“51 Spectacular Panoramic Photos of Turn-of-the-Century Chicago”

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Chicago features 51 photos that reveal what Chicago looked like at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century:

One of the great treasure troves of the Library of Congress is its collection of panoramic photos. Some of the best come from Chicagoan George R. Lawrence and his company. (Motto: “The Hitherto Impossible in Photography Is Our Specialty”).

Some of the more interesting photos:

–#7: Grant Park in 1906. It looks nothing like what Chicagoans today are used to. The railroad lines leading to the main docks area on the south bank of the Chicago River were much were prominent for decades. Also, the park was muddy for a number of years before more formal landscaping was installed.

–#12: West Side Park in 1909 featuring the Cubs and White Sox playing each other. The stadium seems quaint (meaning small) and features tons of foul area behind home plate.

–#36: An open-ended Soldier Field hosting the Eucharistic Congress in 1926. The capacity of the stadium is much larger than today.

-various pictures: a different-looking Chicago lakefront with no tall buildings. Without skyscrapers, it definitely looks different.

Uptick in SUV/light truck sales alongside increase in big houses

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Following up on a supposed McMansion comeback, Jordan Weissmann notes that SUV sales have also increased:

And how about those gas guzzlers? They’re on the rebound too. More than 51 percent of new autos sold today are light trucks, a category which includes SUVs. That’s right where we were in the Spring of 2007, though below the all-time peak of around 6 percent.

Truck_Sales_Fred.png

Now some caveats. The light truck category also includes increasingly popular crossover vehicles, which share some of the space and styling of SUVs, but are more fuel efficient. So the big cars being bought today aren’t quite the same as the big cars that were being bought yesterday. Meanwhile, mortgage credit is hard to come by, and perhaps as a result, the average new home buyer is a bit richer than before the crash, according to the NAHB’s data. That might partly explain our growing abodes, since wealthier families tend to buy larger homes. And as recession-scarred Millennials start entering the home market, there’s a chance they’ll start opting for smaller houses, as some real estate experts believe they will.

But sometimes it just feels like we never learn.

This builds on one of the most common critiques of McMansions: they are part of a package deal of excessive consumption that includes SUVs, bulk purchases at big box stores, and oversized food portions. There is little doubt that Americans consume a lot, particularly in comparison to many other nations, but it is not just about having a lot. This critique also is about being green and asking whether these levels of consumption can continue or could be extended to all that many other humans before resources run out. And, it often seems that there is a moral argument underlying this critique: should people have this size house and this size vehicle? This is why I think it would get really interesting if McMansions could be much greener (sustainable materials, low energy usage, less reliant on automobiles and built in denser areas) and SUVs could be more fuel efficient (is 40 mpg doable?).

Wrigley Field and the suburbanization of sports stadiums

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Cheryl Kent looks at the proposed plans for renovating Wrigley Field and concludes it makes the ballpark less urban:

The trouble is the Cubs are also pitching a plan for a kind of baseball theme park that pretends to authenticity while proposing to damage the integrity of the real deal: Wrigley Field. The Cubs want Ye Olde Baseball Mall, except with a Jumbotron and a rival entryway to the stadium…

The proposal is modeled after the “festival marketplace” approach launched in Boston with the renovation of historic Faneuil Hall as Faneuil Hall Marketplace by Benjamin Thompson in 1976. In a series of legendary projects, including work on Navy Pier in the mid-’90s, Thompson enticed people to visit the cities by promising safe, orchestrated experiences, with an emphasis on charm over authenticity and spontaneity.

In time, and as cities regained cachet, the marketplace approach came to represent a suburban take on cities that downplayed genuine urban diversity and vitality while assuming a defensive, apologetic crouch when it came to design.

Thompson was brilliant and a visionary, producing work more nuanced than subsequent formulaic applications reflect. But his work was driven by a condition that has disappeared — white flight to the suburbs. The planned renovation of Navy Pier, intended in large part to downplay its carnival aspects, is evidence the formula is outdated.

In other words, the proposed plans are a Disneyfied version of Wrigley Field and truly urban areas. It might look urban but it is a theme park version meant to encourage consumerism. This reminds me of sociologist Mark Gottdiener’s book The Theming of America as well as the work of other urban sociologists about public spaces. Genuine public spaces, like the ones Elijah Anderson talks about in The Cosmopolitan Canopy, allow all people the opportunity to enjoy and interact. In this proposed Wrigley Field, it is all about the Cubs and expanding their revenue base.

Kent doesn’t say as much about how the Cubs might renovate Wrigley Field to better fit with the city. The biggest problem here seems to be that the Cubs are likely to insist their changes are necessary because they will cover the costs of the renovation as well as make them money. Sports team owners don’t exactly have a good record of truly caring whether their teams and properties fit with the city.

More Americans retiring with a mortgage

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The number of Americans retiring while still having to pay off a mortgage has increased in recent decades:

In 1989, just 26.4% of all households were retired with a mortgage, according to data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. That jumped to 46.5% by 2007, before receding a bit during the recession.

These stats trouble traditionalists, who view owing money on a house in retirement as heresy. After all, paying off a mortgage brings peace of mind, because you know your living expenses have been cut and that your home equity offers a sturdy safety net.

Yet clinging to a mortgage in retirement has benefits too, especially with the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage running at just 3.5%. You might be better off keeping the mortgage and investing the money elsewhere, which amounts to borrowing at a tax-deductible 3.5% in order to start a business, invest in stocks, or purchase an income property. Over time, such investments should provide superior returns.

This new calculus assumes that you have the means to pay off your mortgage in the first place. Many folks have been downsized into retirement prematurely and may still hold a mortgage because they can’t do anything about it. But for those with a choice, the basic rule of thumb: If you expect to earn more after tax on your investments than you pay after tax on your mortgage, keep the mortgage. However, if you are a conservative investor and keep your money in bank CDs and Treasury bonds, it is probably better to pay off the housing debt.

I imagine most of these Americans who have retired with a mortgage would say they don’t like having a mortgage at retirement. But, they likely have some say in this: they could wait longer to retire to help pay off their mortgage.

What is behind this? It could be a number of reasons. Perhaps Americans moving around more at later ages, leading to more mortgages near retirement age in the first place. Perhaps this is the result of economic issues – people are not as able to pay off mortgages. Homeownership rates haven’t changed all that much since 1989, roughly 2% point difference in recent years (Table 14 here), so something is happening with the nature of mortgages or the age at which mortgages are started.

Population loss in rural America since 2010

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Countering a recent argument that rural areas are experiencing a “brain gain,” new Census data shows nonmetro counties experienced a net population loss between 2010 and 2012:

The number of people living in nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties now stands at 46.2 million–15 percent of U.S. residents spread across 72 percent of the land area of the U.S. Population growth rates in nonmetro areas have been lower than those in metro areas since the mid-1990s, and the gap widened considerably in recent years. While nonmetro areas in some parts of the country have experienced population loss for decades, nonmetro counties as a whole gained population every year for which county population estimates are available–until recently. Between April 2010 and July 2012, nonmetro counties declined in total population by 44,000 people, a -0.09-percent drop according to the most recent release of annual county population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. County population change includes two major components: natural change (births minus deaths, also available separately) and net migration (inmigrants minus outmigrants). Nonmetro population loss during 2010-12 reflects natural increase of 135,000 offset by net outmigration of -179,000.

New population estimates are subject to revision, the rate of nonmetro population decline since 2010 is quite small, and the trend may be short-lived depending on the course of the economic recovery. Nonetheless, the 2010-12 period marks the first years with estimated population loss for nonmetro America as a whole. Even if temporary, this historic shift highlights a growing demographic challenge facing many regions across rural and small-town America, as population growth from natural change is no longer large enough to counter cyclical net migration losses.

And here is an interesting chart looking at population growth in cities, suburbs, and rural areas:

This would seem to contradict the idea of a rural “brain gain.” Perhaps it is a more complicated story:

1. More educated people could be choosing to move to rural areas but less educated people are leaving rural areas in search of opportunities elsewhere.

2. A “brain gain” is happening in certain places but not across rural areas as a whole.

But, the takeaway is still important: this may be when American rural areas really run into problems as the natural population growth is not enough to keep up with out-migration.

Assessing “The Return of McMansions” in the NYT

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Following up on the same data behind the CNN story on the McMansion comeback, the NYT looks more closely at the characteristics of new houses in 2012. Here is my summary:

-Housing starts were still down in 2012. Looking at the graph with housing start data since 1973 shows that the last few years have been quite different.

-The homes built in 2012 were bigger: the highest median square footage ever of 2,306 square feet, 41% of the houses were four or more bedrooms (a new record), and 30% of new houses had 3 or more bathrooms (also a new record).

My thoughts on this data:

1. This is not a big surprise. While housing starts are way down, wealthier Americans and others have still been able to buy large new homes. Again, Toll Brothers is doing just fine. On the other hand, the lower ends of the housing market are not doing well.

2. It is interesting again for people to pick up on the highest-ever median square footage for new houses. For years, journalists and others have looked at the average square footage which is bit down from its high several years ago. Perhaps the median is now alluring because it is at its highest point and therefore can be linked to McMansions and American excess?

3. More houses have more bedrooms and yet the average family size in the United States has decreased in recent decades and more Americans are now living alone. So what are these bedrooms being used for?

 

US government behind in regulating automated features for cars

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As car makers pursue new technologies including driverless cars, the US government is struggling to keep up with the changes:

While truly self-driving cars are years away—if they ever arrive—consumers are seeing far more car models bearing sophisticated semi-autonomous features. These include radar assisted cruise-control, which can keep a fixed distance from the car ahead; systems that warn drivers if they veer out of their lanes; and technologies that can prevent oversteering or even apply the brakes when they detect that a crash is imminent (see “Self-Driving Tech Veers into Mid-Range Cars” and “Proceed With Caution Toward the Self-Driving Car”)…

With three states and the District of Columbia having passed legislation to allow researchers to test such prototypes on real roads, Washington is grappling with how to regulate the cars. John Capp, the director of active safety systems for General Motors, says federal regulators are “trying to understand these things and trying to figure out what role they should have.”…

Unsurprisingly, NHTSA’s statement said that fully autonomous technology isn’t ready for the general public. But the fact that the agency is calling for more study is a reminder of the glacial pace of regulation: in the case of lane-departure warnings and crash-avoidance systems, it’s studying technologies that have already been on the market for several years.

See my post last week on the NHSTA statement. More broadly, this raises interesting questions about technology and the ability of regulators to keep up. For those who want to push technology forward, how much in terms of time, convenience, and dollars is lost if the government slows down the process? At the same time, how much regulation is needed to help protect the public? There is likely some sort of sweet spot when the government has time to declare technology safe and inventors and producers can still get things to the public in a reasonable amount of time…but I suspect this could vary widely across different sectors and the politics involved could change quite a bit. Take, for example, the scandal a few years back involving Toyota and the lack of findings. It cost the company quite a bit, the government still had a duty to step in, but there was little conclusion – except that perhaps we’re all going to have black boxes in our cars  soon. Imagine a few incidents like this happening with a new widespread technology like driverless cars. How much could that set the industry back and feed perceptions that the technology really wasn’t ready?

Smart Midwesterners flock to Chicago?

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An excerpt from a new book about the Rust Belt looks at why Chicago attracts so many educated Midwesterners:

The North Side of Chicago is such a refuge for young economic migrants from my home state that its nickname is “Michago.” In 2000, a quarter of Michigan State University graduates left the state. By 2010, half were leaving, and the city with the most recent graduates was not East Lansing or Detroit but Chicago. Michigan’s universities once educated auto executives, engineers, and governors. Now their main purpose is giving Michigan’s brightest young people the credentials they need to get the hell out of the state.

In the 2000s, Michigan dropped from 30th to 35th in percentage of college graduates. Chicago is the drain into which the brains of the Middle West disappear. Moving there is not even an aspiration for ambitious Michiganders. It’s the accepted endpoint of one’s educational progression: grade school, middle school, high school, college, Chicago. Once, in a Lansing bookstore, I heard a clerk say with a sigh, “We’re all going to end up in Chicago.” An Iowa governor once traveled to Chicago just to beg his state’s young people to come home…

As Chicago transformed itself from a city of factories to a global financial nexus, its class structure was transformed in exactly the way globalization’s enemies had predicted. “Many Chicagoans live better than ever, in safe housing in vibrant neighborhoods, surrounded by art and restaurants, with good public transport whisking them to exciting jobs in a dazzling city center that teems with visitors and workers from around the world,” wrote Richard C. Longworth in Caught in the Middle, his 2008 book on the modern Midwest. “And many Chicagoans live worse than ever.

I look forward to reading the more complete argument. This excerpt suggests the changes that have made certain Chicago locations so attractive, places like the Loop, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Bucktown, etc., come at a cost as other areas of Chicago have seen little improvement.

This also seems related to the ideas of Richard Florida and the creative class. Florida tends to rank all US cities on his creative scale indexes. Could there be regional creative class cities? Chicago isn’t at the top of Florida’s rankings but it might attract a sizable number of the Midwest creative class. A city doesn’t necessarily have to attract the creative class from throughout the United States to experience some of their influence.

It would be helpful to see data on this. Who exactly is moving to Chicago? For example, looking at a place like Michigan, where do college graduates and other young adults go if they leave the state? Or, looking at the Chicago area itself, do they tend to stay in the metropolitan area at similar rates to other major cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, and others (and there could be very different patterns going on in each of these major cities)?

CNN says “McMansions are making a comeback” but the data is limited

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CNN reports that McMansions just may be on the way back:

During the past three years, the average size of new homes has grown significantly, according to a Census Bureau report released Monday. In 2012, the median home in the U.S. hit an all-time record of 2,306 square feet, up 8% from 2009.

During the recession, Americans downsized and the average new home shrunk in size by 6% over two years to 2,135 square feet. At the time, many industry experts said the days of the McMansion were over.

The shrinkage was supposed to indicate that a new era had begun, with young buyers seeking to live closer to urban cores and settling for smaller places and baby boomers downsizing after their kids had flown the nest.

But it wasn’t that consumers wanted less space, many just couldn’t afford more, said Jeffry Roos, a regional president for home builder Lennar. And now that the economy is improving, they’re demanding bigger homes again, he said.

This is what I suspected might happen: once the housing market picked up again, some Americans would go back to buying bigger houses. But, this article has a few problems as it relies on (1) the median home size and (2) talking to several large builders.

Regarding home size: the figures cited more often is the average home size. The average size for new houses went from roughly 900 square feet in 1950 to nearly 2,500 in the mid-2000s. The median home size might be more accurate as the extra big homes can’t skew the data as much but the average is used more often. Also, the median hasn’t changed all that much in the last few years – this is only a difference of 150 square feet, a 12×12 room. Why can’t we see figure about the number of big homes that have or have not been built rather than relying on these overall figures that are a snapshot of a varied housing industry?

Relying on just a few large builders also does not reveal the big picture. The builders cited, particularly Toll Brothers, are big players but the housing market has a lot of different builders and developers. Overall, how are lots of different builders feeling about big houses? Are they actually building these bigger houses? What do real estate experts say? The news for Toll Brothers has looked good recently but there is more to the big house market than just Toll Brothers.

This seems like an article that would benefit from better data and also may not really be able to be written until some more time has passed and the trend is more clear. In the meantime, simply invoking the term McMansion and discussing a possible trend is apparently enough…

UPDATE 6/5/13: As the CNN story is repeated across the web, there is some confusion. For example, look at how this retelling mixes the idea of an average or median:

A new Census Bureau report says the average size of a new home has grown eight percent in the last three years, up to a record 2,300 sq. ft. in 2012…

According to the National Association of Homebuilders, buyers prefer a median home size of just over 2,200 feet, in line with the Census average.

Two different figures for the “middle” size mean two different things…

Experts: cities like Chicago may lose population but they don’t shrink

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A group of experts at a recent conference suggest Chicago may have lost population but it is not shrinking:

Chicago’s population may have dropped 20 percent since 1950, but experts who gathered at the DePaul Center yesterday said the rise of developments on the city’s south and west sides are promising signs that the city isn’t “shrinking,” according to Medill Reports.

“Physically, cities don’t shrink,” said Brian Bernardoni, director of government affairs for the Chicago Association of Realtors. “What does shrink is productivity, jobs and job opportunity, tax bases and population.” The Chicago Association of Realtors’ seminar that looked at the concept of “shrinking cities” (places with sustained population loss and spiking levels of blight and abandoned properties) found recent developments like Oakwood Shores and Park Boulevard, and potential future megaprojects such as plans to convert the old South Works steel mill site to a mixed-use city within a city or McPier’s McCormick-area arena and hotel proposal, may protect us from the unflattering moniker.

According to Medill’s recap, “of all North American cities with a million people, Chicago recorded the greatest population loss in the last census,” but the city officials, urban planners, and developers at the event – including Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th); Scott Freres of The Lakota Group; Joe Williams of Granite Companies, Myer Blank of True Partners Consulting; and DePaul professor Joe Schwieterman – seem to hold a hardy optimism.

This may be parsing words. In a popular sense, cities that lose population do not look good. For example, Rust Belt cities that have lost population, including Chicago, are seen as having major problems. On the flip side, cities that gain population, like Sunbelt cities in recent years, are seen as successful and making progress. In a more technical sense, these experts are probably right: it takes a long time for the physical footprint of a city to significantly decrease. This is an issue Detroit is facing right now. The population has dropped significantly but what is to be done with vacant houses and land? And what happens if development blooms at one spot in a city, like at the old South Works steel mill site, while other parts of the city really languish?

There are important long-term issues to consider. Chicago still faces an uphill battle in terms of fighting the trends of recent decades and it will take quite a bit of money and work to pull off these new projects. In cities growing at faster rates, growth does not necessarily lead to good outcomes even if it is often viewed as a good sign.