Housing recovery more than just the McMansions of Toll Brothers?

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One analyst suggests the housing recovery in recent months is more than just an uptick in McMansions and big homes:

The housing market appears to have recovered from the depth of its decline. Toll Brothers (TOL) reported a whopping 46% jump in its latest earnings report and Home Depot’s (HD) earnings soared 18%. Today the National Association of Realtors reported that April existing home sales surged to their highest level in more than three years…

Michael Santoli, senior columnist for Yahoo! Finance, says the housing recovery seems to have a new leg based on a scarcity of supply coupled with low interest rates and growing demand.

“This can feed on itself for a while,” says Santoli, “not just with regard to Toll Brothers, which makes higher end McMansion-type houses, but across the industry.”

Santoli says not to expect a steep rise in prices from here despite a “bottleneck of demand.” And don’t expect all housing-related stocks to surge.

It would be helpful to see more exact housing figures at different levels of the market. Big homes seem to be doing okay as evidenced by the strength of Toll Brothers. But, the lower ends of the market don’t seem to be recovering as much as underwater mortgages lead to limited supply and hold the housing market back. When the housing market is truly recovering, shouldn’t a broad swath of Americans benefit? Or, are we seeing a fundamental shift in American housing where middle and lower-class residents have continuing difficulty in purchasing homes?

Sociology professor who taught class on Lady Gaga becomes “Gaga sensei” and celebrity himself

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Read about the fame a sociology professor who taught a class titled “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame” has himself found:

Deflem’s entry into the world of celebrity began quietly enough. He had an idea for a course looking at Lady Gaga’s rise to fame – and examining it from a sociological point of view – in the summer of 2010 and got the go-ahead to design it. In October, 2010, the course was announced to the university newspaper. From there – to the astonishment of many – the course suddenly became news across the globe.

In the weeks that followed, Deflem was swamped by interview requests and media appearances to discuss the course. They came from the New York Times, the BBC, the Washington Post, MTV, Billboard, Elle and USA Today. Media from countries including Italy, Germany, Ireland, Slovenia, India, Vietnam, Lebanon, Oman and even Zambia ran pieces about it. He fended off accusations that he had cynically designed the course and its title just to get such attention. “There is no way I could have planned this. I am not that smart,” he said.

But that was just the beginning. Soon he got an avalanche of criticism from figures like conservative firebrand Ann Coulter as well as Christian fundamentalists. His course even became an answer on the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Lady Gaga herself noticed the course and talked about it on radio interviews and a chat with broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper on the flagship news programme 60 Minutes. Saturday Night Live did a skit about Lady Gaga featuring a fan of the star who was dressed to look like Deflem…

He was also amazed at the lack of agency he had over his own fate and image as it spiralled out of control in the hands of hundreds of journalists. “You kind of undergo it. You experience it. You do not really have any control,” he said.

Does this then count as participant observation?

The course did indeed get a lot of attention, see an earlier post here, but it sounds like it has been worthwhile in the end: it allowed a sociology professor to take a current topic and use it to teach sociology as well as learn on the inside about the nature of celebrity.

I still think it would be interesting to hear sociologists discuss their opinions about courses like this or Michael Eric Dyson’s courses on hip-hop. The names and subject matter of the course can stir up controversy but it helps draw attention to a discipline that doesn’t generally receive much. Plus, what is the difference between giving a course a provocative name and then using it to teach sociology well versus the current events and examples lots of sociology professors use in the classroom?

The fate of veteran’s memorials that lack funding

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Big memorials like the a proposed Eisenhower memorial in Washington D.C. and the Ground Zero memorial in New York City are big deals, but what happens when more local memorials fall into disrepair due to lack of money and attention? Stars and Stripes looks at the tough times facing smaller memorials:

The corroding monument has challenged the community to maneuver a delicate question: How do we honor those who have served when memorials deteriorate and finances are tight?…

The National Trust for Historic Preservation waged a 2 1/2-year fight to restore the aging Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., when some people proposed replacing it. Far less disagreement surrounded a decision to update the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco after a powerful earthquake in 1989.

In Greensboro, N.C., residents have been grappling with what to do with the city’s own decaying tribute to the soldiers of World War I…

In Michigan’s upper peninsula, the Wakefield Memorial Building once stood as a grand structure overlooking a lake in Wakefield, an old mining town. The memorial, built in 1924 to commemorate the sacrifices of World War I soldiers, was expansive, including a banquet hall, meeting room and theater.

By the 1950s, the community couldn’t afford the upkeep of the building and sold it to a private owner. Over the years, there were attempts to renovate the structure. But it was deemed too expensive and by 2010, the building was demolished.

Sociologists have written some interesting pieces about the creation of memorials, like the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington D.C., but this story suggests another approach to memorials: the middle-life and end-life of memorials. What happens when the generations that built the memorials are long gone? What happens when a community decides it has other financial priorities? What is the expected lifespan of memorials or, in other words, what is the half-life of memorials? It could also raise some interesting questions about how local memorials and memorial events should be. How many individual communities commemorate these important events and are there regional, social class, and racial differences in which communities build and maintain memorials?

New public relations push for public housing

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Here is a new public relations initiative for public housing:

A new public relations initiative called ReThink is trying to change those attitudes. Funded by Housing Authority Insurance, Inc., which provides insurance to public and affordable housing projects, ReThink aims to educate Americans about the benefits of public housing not only for the people who live in it, but for society as a whole.

Perceptions of public housing, according to research funded as part of the ReThink project, are a jumble of preconceptions and contradictory attitudes. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed say they would support public housing in their communities, but 53 percent don’t want to live close to it. Sixty-one percent believe that public housing has some positive impact on its residents, but nearly a third of respondents (31 percent) don’t think public housing residents are hard-working members of society…

Advocates, she says, need to educate “Joe Six-Pack” on how public housing should be one of those priorities for the nation’s cities, because it encourages stability and community among America’s neediest residents.

To that end, on ReThink’s website, you’ll find first-person stories from public-housing residents whose lives have been transformed by the availability of public housing. The highly produced two- to three-minute spots cut against the popular image of public housing residents as unemployed, directionless, and without ambition.

See the ReThink website with the videos here.

Sounds interesting but this is a tough sell for many Americans. It may be easier to convince people that public housing is needed for a small portion of American residents (currently less than 1% of the US population according to ReThink) but it becomes much harder to suggest some or more money should go toward it or that these public housing developments should be located anywhere near middle- and upper-class residents. The stigma is hard to overcome, even with positive stories today as well as positive stories of the past like featured in The Pruitt-Igoe Myth where past residents talked about what a beautiful place housing projects once were.

Also, ReThink doesn’t offer much on their website about what this public housing will look like. Are we talking mixed-income developments? Scattered-site housing? These details could go a long way toward the success or failure of a public relations push.

I am curious to see how people react to this…

Lack of sociology on Jeopardy

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Jeopardy recently had a college tournament and the opening sequence featured sociology:

JeopardySociology

I don’t watch every episode of Jeopardy but my wife DVRs all of them and we agree on one thing: we have rarely seen categories involving sociology. There was one a few months ago but that stood out for its unusual questions. There are multiple disciplines that aren’t featured much, including calculus and math, which is in the same screenshot. On the other hand, certain disciplines come up all the time: politics, literature, history, pop culture, and current events. So why doesn’t Jeopardy have more sociology? Perhaps they are simply catering to viewers who may not be able to answer questions about sociology when they arise. It is interesting to see sociology and calculus come up with a screenshot for the college tournament – perhaps this is where most viewers and Jeopardy producers think these subjects should remain.

American suburbs continue to grow

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A Bloomberg analysis of recently released Census data shows suburbs continue to grow:

After a five-year slump spurred by the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble, record gasoline prices and deepening poverty, the nation’s largest suburbs showed increasing signs of life in 2012. More than half of the 20 municipalities with the fastest-growing populations between 2010 and 2012 were suburbs, according to U.S. census data compiled by Bloomberg.

That means growing suburban communities will continue to get their share of the approximately $400 billion in funds the federal government annually spends based on population data provided by the Census Bureau. It also points to the durability of the suburban experiment, begun six decades ago on Long Island, New York, even after millions of home foreclosures, greater numbers of single-person households and delays by young adults in starting families.

“Suburbia has become so deeply embedded in the cultural DNA of our nation that it is nearly impossible for us to organize our life on the landscape otherwise,” James Howard Kunstler, author of “The Geography of Nowhere,” a 1994 history of suburbia, said in an e-mail. “We’re just too deep into it to change.”…

“In fast-growing regions, there are signs of suburban revival,” said William Frey, senior demographer at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “Las Vegas is an example where the suburbs are leading the way back — though well below the heyday of the past.”…

John Logan, a Brown University sociologist, said suburbs remain attractive because “concerns about school quality and crime levels still affect cities more.”

This is an article with an interesting narrative. It begins with the idea that people who thought suburbs would decline were mistaken: they continue to grow. Then, it goes into the idea of the “suburban experiment.” I haven’t seen it quite phrased this way before and it suggests America’s suburbs are unique – and they generally are compared to most countries around the world. But, the term experiment also suggests it could still fail down the road as conditions change. Yet, the context of the article is that even after an economic crisis where gas became more expensive, Americans started driving less, and housing starts dropped quite a bit, the suburbs are still growing. James Howard Kunstler, a well-known critic of suburbs and featured in the film Radiant City, seems resigned to the idea that suburbs are the default in the United States. Does this suggest the social experiment is over? There are also some other odd bits thrown in including a short comparison to population changes in big cities, the idea that suburbs will also get federal funding, the number of poor residents in the suburbs is increasing, and higher rates of growth in the suburbs is linked to growth in the American economy as a whole.

In the end, I’m not sure about how people will respond to this article: the suburbs are growing despite critics and economic issues in the United States…and we should be happy? Disappointed? Intrigued by this great American experiment?

Rioting in the Swedish suburbs

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Youths are rioting in the Swedish suburbs after a recent violent incident involving police:

Hundreds of youths burnt down a restaurant, set fire to more than 30 cars and attacked police during a fourth night of rioting in the suburbs of Stockholm, shocking a country that dodged the worst of the financial crisis but failed to solve youth unemployment and resentment among asylum seekers.

Violence spread across the Swedish capital on Wednesday, as large numbers of young people rampaged through the suburbs, throwing stones, breaking windows and destroying cars. Police in the southern city of Malmo said two cars had been set ablaze…

The disturbances appear to have been sparked by the police killing a 69-year-old man wielding a machete in the suburb of Husby earlier this month, which prompted accusations of police brutality. The riots then spread to other poor Stockholm suburbs.

“We see a society that is becoming increasingly divided and where the gaps, both socially and economically, are becoming larger,” said Rami Al-khamisi, co-founder of Megafonen, a group that works for social change in the suburbs. “And the people out here are being hit the hardest … we have institutional racism.”

This sounds very similar to the context of the London riots a few years ago: the police are involved in a death and local residents respond in rioting while charging that this is part of a long line of negative actions taken by the police and government. However, we wouldn’t want to “commit sociology” by trying to explain such actions, would we?

This is a reminder of the state of some European suburbs where immigrants and lower-class residents live in run-down neighborhoods isolated from the native European society and opportunities for jobs and education. This is a different geography compared to the United States where rioting is linked to poor inner-city neighborhoods. But, the situations are alike: there is long-standing isolation, negative treatment from the government and police, and not much of a pathway to achieving the “good life” in society.

Using camera obscura to bring the city indoors

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I’ve run into photographer Abelardo Morell’s camera obscura work before and here is Morell’s official site with plenty of stunning photos. Two quick questions:

1. Are these rooms liveable while the images are on the wall? The artwork is interesting in itself but it would even better if a homeowner could go about their everyday business with these images present.

2. What about doing this in larger buildings and larger scenes? Imagine a 200 foot wide cityscape in a larger space.

Is this meaningful data: Chicago the “slowest-growing major city” between 2011 and 2012?

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New figures from the Census show that Chicago doesn’t fare well compared to other cities in recent population growth:

Chicago gained nearly 10,000 people from July 2011 to July 2012, but was the slowest-growing major city in the country according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Thursday.

It was the second year in a row that population grew here, but the increase so far shows no signs of making up for the loss of 200,000 people over the previous decade…

Among cities with more than one million people, sun-belt metropolises like Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Houston and San Diego all posted gains of more than 1.3 percent, while Chicago grew by little more than one-third of 1 percent.

With a total estimated population of 2,714,856. Chicago held on to its spot as the third largest city. But the two largest cities padded their leads, with New York City adding 67,000 in 2012 and No. 2 Los Angeles gaining 34,000 people.

While I’m sure some will use these figures to judge Chicago’s politics and development efforts, I’m not sure these figures mean anything. Here’s why:

1. The data only cover one year. This is just one time point. The story does a little bit to provide a wider context by referencing the 2010-2010 population figures but it would also be helpful to know the year-to-year figures for the last two years. In other words, what is the trend in the last several years in Chicago? Is the nearly 10,000 new people much different from 2011 or 1010 or 1009?

2. These are population estimates meaning there is a margin of error for the estimate. Thus, that error might cover a decent amount of population growth in all of these cities.

In the end, we need more data over time to know whether there are long-term trends going on in these major cities.

Two other interesting notes from the Census data:

1. The population growth in the Sunbelt continues:

Eight of the 15 fastest-growing large U.S. cities and towns for the year ending July 1, 2012 were in Texas, according to population estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The Lone Star State also stood out in terms of the size of population growth, with five of the 10 cities and towns that added the most people over the year…

No state other than Texas had more than one city on the list of the 15 fastest-growing large cities and towns. However, all but one were in the South or West.

This fits with what Joel Kotkin has been saying for a while.

2. Many Americans continue to live in communities with fewer than 50,000 people:

Of the 19,516 incorporated places in the United States, only 3.7 percent (726) had populations of 50,000 or more in 2012.

However, many of these smaller communities are suburbs near big cities. It’s too bad there aren’t figures here about what percentage of Americans live in those 726 communities of 50,000 or more.

One way to destroy the planet: “heat a McMansion”

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Heating a McMansion is part of a list of 12 ways of “how to destroy the planet”:

The easiest way to waste extra energy in a large home is to keep the air conditioning and the heater on all the time, and adjust them both up until you’re comfortable. Space-heating makes up nearly half of the average home utility bill.

Heating water uses up more energy than anything other than heating air. For the profligate, that means long showers and always setting the washing machine for whites.

Perhaps this is why there is more interest in energy efficient homes or even net-zero energy homes. This argument would be even stronger if there were some numbers to compare larger and smaller homes. How much more energy does an average 3,000 square foot require compared to an average 1,800 square foot home? Or a 5,000 square foot house versus a 2,5000 square foot home?

One way around this would be to have home sellers include average utility bills as part of the documentation or listing of the property. Think of it like a MPG rating for a car – homeowners should also have the ability to assess the energy usage. Going further, home sellers might also list comparisons to other nearby homes. I’ve seen reports that using smart energy meters that give homeowners comparisons to their neighbors helps reduce usage so why not also make it part of the real estate process?