Sudhir Venkatesh helps make sociology appear “less stodgy” yet generates controversy

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A profile of sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh in the New York Times suggests he has “succeeded against long odds in making sociology seem less stodgy.” Here is how the article suggests he has done this and the controversy that has developed:

[B]y writing in magazines, being featured in the book “Freakonomics,” and even appearing on late-night television, he has succeeded in bringing that research out of the academy and into the public realm…

And at Columbia, where he briefly led the university’s largest social science research center, he was the subject last year of a grueling investigation into a quarter-million dollars of spending that Columbia auditors said was insufficiently documented, misappropriated or outright fabricated…

Beyond the content of the book, its basic style raised eyebrows. “Gang Leader” includes the kind of satisfying narrative arcs and dramatic characters (like the street hustler who reveals that he not only went to college, but also studied sociology) that have more in common with Hollywood films than with most dry academic discourse…

Camille Z. Charles, a sociologist who runs the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said she was even more disturbed by the “thrill” he described at being around drug dealers — like his fantasy that one meeting he attended would involve “half-naked women sitting poolside and rubbing the bosses with sunscreen.” In an essay in the journal Sociological Forum, Professor Venkatesh responded to such criticism by saying he “hoped that my readership would understand urban poverty as they followed my own self-discovery of these conditions — specifically, as I discovered my own stereotypes to be faulty. In a memoir, one has to admit one’s own failings.”

Such situations have always interested me. In this genre of situation, a sociologist does things that many sociologists could only dream of: reach a broad public audience with their work. Despite all the talk about public sociology in recent years, how many sociologists have truly accomplished this? Yet, those who are able to do this tend to run into arguments like those outlined in the article: they are accused of taking liberties with their narratives and making it more appealing for the public and they are accused of not respecting their subjects by opening up the stories to public interest and entertainment.

Of course, such arguments happen with lesser known works as well. I’m reminded of a very public exchange between several ethnographers, Loic Wacquant, Elijah Anderson, Mitchell Duneier, and Katherine Newman, in the early 2000s about how ethnography about marginalized groups should be undertaken. And there are plenty of conversations in the field about writing and how it can be done better or worse. Because of its broadness of topics and a variety of research methods, sociology as a discipline tends to have these kinds of lively debates.

To sum up, when the New York Times discusses debates among sociologists, does this display how science really works (scholars trying to come to a consensus with a dose of personalities) or does it suggest that sociologists can’t agree and this torpedoes attempts at public sociology?

(A later note: how many sociologists really disagree with what Venkatesh did in Gang Leader for a Day? Anywhere even close to a majority? I wonder if this article is highlighting some vocal/well-placed dissenters.)

Christmas shopping for sociology majors and for those want to sociologically disrupt some Christmas rituals

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Connecting sociology and Christmas gifts is not an easy task. But here are two web pages that aim to do just that: selecting a gift for a sociology major and selecting gifts that help disrupt typical Christmas rituals in the United States.

1. A “college student gift guide” suggests sociology majors should be given a white sweatshirt with the message “I heart Sociology.” I don’t understand this gift as the suggestions for the other majors involve gifts that actually have to do with the major. Why a sweatshirt? But, if you start to think about it, what could you give a sociology major that is uniquely about social structures and society? Perhaps a coupon or cash to go toward extra-special people-watching? (One of my students recently mentioned the rich possibilities of Venice Beach, California.) Perhaps the latest version of their favorite data software like Stata or Atlas.ti so they can feverishly work some analyses over the holiday? Perhaps a box set of their favorite sociological monographs? A copy of The Sims or SimCity to do a little pop culture simulation?

2. The “Sociology of Style’s Holiday Gift Guide” has five Week One suggestions regarding “Gifts that Give Back.” Of the five options, four of them feature the same logic: if you have to consume (is this what the ritual of Christmas has become?), you can do so in more responsible ways that can benefit other people as well. Is Product Red out of style?

I think we are a long way away before Amazon.com has dedicated gift lists for the sociologist in your life. At the same time, the American Sociological Association could get on this and perhaps raise some funds that could lower dues and pay for other expenses…

Comparing the architecture of a Phoenix Frank Lloyd Wright house to area McMansions

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A letter to the editor in The Arizona Republic contrasts the worthiness of a Frank Lloyd Wright home and McMansions that are typically found in the area:

The horror of this melee about a Frank Lloyd Wright house is that the men who bought it claim they didn’t know Frank Lloyd Wright from the Wright brothers (New York Times, Oct. 25) and yet they, if left unhindered, decide the fate of a master work of architecture.

In this Mcmansion craze, people employ the horror of the unaesthetic, the death of art. Unlike Wright-designed and constructed homes that seem composed of what nature predicates, “living buildings” that fit the surroundings, these faux Tuscany tract homes on steroids rise up out of the ashes of demolitions in Arcadia, changing the entire landscape of what was once a unique Phoenix neighborhood with their attendant assault on beauty and proportion.

Phoenix does not need to buy the property for the inflated asking price. What the city and its officials need to do is vote for the historic landmark overlay on Dec. 5.

While McMansions can be defined by several characteristics, this letter’s argument relies exclusively on the architecture and design argument. The Frank Lloyd Wright home is a “living building” meant to fit into its surrounding landscape. In contrast, McMansions poorly mimic other housing styles (in this case, importing Tuscany to the Arizona desert), contrast with the landscape, and lack beauty because of their poor proportions.

Frank Lloyd Wright homes are of limited number and according to this Wikipedia list, there are not too many Wright designed buildings in Arizona. See more of the story about the house here and a gallery of images here. According to one of the captions, “The [spiral] house was designed to twist around a central courtyard and also offer views of Camelback Mountain to the north.” And the house may have been a testing ground for another famous work that came later: “Wright chose a spiral design akin to the Guggenheim Museum’s. He had drawn plans for the Guggenheim by then, but it was still some years away from construction.”

Analyzing gendered uptalk on Jeopardy!

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As part of a household that regularly watches Jeopardy! via the magic of DVR, I was intrigued to read about this sociological study of uptalk on the show:

Linneman’s study involves issues deeper than how game show contestants talk—specifically, the implications uptalk has for gender identities. According to his article, “The primary sociological controversy surrounding uptalk concerns the fact that women use uptalk more often than men do, and some interpret this as a signal of uncertainty and subordination.”Linneman found that both gender and uncertainty played a role: “On average, women used uptalk nearly twice as often as men. However, if men responded incorrectly, their intonation betrayed their uncertainty: their use of uptalk shot up dramatically.”

The use of uptalk is not merely an academic concern, as Linneman discovered with one of his results.

“One of the most interesting findings coming out of the project is that success has an opposite effect on men and women on the show…The more successful a man is on the show, uptalk decreases. The opposite is true for women…I think that says something really interesting about the relationship between success and gender in our society, and other research has found this too: successful women in a variety of ways get penalized.”

Uptalk’s sometimes-negative connotations bring up the subject of how women speak, a provocative issue.

While this isn’t an earthshaking finding, two things are very interesting here:

1. It is a reminder that language usage and speech patterns reflect larger social forces. While individuals may have unique ways of expressing themselves, language and expression is also learned behavior influenced by others.

2. Selecting Jeopardy! as the research case for this particular phenomenon is clever. While uptalk is related to perceptions of a lack of confidence, the contestants on the show should not have as much reason for nervousness as others might have about being on TV. In order to make it on air, they have to be smart enough to pass a qualifying test and then they have to pass an in-person audition. In other words, the contestants, males and female, are bright people. Granted, being in front of a camera is a different matter but these contestants aren’t caught completely unaware nor should they be fully perplexed by the questions they are trying to answer.

Developer’s son wrong; Naperville residents and leaders made decisions long ago that mean the suburb can’t go back to the 1950s

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Naperville is considering a new project, the Water Street Development, but the developer’s son is not happy with the opposition to the project from the Naperville Homeowner’s Confederation. In a recent email, here is how he made his case:

In his email, Bryan Bottarelli said the council has been “politically intimidated by a group of old-economy thinkers who call themselves the Naperville Homeowners Confederation.”

“This group claims to represent all the homeowners associations in Naperville. But in reality, it consists of a handful of older residents who are bored — and who have nothing better to do than to try keeping Naperville the same exact way it’s been since the 1950s,” the younger Bottarelli wrote. “They’re afraid of change — and they’re using fear tactics to red-light this project. And be honest — what they’re doing has been working. They know how to work the local political system to their advantage.

“And, since they have so much extra time on their hands, they’ve committed their days to bombarding city council with emails, letters, and phone calls in complete opposition to this deal.”…

“The confederation is disappointed at the tone of the email by Mr. Bottarelli’s son,” President Bob Buckman said in a written statement. “This is not in keeping with the tradition of respectful public discourse in Naperville that we all value. It is unfortunate that his description of us does not in any way represent the confederation’s members, or our many contributions to civic life in Naperville. Since 2006, the confederation board and its members have carefully studied, dissected, looked for alternatives, met with the developer, submitted a comprehensive report in 2007 and testified at plan commission and now at city council on this proposed development.”

Here is the problem with his argument: regardless of what current residents want, Naperville can’t turn back the clock to the 1950s. Naperville is little like what it was in 1950 and residents have been part of the process in changing Naperville. I know Bottarelli mentioned the 1950s but a number of the changes to Naperville started occurring at the end of this decade so I’ll make a comparison to 1950. Indeed, my research on the topic suggests Naperville, leaders and residents, have made numerous decisions over the decades to pursue growth.

Here is how Naperville was different in 1950:

1. It had a population of 7,013 in 1950. Today, Naperville has around 142,000 residents. This means the population has expanded by a factor of 20.

2. Along with a significantly larger population, Naperville has significantly increased in land size. Today, the city is over 39 square miles and it can take a while in certain traffic conditions to drive from one end to another. The size is large enough that the city added a second city hall-like facility, it now has two commuter railroad stations, and the city has sought ways to create social space and a community feel on the southwest side because it is a distance away from downtown (for example, planning for a commercial node at the northwest corner of Route 59 and 95th Street).

3. Basically none of the post-World War II subdivisions had been built by 1950. Harold Moser, the local developer who was responsible for a large percentage of the subsequent growth, was just getting started. The homeowner’s associations Battarelli is disparaging didn’t even exist in 1950.

4. Naperville’s downtown is quite different today. There is a renowned Riverwalk. There is a municipal center and Naper Settlement. The downtown has a number of national retail stores. There are plenty of restaurants and bars. There is a new performing arts center (in conjunction with North Central College) along with a carillon tower. In short, the downtown is a suburban entertainment hub. Even if the Water Street development gets turned down, it is not because Naperville hasn’t wanted to have a successful and vibrant downtown.

5. I-88, the highway that runs alongside the north side of Naperville, hadn’t even been built yet in 1950. It opened in the late 1950s and the first major facility, Bell Laboratories, was built near to the Naperville Road interchange in the mid-1960s. The moving of this facility near town helped kicked off Naperville’s rise as a white-collar job center which also helped fuel some of the other changes.

6. The Naperville of 1950 was not known for being one of the best places to live (Money in the mid 2000s), having a top 10 library, or the other accolades Naperville has accumulated in the last ten years or so. In 1950, the community had a small liberal arts college, a swimming pool converted from a quarry, the Kroehler furniture plant, and was known as the community that was once the county seat of DuPage County before Wheaton took the honor in the 1860s.

In other words, the Naperville of 1950 bears little resemblance to the Naperville of today. The cow is already long gone out of the barn on this one. Over the years, Naperville has consistently chosen to annex land, approve development, and grow even as it tries to retain its small-town charm. So if this particular project doesn’t succeed, this doesn’t mean Naperville residents or leaders want to live in the Naperville of 1950: even with some heated discussions over the decades about how much Naperville should grow and whether the new changes would irrevocably change the character of the community, Naperville has consistently pursued growth and change.

A downtown law firm no more

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A law firm in Austin, TX is leaving its downtown location for the suburbs:

Law firm Bowman and Brooke LLP [website] is vacating its current location at 600 Congress Ave. and heading to more suburban digs southwest of downtown [about 6 miles away, map here]….“Yes, price was a consideration but we’re not getting a tremendous difference in rent costs. There are other things that entered in like tenant improvement costs, and parking had a significant impact,” [Michelle Bailey, chief of operations] said.

The company had no parking allocation downtown and at its new location it will have 96 complimentary spaces for 44 employees — more than enough.

The article notes that “finding large blocks of office space [in downtown Austin] is somewhat akin to going on a treasure hunt” and suggests that lawyers “are now being challenged for territorial rights by emerging technology and energy firms.” In other words, plenty of businesses still want a downtown presence, and rents are being bid up by new entrants. This sounds more like a story of urban revival than suburban sprawl to me, though the two are clearly linked here.

Perhaps a more fascinating revelation, however, is Bowman and Brooke determination that it “wasn’t necessary for its attorneys to be downtown, close to other law firms and courthouses” because “[w]e tend to be a national firm with our attorneys flying all over the country” and “we don’t have a lot of local interaction.” What does it mean to practice law without significant local interaction, especially when one is “a nationally recognized trial firm that defends corporate clients in widely publicized catastrophic injury and wrongful death claims“? While simply having a downtown (rather than a suburban) office location may do little to humanize a corporate law firm, it seems telling that Bowman and Brooke seems to place such a low priority on engaging its local community.

Risk, reward as more complexity leads to new, more problems

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In discussing the recent fine levied about BP for the 2010 oil issue in the Gulf of Mexico, an interesting question can be raised: are events and problems like this simply inevitable given the growing complexity of society?

In 1984, a Yale University sociologist named Charles Perrow published a book called “Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies.” He argued that as technologies become more complex, accidents become inevitable.

The more complex safety features that are built in, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. You not only add technical complexity more things to go wrong but you add a human element of complacency. The more often things don’t go wrong, the more likely it is that people think they won’t. The phrase for this is “normalization of deviance,” coined by Boston University sociologist Diane Vaughan, part of the team that examined the 1986 explosion of space shuttle Challenger.

“Normal accident” and “normalization of deviance” come to mind because 10 days ago, the oil company BP agreed to plead guilty to 12 felony and two misdemeanor criminal charges in connection with the 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers were killed and nearly 5 million barrels of oil (210 million gallons) poured into the Gulf over 87 days…

But it requires complex systems that will, at some point, fail. Politically, the government can only seek to explain those risks, try to minimize them with tough regulation and make sure those who take big risks have the means to redress inevitable failure.

If these sorts of events are inevitable given more complexity and activity (particularly in the field of drilling and extraction), how do we balance the risks and rewards of such activity? How much money and effort should be spent trying to minimize risky outcomes? This is a complex social question that involves a number of factors. Unfortunately, such discussions often happen after the fact rather than ahead of possible occurrences. This is what Nassim Taleb discusses in The Black Swan; we can do certain things to prepare for or at least think about known and unknown events. We shouldn’t be surprised that oil accidents happen and should have some idea of how to tackle the problem or make things better after the fact. A fine against the company is punitive but will it necessarily provide the solution to the consequences of the event or guarantee that no such event will happen in the future? Probably not.

At the same time, I wonder if such events are more difficult for us to understand today because we do have strong narratives of progress. Although it is not often stated this explicitly, we tend to think such problems can be eliminated through technology, science, and reason. Yet, complex systems have points of frailty. Perhaps technology hasn’t been tested in all circumstances. Perhaps unforeseen or unpredictable environmental or social forces arise. And, perhaps most of all, these systems tend to involve humans who make mistakes (unintentionally or intentionally). This doesn’t necessarily mean that we can’t strive for improvements but it also means we should keep in mind our limitations and the possible problems that might arise.

A tiny house community in Washington, D.C.

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The Stronghold neighborhood of Washington, D.C. now features a small community of 200-square foot tiny houses:

The group behind Stronghold’s tiny-house community calls itself Boneyard Studios. “As property values and rents rise across the city, we want to showcase this potential option for affordable housing,” the group writes on its Web site. “We decided to live the questions: Can we build and showcase a few tiny homes on wheels in a DC urban alley lot? … Not in the woods, but in a true community, connected to a neighborhood? Yes, we think. Watch out left coast, the DC adventure begins.”

There’s one problem: The city’s zoning laws don’t allow residential dwellings on alley lots unless they are a minimum of 30 feet wide, or roughly the width of a city street. D.C. is currently discussing lifting the 30-foot restriction. So, as Boneyard Studios continues to advocate more progressive zoning laws, it is using the property to showcase what could be…

Although the diminutive homes are made of high-quality materials, they are priced for a flagging economy. They sell for $20,000 to $50,000, less than the down payment on a two-bedroom condo in a trendy D.C. neighborhood…

Despite the fact that tiny houses are, well, tiny, affordable-housing advocates are researching the possibility that attractive micro homes could one day complement or replace stigmatized trailer parks and low-income housing, especially in places such as the District, where they could be built in unused vacant spaces such as alleys.

This sounds like an interesting project. Still, these tiny houses could face a number of issues before being approved as affordable housing. Besides their size, how many people can fit in each tiny house, and how long each house might last, how many property owners would want to live next to these tiny houses? Even if these houses don’t have the stigma of trailer parks, residents and neighborhoods tend to worry about property values. Simply having smaller and cheaper houses nearby might lower other housing prices.

Additionally, how might these tiny houses be grouped or placed – would they be in rows, scattered in an open space or bigger lot, or on individual lots? Would a concentration of tiny houses fit under the same residential zoning categories as single-family homes or multi-family housing because of a greater density?

I imagine the neighbors will ask some of these questions and want good answers. Interestingly, the article does not cite any neighbors to the Stronghold colony of tiny houses.

Reading between the lines of an ABC News story on the bad odds of winning the $500 million Powerball lottery

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Check out this ABC News video about the odds of winning the $500 million Powerball lottery.

Several things are striking about the content of the video beyond the bad odds of winning: 1 in 175 million chance.

1. A journalist admits he doesn’t know much about math or statistics. It is not uncommon for reporters to go to experts like statisticians in times like these (appealing to the expert boosts the credentials of the story) but it is more unusual for journalists to admit they are doing so because they don’t know the information. I’ve argued before we need more journalists who understand statistics and science.

2. The reporter mentions some interesting odds that are more favorable than winning the Powerball. One of these is the idea that you are more likely to be possessed by the devil today than win the lottery. Who exactly keeps track of these figures and how accurate are they?

3. The story includes some talk about being more likely to win in particular states than others. Really? This sounds more like statistical noise or something related to the population of the states with multiple Powerball winners (like Illinois and New Jersey).

4. Interesting closing: the math expert himself hasn’t bought a lottery ticket before. So the moral of the story is that people shouldn’t buy any tickets?

Unexpected feature of owning a Texas McMansion: the directTV install takes longer

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I stumbled across an online discussion about how long it takes to wire a Texas McMansion for directTV. Here is an outline of the discussion:

directv install happening NOW

Posted by djtexillinion November 24, 2012, 2:26 pm

im scared

going from 2 cable boxes to 5.

whole home dvr (genie)
3 clients
1 hd dvr

4 hour update

Posted by djtexillinion November 24, 2012, 6:41 pm, in reply to “directv install happening NOW”

almost done

Takes a while to wire a Texas McMansion like yours*

Posted by chadinlaon November 24, 2012, 9:41 pm, in reply to “4 hour update“

Apparently, it is not quick to supply one’s McMansion with plenty of DVRs. This is not something I would have thought about when purchasing a McMansion. However, providing wiring for a large home that has already been built must be more difficult. This reminds me of several articles I have read suggesting it is much better to set up whole house speaker and electronic systems (remember the 1990s articles suggesting all or most new homes would be smart wired by now?) during construction because doing it later can be quite time consuming.

I imagine there are other “normal” tasks that take more time with McMansions. I have seen plenty of online comments over the years about how much time it must take to maintain the yard and clean such homes, particularly those with a large number of bathrooms. However, if you can afford a large McMansion, you are more likely to be able to hire people to landscape and clean it for you.