural sunlight from reaching the McDowell house, the lawsuit charges, but the McDowells have been stopped from using their wood-burning fireplace because its chimney now is too close to the house being built by Joseph “Josh” Sapienza and Sarah Jones Sapienza…

The McDowells are asking for a permanent injunction to stop further construction at the Sapienza residence until it comes in compliance with the city’s 2013 Shape Places Zoning Ordinance and it is relocated so the McDowell house no longer violates the city’s Residential Code…

When completed, the Sapienza house at 1323 S. Second Ave., just south of the McDowell residence, will be a two-story single-family house containing almost 5,000 square feet. The permitted offset from property now is five feet, putting seven feet between the two houses…

The original house on the Sapienza property was multilevel with a total of 1,811 square feet on the main and upper levels. The lot measures 69 by 143 square feet. It had been built in the 1950s, and the Sioux Falls Board of Historic Preservation approved its removal from Second Avenue since it did not fit the neighborhood’s historic character. At a recent board meeting, however, two members referred to the new house as “a McMansion.”

To answer my own question, this cannot end well for all parties involved. The burden seems to be on the city to show that the proposed home did not violate any ordinances or guidelines. But, if it made it through the entire approval process even when neighbors had concerns, perhaps this won’t be difficult to demonstrate. Possible outcomes might include:

1. The neighbors are upset long-term feeling that the historic district is not protected or that the city doesn’t have a strong enough set of guidelines. Developing guidelines that will satisfy everyone can take quite a bit of time. Just look at Austin or Los Angeles.

2. The city feels like it can’t win in trying to balance competing interests. This is typically expressed as allowing collections of residents to have some control over their neighborhoods but also wanting individual homeowners to have some property rights (including pursuing teardowns). Such a lawsuit can take up time and money that could be better utilized elsewhere, particularly in an era of tight municipal budgets.

3. The property owners could have a tough time for years to come. If the lawsuit succeeds, how much do they have to change their home and at what cost? If the lawsuit fails, it is unlikely that the neighbors will suddenly like the home. I would be interested in reading a follow-up story in a few years to see if these owners are still living in the neighborhood.

At best, the disagreement between these neighbors will fade away and the city will have clearer guidelines that will help residents avoid such issues in the future. But, I would guess a more negative outcome is likely.

Rising development costs in American cities

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It is getting more and more expensive to build new developments in American cities:

Land costs in the urban cores have dramatically escalated, making it difficult for developers to find developable parcels that pencil. Adding to the issue of expensive land prices, in December 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that construction costs are rising faster than the inflation rate: the U.S. Labor Department’s consumer price index had risen only 1.3 percent above the previous year, while the construction index was higher by 5.2 percent.

Land is scarce and expensive

In most major U.S. urban markets, the cost of land has risen aggressively, in line with the greater demand for urban living by millennials and empty nesters. In Los Angeles, for example, land for industrial developments—many of which are changing from industrial use to residential mixed-use—have averaged approximately $23 per sq. ft. at the beginning of 2014 and  by year‘s end, asking prices were as high as $32 per sq. ft. There has been and continues to be keen competition for every developable site, with the urban core expanding into previously blighted areas.

Current shortage of construction professionals and skilled labor

Construction employment was disproportionately affected by the recession. As a result, many construction professionals—both labor and management—left the industry. Across the country, there are 1.4 million fewer people employed in construction than there were at the peak in 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many in the construction industry who lost their jobs during the recession have found new careers, and many skilled tradesmen left the industry all together. Compounding the shortage is the lack of high-quality training available to young people entering the construction workforce today…

Materials costs have little impact

Countering some of the rise in construction costs is the fact that most materials costs, apart from glass, have not greatly increased. Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. reported in April 2015 that, although concrete products prices are up 4.1 percent on a yearly basis, total input prices have fallen by 3.6 percent since the same time last year. For example, iron and steel prices are down 11.5 percent and softwood lumber prices are 7.4 percent lower than one year ago. Current crude petroleum prices are down 55 percent and crude energy materials prices are down by 43.7 percent from the same time last year.

If this is the case, this could have negative consequences in a number of areas including: it might take more to get the construction industry going to overcome these costs; this limits the incentives for developers to construct cheaper or affordable housing (such as starter homes); and only the really wealthy can purchase and utilize urban land.

Seoul going for its own High Line: the Skygarden to use an old elevated highway

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The High Line concept is spreading around the world: Seoul is now making plans for the Skygarden.

Like the High Line, the Skygarden will make good use of unused infrastructure: the Seoul Station Overpass hasn’t seen traffic since 2009, when it failed a government safety inspection. Unlike the High Line, the Skygarden is part of a more expansive government-led initiative to make Seoul’s built landscape greener and more walkable. “The mayor of Seoul is quite active in establishing an improved architectural climate in the city,” says Winy Maas, MVRDV’s lead on the project. Last fall, Seoul’s mayor, Park Won-soon, hired architect Seung H-Sang to be lead the change as first “city architect,” a job that involves supervising a team of urban planners, researchers, and designers, as well as overseeing public projects like the competition for Skygarden. Construction should begin in October, and the park is expected to be completed in 2017.

MVRDV’s design scales over time, spilling over into other parts of the city. Skygarden will function as a nursery to a bevy of trees that will eventually be transplanted to several rooftop gardens town. The architects plan to build out satellite gardens within a radius of about 800 feet, and then expand another 800 feet about a year later. In total, the pedestrian park will be home to 254 species of flora, which Maas calls “a complete collection of Korean vegetation.” His project will continue the Korean tradition of clipping, cutting, and arranging lush landscapes in precise ways. “It’s a very specific culture that doesn’t exist in other places,” he says.

Reaching the same success of New York’s High Line may not be easy to do. Public spaces or parks don’t automatically become popular just because they have been constructed. The High Line helped revitalize an area but there was already a good amount of foot traffic nearby. As Jane Jacobs would suggest, successful parks require a steady flow of people in and out in order to provide an interesting scene as well as ensure safety. So, in this case in Seoul, the context of this new park matters as well as the fact that it will be an interesting nursery. Are there other nearby uses that help ensure a steady flow of people? Is there land nearby with a mix of uses and/or development potential? Does the fact that this used to be a highway help increase the cool factor (the High Line is fairly narrow but a highway would be wider and could provide for some other uses – plus, removing highways might actually help traffic flow)?

Ethnographic study explains how to get better tips without sacrificing dignity

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While in graduate school, one sociology student collected data from his job as a delivery man on how to collect the best tips:

So in the year that Thompson worked for Jake’s—not the restaurant’s real name, but the moniker the sociologist gave the calzone spot in a paper he published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography last year—he found ways to bring in money without sacrificing his dignity. There was one semi-official rule, passed down from Jake’s laid-back manager: You can’t outright ask for tips. Everything else was left up to Thompson and his band of fellow delivery guys.

Here are a few of the tips (and there are nine total):

Look Like a Customer

One of the Jake’s drivers found that his tips were better when he was clean-shaven: A furry face, he found, usually netted him about $2.00, but a clean one landed $2.50, or sometimes even $3.00. Do calzone lovers hate beards? Probably not, the driver theorized—it’s just that the college students he delivered to thought he was younger without the beard. Customers, he found, were more likely to tip if they thought he was a student, too…

Love the Pets

“You know what really works?” one driver asked Thompson. “Dogs. You compliment their dogs.” The driver said that he got down on the floor and played with customers’ pooches. It worked. “They gave me a five!” he said.

The Receipt Trick

One of Thompson’s personal favorite tricks came at the very end of the delivery interaction, when a customer using a credit card had to sign the receipt. If she left the tip line conspicuously blank, Thompson would turn back to her and say, “Sorry, boss needs you to fill out the entire thing!” That forced the customer to either come out and admit that she was purposely stiffing him, or wilt under his passive aggression. Cha-ching!

The Change Trick(s)

There are a few ways to pull the change trick. The first, another one of Thompson’s favorites, was wide-eyed innocence. “Great, a five dollar tip!” he would exclaim if a customer had given him a nice round bill, possibly hoping for change. “Awesome!” Only the customers who really, really wanted to leave a bad tip—and were willing to go through a very uncomfortable social interaction to do so—would demand their change back.

Two quick thoughts:

1. Training in sociology, particularly in face-to-face interaction, could go a long ways here. A number of these tips involve manipulating the particular social situation to the delivery person’s advantage. Instead of feeling embarrassed to be chasing a tip, the onus can effectively be put on the purchaser to go out of their way to not give a tip. In other words, this is all about impression management.

2. There is some interesting work in sociology regarding jobs or situations where money is clearly involved but can’t be discussed. This is one; it is uncouth to openly ask for a people but people can be acceptably nudged. Or in the art world, artists can’t quite openly say that they are in it to become wealthy but they clearly need to sell art to survive (and to gain status). Or, certain items like life insurance have to become morally acceptable (a process traced by sociologist Viviana Zelizer) before people will purchase them. Even in our world where economics and money seem like pretty powerful forces, there are still social constraints.

Study suggests Millennials see diversity as “different experiences”

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A recent study looked at how Millennials approach diversity:

Millennials seem to be tilting toward that latter, more easily attainable vision. A recent study from Deloitte and the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, found that when it comes to defining diversity, rather than focusing on demographic features, such as race, or gender, Millennials—those born roughly between 1980 and 2000—are more concerned with hiring those who may have different cognitive viewpoints due to growing up in a different part of the country, or attending a different type of school. Differences in race or gender can play a role in those differing viewpoints, but they may not be singled out as important diversifying characteristics. “Diversity means to me your background based on your previous work experience, where you were born and raised, and any unique factors that contribute to your personality and behavior,” said one Millennial who was surveyed.

This is a departure from what older generations understand diversity to mean. “Millennials frame diversity as a means to a business outcome, which is in stark contrast to older generations that view diversity through the lens of morality (the right thing to do), compliance, and equality,” the study of more than 3,700 individuals spanning different generations, races, and genders found. According to Christie Smith, one of the study’s authors, this generation is already comfortable with the idea of diversity in a traditional sense and they’re looking to expand the definition, which could be a good thing…

Millennials are the most diverse group of young adults the nation has seen. And for some, that may mean that the idea of diversity, at least when it comes to race and ethnicity, feels like a given. Though inequalities that have existed for generations persist, some Millennials might think of them as less of a problem. But research, and current events, would show that may not be the case. “We live in a more diverse world in a superficial sense,” Wingfield says. “When we think about where we live, where we go to school, where we work, that type of diversity hasn’t really happened yet.” That creates a gap between perception and reality she says. “Millennials have this reputation for having adopted this more progressive, forward-thinking viewpoint—at the same time, a lot of the institutions that structure their lives really haven’t changed so much.”

This could turn out to be diversity based on individualism and personal identity as opposed to any large-scale understanding of how different social markers, such as race, class, or gender, contribute to different life chances. And the broader data in the United States continues to suggest that those broader social forces still have a large impact on people’s lives.

Time seems to suggest urban politics = dealing with crime

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The latest issue of Time has an article on how the 2016 presidential contenders are tackling urban issues. Yet, the article only discusses crime and violence:

It’s an improbable plot twist after two decades of Republicans and Democrats embracing the tough-on-crime mantra of more cops and tougher sentencing. And like most political shifts, it’s driven by calculation as much as courage. As crime rates tumbled and budgets tightened, concern has grown over the financial and human cost of mass imprisonment. A recent Reason-Rupe poll found that 77% of Americans now favor eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, while 73% support allowing nonviolent drug offenders who have served their sentences to vote.

In response, nearly every candidate this year has jumped into a new national debate about how to reshape the criminal-justice system. “It’s an incredible political shift,” says Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy institute at New York University School of Law…

Urban politics has been fraught for liberals for the past 25 years, and arguably longer. The scars of the 1988 election were slow to fade: a generation of ambitious Democrats had watched Michael Dukakis get pilloried as a wimpy, soft-on-crime liberal, and they vowed to avoid the same trap. “You have moderates in the Democratic Party who frankly have been raised up with this deep faith that their political success is dependent on them being tough on crime,” says Ben Jealous, the former president of the NAACP. “You’re asking them to challenge an article of their political religion, and it’s very scary for them.”…

Of all the 2016 hopefuls, perhaps nobody else grasps the complexities of urban policy like O’Malley, Clinton’s closest rival for the Democratic nomination. The former Maryland governor spent two terms as Baltimore’s mayor, transforming the crime-ridden city into a laboratory for urban policy, wielding data-driven crime-fighting techniques like CompStat and a zero-tolerance approach to community policing. Crime plunged. But in the eyes of some critics, his tactics laid the kindling that was set ablaze when 25-year-old Freddie Gray died April 19 of injuries suffered in police custody. (Six officers have been charged in connection with his death.)

In an article that is supposedly about how more politicians are now getting it right (turning to the large issue of the criminal justice system/mass incarceration), they miss the boat in tying urban politics to dealing with crime. Cities are only about crime and violence? Doesn’t this just feed the same stereotypes of urban areas that have been held for decades and are consistently portrayed through the media?

If politicians were serious about tackling urban issues, how about they start with these two issues:

1. Residential segregation. A century or so of separating where people can live based on race (and class) has long-term consequences. Read American Apartheid by Massey and Denton again, particularly to see how white-black relationships have been shaped by residential patterns.

2. Economic opportunities. Globalization and deindustrialization have devastated numerous urban neighborhoods as jobs – particularly in manufacturing – disappeared. Read William Julius Wilson’s work in The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears. How are jobs and capital going to flow to poor neighborhoods?

How to pronounce McMansion (courtesy of YouTube)

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The Internet might bring some wonderful things but it can also make you scratch your head. Here is a YouTube video for how to pronounce McMansion. The video doesn’t exactly have a lot of views – 1 after I watched it! – and comes courtesy of DictionaryVoice.com.

Two quick thoughts:

1. I admit that I have looked up pronunciations through online dictionaries and had the site read to me. This can be a very handy Internet tool.

2. The next video YouTube plays after this one is the song “Jesusland” from Ben Folds. This is one of the few pop songs I know that mention McMansions and, fitting the common use of the word, Folds uses it as part of this critique of Middle America. Here is the portion of the song where it comes up:

Down the tracks, beautiful McMansions on a hill
That overlook a highway with riverboat casinos
And you still have yet to see a soul

Not too different from those depictions in Gone Girl…