Unscientific survey results of the day: CTA riders supposedly split on new seating arrangement

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The Chicago Tribune had a story on the front page of its website a day ago that says Chicago residents are split on the new seating arrangements in new CTA cars. Unfortunately, the story has a fatal flaw: it is based on an unscientific poll.

The aisle-facing, bucket-style seats on the new CTA rail cars have prompted strong reactions among riders — though evenly split pro and con, an unscientific survey suggests.

More than 2,500 people participated in the online poll conducted this month by the Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago-area group that promotes safe transportation, bicycle use and other alternatives to automobiles.

Forty-nine percent said they would prefer New York-style benches with no defined separation between passengers instead of the individual “scoop” seats that are on the CTA’s new 5000 Series rail cars, the Active Transportation Alliance reported.

Forty-eight percent of respondents said they prefer the scoop, or bucket-style, seats, and 3 percent said they had no preference, the poll found.

“While the poll results are unscientific and it was nearly a draw, one clear conclusion is that transit riders have strong opinions when it comes to issues of comfort and convenience,” said Lee Crandell, director of campaigns for the Active Transportation Alliance. “We’ve shared the results with the CTA and encouraged the agency to always seek input from the transit riders about significant changes to the system.”

While the newspaper perhaps should get some credit for acknowledging in the first paragraph that this was an unscientific poll, it then makes no sense to base the story on this information. One could talk about some divergent opinions on the seats without having to rely on an unscientific poll. Why not interview a few riders in the “man-on-the-street” style newspapers like? Should the CTA listen to those poll results provided by the Active Transportation Alliance? No – they suggest at least a few people don’t like the new seats but they aren’t necessarily a large number or a majority. In the end, I find this to be irresponsible. This poll tells us little about anything and even with the early disclaimer, is likely to confuse some readers.

I also think this story will blow over soon enough. New York riders seem to have done just fine with these seating arrangements and Chicago riders will get used to them as well.

Is a McMansion truly a better scary movie setting than a smaller, older house?

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In the last few days, I’ve seen a few stories about horror movies that take place in McMansions (see here and here). Are McMansions inherently scarier than smaller and older houses? I’ll offer a few arguments for each.

On the side of McMansions:

1. Bigger houses allow more room for weird things to happen and more space for bad creatures to pop out of. The victims have room to run away and utilize rooms they may not have entered in weeks (because the house is just that big!).

2. Perhaps residents of McMansions and all of their faux wealth (according to critics) are more deserving of bad things happening to them or are more naive and innocent. Either way, there is something about McMansion owners that makes them better targets for these films.

3. It is really about a commentary on the foolishness of buying and living in McMansions. Perhaps the horror is the inevitable result of American individualism and consumerism.

On the side of smaller and older homes:

1. They are more claustrophobic. There is nowhere else to go.

2. They are older so there is more potential for odd backstories (think of all of those old owners) or odd places (unused cellars, crawlspaces, attics, etc.).

3. The homeowners may be of a different demographic – they don’t have the wealth to live in McMansions or new homes – so there is potential for different kinds of story lines beyond wealthy and pampered teenagers or young couples who have “made it.”

I think McMansions are an easy target for horror movies and other cultural critics. Most Americans don’t live in them but they symbolize the kind of well-off life that contrasts with darker stories. Of course, dark things can happen in all kinds of houses…

Reducing time zones in Indonesia to improve business opportunities and unite ethnic groups

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Indonesia is currently discussing reducing the country’s time zones from three to one:

The government has been promoting since May a plan that aims to put all parts of the sprawling archipelago nation into the same time zone as many other Asian countries. Under the plan, all of Indonesia—which stretches 6,400 kilometers between India and Australia—would be eight hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, meaning the country’s capital city would shift one hour ahead of its current time.

The government says the move is expected to boost business transactions between Indonesia and the regional financial hubs such as Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Airlines could also profit through simpler flight schedules, increasing their productivity, it says…

While the time-zone idea isn’t seen as critical by many investors, it is popular among some who would find it easier to do business in the country. Russia in March reduced its time zones to nine from 11, while Brazil is considering cutting to one from three.

And it isn’t only monetary gains that Jakarta has in mind by abolishing the clock divisions—it also hopes to foster closer ties among the country’s more than 1,128 ethnic groups. With the country split into three zones, the thinking goes, it’s easier for groups to view themselves as part of different regions than as Indonesians first…

The business argument makes more sense to me. (Still: in an era of fast globalization, does a one or two hour time difference really matter?) However, I’m skeptical of the ethnic/cultural argument. Being on the same time zone really brings people together in a meaningful way? Perhaps fixing the time zones is an easier “fix” than other possible measures…

I remember going through a time zone while living in northern Indiana. At the time, our part of the state was on Eastern time half of the year and on Central time the other half of the year. This was somewhat confusing but I think the bigger issue was that a good portion of the northwestern part of the state wanted to be on the same time zone as Chicago for business purposes. But, I don’t recall any debate over whether these people in a different time zone were any less Hoosiers for this choice. (However, I could imagine something similar goes on in Indiana as it does in Illinois: people near Chicago think that is where all the action is…and isn’t downstate all about corn and farming?)

Another note: the 24 time zones match up with the rotation of the earth. So what does it mean when we put multiple time zones together for political, business, and cultural purposes? Is this a prime example of humanity running roughshod over nature?

Faculty advice column: for the “average student,” sociology might not be most practical way to get a job

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Choosing a college major is definitely a charged subject today, particularly when discussing potential earnings. Here is some interesting advice given by a faculty member to an undergraduate interested in sociology:

Anonymous asks, “I’m an undecided freshman. My parents want me to choose a ‘practical major’ like engineering, but I think I would be more passionate about a sociology major. Should I study what my parents want me to study, or should I do what I want?”

Hmmm. You should choose sociology! Or any CHASS major! (Just kidding, sort of, I need to make up for last time.) Honestly, in this current job and economic climate I think it would be foolish to not at least strongly consider the employment prospects of one’s chosen major. That said, employment means doing something at least 40 hours/week for many, many years. The last thing you want to do is choose an area which will be drudgery instead of fulfillment. While engineering is particularly practical for the current job market, that does not mean sociology (or any other major) is impractical. As I mentioned in an earlier column, social sciences are great for developing critical thinking skills and good writing skills. These are most definitely highly-valued skills by many employers.

That said, if you choose a more passion-based major, you really need to invest your passion in it because it probably will not be as easy to find a job as if you had a mechanical engineering degree. Don’t take classes because you were told they were easy. Take them because they have a great professor who will challenge you to think and learn in new ways. Don’t shy away from the classes with 20 page papers — take them and hone your writing skills. Be proactive in working with faculty, researching with faculty, and in building relationships. Work with a local non-profit or government agency that fills your passion and build your job-market skills.

For the average student, sociology may not be as practical as a degree with a more obvious and direct pipeline to employment, but if you put your heart into it, develop your skills, abilities and maturity, you will come out just as employable — if not more so — than if you chose a practical major to which you found you could not truly dedicate yourself.

These are common ideas: certain majors lead more easily to jobs while sociology and other social science majors don’t lead as easily to jobs but students majoring in them can gain valuable skills that employers want.

However, the last paragraph is key here: the suggestion is that sociology students should be more dedicated to their major/field because they will have to overcome the difference in practicality compared to other majors. This is interesting because sociology is often considered an easier major. But, this professor suggests sociology majors should be even more interested and devoted to the major to be able to compete on the job market. Does this mean sociology majors should be higher caliber students?

Summarizing sociological theories in 140 characters or less

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A sociology instructor is having his students tweet criminal-justice theories:

“They have all these theories to learn,” Atherton said. “Some of them are very dense, and complex. What I try to get them to do, and I tie some extra credit to it, is see if they can boil the theory down, the essence of it, to 140 characters.”…

In a recent class session, Atherton shared tweets from a lesson on a theory of social disorganization, displaying the tweets under Twitter’s signature bluebird.

“Social disorganization refers to communities as a whole not coming together for common goals, ultimately causing a disruption,” the first tweet stated.

Another tweet on the topic read: “theory suggests criminal activity comes from the neighborhood where someone lives and how it shapes them living there.”

If the American Sociological Association is working on a Wikipedia initiative, why not also start a Twitter push? Since it looks like Karl Marx’s Das Kapital is being tweeted (over 41,000 tweets and counting), there is work to be done.

While I think this could be an interesting pedagogical exercise as it allows students to use a current medium as well as put complex theories into their own terms, I wonder if this doesn’t perfectly illustrate the issues with Twitter. Sociological theories are often messy and complex, taking some time to explain and think through. For a very basic understanding, 140 characters could work but if this is all students know about sociological theories, is this worthwhile in the long run?

Would you rather have $10 land in rural Canada or houses for under $100 in Detroit?

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I saw a story about a small rural town in Canada trying to lure in new residents by offering land for $10:

In an effort to jump on the oil boom in that part of the country, officials are once again selling undeveloped land for a mere $10, an initiative they first started in 2010. Back then they had 14 lots for sale, 11 of which have houses built on them today, economic development officer Tanis Chalmers told ABC News .

That plan was so successful that in September the Rural Municipality of Pipestone, of which Reston is the biggest town (population: 550), decided to put up an additional 10 lots for sale, along with the three left from 2010. Nine remain, “But I’ve had offers on them already from both Canada and the U.S,” said Chalmers, adding that the initiative has been so effective that the local school finally “has a standalone kindergarten class.”…

The plan is pretty straightforward: To purchase a property, wannabe homeowners have to sign an agreement and put down a $1,000 deposit. Once a lot is purchased, owners have 90 days to begin construction, and 12 months to complete it. As soon as the town receives your occupancy permit, they will refund $990 of the original down payment…

As further incentive, the town is offering a $6,000 grant to people who’ve built a new house or purchased an existing home in the rural municipality. The grant, mind you, can be used for anything from home upgrades to a new car. Chalmers says taxes hover around $1,500 to $2,500 per year.

This reminded me of stories in recent years about cheap houses in Detroit. Here is one example:

“I was living in Chicago and a friend told me that houses in Detroit could be had for $500,” said Brumit, a financially strapped artist who thought he had little prospect of owning his own property. “I said if you hear of anything just a little cheaper let me know. Within a week he emails me a photo of a house for $100. I thought that’s just crazy. Why not? It’s a way to cut our expenses way down and kind of open up a lot of time for creative projects because we’re not working to pay the rent.”…A third of the population are unemployed. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in large parts of Detroit over the last three years. The average price of a home sold in the city last year has been put at $7,500 (£4,900)…

Banks are selling off properties in the worst neighbourhoods, which are usually surrounded by empty and wrecked housing, for a few dollars each. But even better houses can be had at a fraction of their former value.

Technically, Brumit paid $95 for the land and $5 for the house on Lawley Street – which fitted what estate agents euphemistically call an opportunity.

I suspect more people would jump at the rural opportunity. While there might be more amenities nearby in Detroit (you mean those winning Tigers can’t boost home prices like winning NFLteams  supposedly can?), the idea of living in Detroit itself would scare a lot of people. What might happen in the neighborhood? Can the city provide basic services? On the other hand, the rural property might be a long way from anything worthwhile but it could offer some access to nature, there probably aren’t as many worries about neighbors, and there is some appeal to starting from scratch. If we wanted to stretch this explanation out even further, this could be a sign of the urban/rural divide in the United States; economically similar opportunities in the big city and the country don’t attract the same level of cultural and residential interest.

Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council tries to project 30 years into the urban future

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The Metropolitan Council for the Twin Cities region in Minnesota is working on a new plan that tries to project urban changes in the next 30 years:

For example, he noted, the Twin Cities region will have 900,000 more people, with twice as many elderly. Also, by 2040, 43 percent of the region’s population will be people of color, up from today’s 24 percent.

Big changes are already being seen in housing patterns. The share of building permits issued in developing suburbs has been declining since 2008, when they had 66 percent of the total. But by 2011, less than half were issued in the second- and third-ring suburbs for the first time in a decade…

“But what we’ve seen in the few years is that employment did not increase between 2000 and 2010. Employment dropped in the seven-county area, so growth management isn’t the issue it was before,” she said.

Instead, the new plan will likely focus more on “what the transit system means for our region, thinking out how new light-rail lines will influence new development and thinking about water supplies.”

A quick summary of these predicted changes: a more diverse population, slower or less growth on the suburban fringe, a struggle to create good-paying jobs, preserving local natural resources, and looking to build more effective mass transit that might also boost local development efforts. I suspect a lot of regions, particularly ones without high levels of growth, will have similar concerns. As cities and communities age, infrastructure will cost more, regions will continue to compete with each other for high-tech and white-collar jobs, and new populations might challenge the existing character of places and regions.

A note: if you have read the work of Myron Orfield (for example, see American Metropolitics), you will have heard of the Metropolitan Council. Compared to other metropolitan regions, the Twin Cities has a metropolitan agency with some teeth:

The Metropolitan Council or Met Council is the regional governmental agency and metropolitan planning organization in Minnesota serving the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area. The Met Council is granted regional authority powers in state statutes by the Minnesota Legislature. These powers can supersede decisions and actions of local governments. The legislature entrusts the Council to maintain public services and oversee growth of the state’s largest metro area. This agency is similar to Metro in Portland, Oregon in that both agencies administer an urban growth boundary…

In 1967 the Minnesota Legislature created the Metropolitan Council in response to growing issues of septic tank wastewater contamination. During that time, it was recognized there were systematic problems which transcended coordination of any one agency. There were more than 200 municipal agencies in existence then.

Additional acts of the legislature passed in 1974, 1976, and 1994 expanded the role and powers of the Met Council, merging it with transit and waste control commissions to become a unified regional authority.

In other words, the planning being done could have a big impact on the next few decades in the region.

Why New Yorkers and pigeons get along

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A sociologist explains the social interaction New Yorkers have with pigeons:

For more than three years, Jerolmack observed the ways in which people interact with pigeons in cities. His forthcoming book, The Global Pigeon, which, as he put it, seeks to examine “our social experience of animals,” draws from that research. Yesterday evening he spoke about our own city’s rather vexed relationship to the birds.

In the 1960s, for instance, Thomas P.F. Hoving, the former city parks commissioner and longtime director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (not to mention the subject of a famed John McPhee New Yorker profile from 1967), called pigeons “rats with wings,” an epithet—often wrongly attributed to Woody Allen—that really stuck. Hoving cited the species, along with litterers and vandals, as a plague on Bryant Park. The park’s supervisor at the time, Andrew Petrochko, told the New York Times that “the homosexuals … make faces at people [and] once the winos are dried out at Bellevue, they make a beeline for Bryant Park.”…

Despite their bad reputation, though, Jerolmack noted that our urban encounters with pigeons “are profoundly social.”

“The impulse to feed pigeons is not so different from wanting to chat with strangers,” Jerolmack said, speaking about one of the subjects for his book, Anna, the elderly pigeon lady who regularly feeds the birds at Father Demo Square, the tiny enclave in the West Village where Jerolmack’s research began.

This sounds like it could be a testable hypothesis: do city dwellers have more positive, social relationships with wildlife (not including pets or animals connected to a household) than people who live in suburbs or rural areas? Cities aren’t typically known for their wildlife but perhaps this could be tied to Simmel’s arguments in his piece “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” He suggested there were too many people for individuals to interact with in big cities so they would have to develop blase attitudes to protect themselves. But what if they could interact safely with pigeons (and even ducks and squirrels)? Or perhaps this is tied to romanticized (or real?) notions residents have about needing to connect with nature in the middle of the “concrete jungle.”

Century 21 says winning NFL teams boost housing prices

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A new study from Century 21suggests housing values rise when NFL teams win:

The question was this: What is the impact on a city when the hometown team does well or doesn’t do well? Century 21 looked at teams’ successes, population growth from census numbers, home value appreciation and attendance rates. And the correlation between on-the-field success and real estate prices was evident:Four of the five cities with teams that went from a losing record in 2010 to a winning record in 2011 saw average home sales prices increase between 2010 and 2011.

After winning the Super Bowl, Green Bay, Wis., saw a population growth of 1.7 percent in 2011, compared with runner-up Pittsburgh’s 0.6 percent growth.

Going from a record of 10-6 in 2010 to 2-14 in 2011, Indianapolis, the home of the Colts, saw a 19.8 percent decrease in home sales.

Eight of the nine cities with a team that had attendance rates of 100 percent or more in 2011 saw average home sales prices rise that year.

Here is the original Century 21 blog post with this information.

The NFL is a powerful entity but does it have this much power? Is this due to a small sample size (this article mentions only one year of data)? Are there other factors behind this correlation? If I had to guess at what is going on here, I suspect this is too small of a sample and that 2011 prices in certain cities happened to coincide with NFL results. Why not look at the housing crisis years and see the relationship between records and housing values?

I’m generally skeptical of sports fans and others that claim sports are important for the civic pride of a community or that new stadiums need to be funded by taxpayers because the loss of a team will hurt the local economy. However, this could be pure genius from Century 21. What better way to boost business than to hook your services to the popular NFL? Hey, there was even a Century 21 2012 Super Bowl ad!

How Republicans became the party against cities

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After noting Republicans barely mentioned the word “city” at the Republican National Convention, the rest of a review piece in the New York Times looks at how Republicans became anti-urban:

IT could hardly be otherwise. The Republican Party is, more than ever before in its history, an anti-urban party, its support gleaned overwhelmingly from suburban and rural districts — especially in presidential elections.

This wasn’t always the case. During the heyday of the urban political machines, from the Civil War to the Great Depression, Republicans used to hold their own in our nation’s great cities. Philadelphia was dominated for decades by a Republican machine. In Chicago — naturally — both parties had highly competitive, wildly corrupt machines, with a buffoonish Republican mayor, “Big Bill” Thompson, presiding over the city during the ascent of Al Capone. In the 1928 presidential election, the Republican Herbert Hoover swept to victory while carrying cities all across the country: Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Chicago; Detroit; Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Houston; Dallas; Omaha and Los Angeles…

FOR Republicans, cities now became object lessons on the shortcomings of activist government and the welfare state — sinkholes of crime and social dysfunction, where Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” cavorted in their Cadillacs. The very idea of the city seemed to be a thing of the past, an archaic concept — so much so that Gerald R. Ford seriously considered letting New York go bankrupt in 1975…

In short, they promise to rip and tear at the immensely complex fabric of city life while sneering at the entire “urban vision of dense housing and government transit.” There is a terrible arrogance here that has ramifications well beyond the Republicans’ electoral prospects.

Fascinating.  A sociologist adds an addendum through a letter to the editor several days later:

While I agree with much of Kevin Baker’s article, his statement that in the postwar years “newly prosperous whites and eventually blacks pursued the American dream out to the suburbs” suggests that postwar urban America became the bastion of the poor and minorities.

Mostly true. But in cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, many members of the black middle class continue to live in proximity to their poor and working-class counterparts.

Indeed, in the postwar and post-civil-rights era, blacks have been inheriting urban America, hence the rise of black mayors and other elected officials across all levels of government. Mr. Baker’s analysis of the concerted turn away from urban America by the G.O.P. reveals that a major consequence of this strategy is not just a forsaking of cities but also the alienation of a large swath of poor, working-class and minority voters.

This has all led to the situation today where both parties try to cater to middle-class suburbanites as more exurban and rural voters are in the Republican camp and more urban dwellers are in the Democratic camp.

I have three other ideas about this:

1. Republicans have shifted over the years toward protecting “traditional” American life which sounds often like it can best be lived out in small towns. While the country may still hold on to some small town values (think of President Obama’s talk about Wall Street versus Main Street), the era of Main Street, even in suburbs and towns that have real Main Streets as opposed to the shopping mall kinds (see here and here), is over.

2. This is a bit odd considering that cities and metropolitan regions are massive economic engines. Aren’t Republicans for markets and a growing economy? Most of this is not happening in rural areas but rather in cities.

3. Tied to #2, suburbs are in part made possible by cities. On one hand, suburbs are more independent than ever before but they are still tied to cities for things like major cultural institutions, major financial institutions, airports and other transportation facilities, and sports teams. Additionally, we should be thinking more about metropolitan regions anyway rather than cities versus suburbs

Overall, we aren’t going back to a United States that is primarily small town or rural. The percent of Americans living in non-metropolitan areas in 1910 was 71.6% while over 80% of American live in metropolitan areas today – a complete switch. The population density of the country tripled from 25.7 to 79.6 people per square mile between 1900 and 2000. The United States of today is an urban nation – and both Republicans and Democrats have to adapt to this.