The implications of discontinuing the American Community Survey

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This didn’t exactly make the front page this week but a vote in the House of Representatives about the American Community Survey could have a big impact on how we understand the United States. Nate Berg explains:

So the Republican-led House of Representatives this week voted 232-190 to eliminate the American Community Survey, the annual survey of about 3 million randomly chosen U.S. households that’s like the Census only much more detailed. It collects demographic details such as what sort of fuel a household uses for heating, the cost of rent or mortgage payments, and what time residents leave home to go to work.

In a post on the U.S. Census Bureau’s website, Director Robert Groves says the bill “devastates the nation’s statistical information about the status of the economy and the larger society. Modern societies need current, detailed social and economic statistics. The U.S. is losing them.”

While the elimination of the ACS would take a slight nibble out of the roughly $3.8 trillion in government expenditures proposed in the 2013 federal budget, its negative impacts could be much greater – affecting the government’s ability to fund a wide variety of services and programs, from education to housing to transportation.

The issue is that the information collected in the ACS is used heavily by the federal government to figure out where it will spend a huge chunk of its money. In a 2010 report for the Brookings Institution, Andrew Reamer found that in the 2008 fiscal year, 184 federal domestic assistance programs used ACS-related datasets to help determine the distribution of more than $416 billion in federal funding. The bulk of that funding, more than 80 percent, went directly to fund Medicaid, highway infrastructure programs and affordable housing assistance. Reamer, now a research professor George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy, also found that the federal government uses the ACS to distribute about $100 billion annually to states and communities for economic development, employment, education and training, commerce and other purposes. He says that should the ACS be eliminated, it would be very difficult to figure out how to distribute this money where it’s needed…

And it’s not just government money that would be wasted. Reamer says many businesses are increasingly reliant on the market data available within the ACS, and that without it they would have much less success picking locations where their businesses would have market demand. It would affect businesses throughout the country, “from mom-and-pops to Walmart.”

Some history might also be helpful here. The United States has carried out a dicennial census since 1790 but the American Community Survey began in the mid 1990s. There has been talk in recent years of replacing the expensive and complicated dicennial census with a beefed up American Community Survey. There would be several advantages: it wouldn’t cost as much plus the government (and the country) would have more consistent information rather than having to wait every ten years. In other words, our country is rapidly changing and we need consistent information that can tell us what is happening.

In my mind, as a researcher who consistently uses Census data, dropping the ACS would be a big loss. The government funding is important but even more important to me would be losing the more up-to-date information the ACS provides. Without this survey, we would likely have to rely on private data which is often restrictive and/or expensive. For example, I’ve used ACS data to track some housing issues but without this, I’m not sure where I could get similar data.

This is part of a larger issue of conservatives wanting to limit the reach of the Census Bureau. The argument often is that the Census is too intrusive, therefore invading the privacy of citizens (see this 2011 story about an insistent ACS worker), and the Constitution only provides for a dicennial census. I wonder if these arguments are red herrings: there is a long history of battling over Census counts and timing depending on which political party might benefit. For example, see Republican claims that inappropriate sampling techniques were used to correct undercounts for big cities, claims that the Census “imputes” races to people (so mark your race as American!), or efforts by New York City to ask for a recount in order to boost their 2010 population figures, which are tied to funding. In other words, the Census can turn into a political football even though its data is very important and it uses social science research techniques.

When a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Wilmette is threatened by McMansions

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McMansions don’t only threaten the unspoiled fields of America; they also threaten houses designed by notable architects like Frank Lloyd Wright.

A dollar can’t buy you much these days. But for Joseph Catrambone, a contractor, real estate manager, and self-proclaimed architecture buff living in Oak Brook, Illinois, one dollar secured him a 594-square-foot historic Prairie Style cottage, churned out by Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in its 1920 heydays. The only caveat: He has about two weeks to devise a plan and acquire the permits to dismantle and remove the building from its present location. “I wake up in the morning thinking how crazy I am,” Catrambone told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s exciting and crazy all at the same time.”

Exciting, crazy, and heroic. Catrambone’s plan to relocate the cottage from its original site has saved one of two endangered Frank Lloyd Wright-connected buildings in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette from imminent destruction. The cottage, which currently sits on 1320 Isabella Street, was designed by Austrian-born architect Rudolph Schindler, who was working in Wright’s studio at the time, propagating the American architect’s patented style before striking out on his own as a prominent modernist architect with an entire platform frame system attributed to his name (the Schindler Frame)…

As soon as talks of demolition began, alarm bells went off. Preservationists swiftly entered the scene, tracing the two buildings back to Schindler, Van Bergen, and Wright and meticulously unearthing original blueprints that would qualify the works as Wright creations. While any Wright association is usually enough to earn a reprieve for buildings facing ruin, Wilmette, unlike Chicago, does not have a landmark ordinance. Like the recently razed Palos Verdes beach house built by Lloyd Wright, Wright’s son, the Isabella Street houses are sitting on prime real estate for aspiring McMansion owners.

Fending off the stereotype of the big, bad developer, Hausen opened the door to the Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. Together, they arrived at an agreement, which placed the Van Bergen-designed house on the market for four months starting on May 1 at a listing of $599,000. The Conservancy is taking careful measures to monitor potential buyers, determined to find a future owner who will preserve the existing residence.

This sounds like a decent compromise: the homes are saved (though moved) and property owners and builders can utilize the prime property.

I’m sure there are some fascinating stories out there about preservation battles over structures like these. Why weren’t these homes given landmark status? Why do some towns move to preserve Frank Lloyd Wright homes and others do not? How much of a Frank Lloyd Wright home does a structure have to be to be worth saving – this home simply came out of his workshop.

Also, if an important building is saved but moved, is it still just as important?

When do Americans think midlife begins?

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A new sociological study examines when Americans think midlife begins:

The topic intrigued the 41-year-old associate professor of sociology at Florida State’s Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy (who views herself as middle-age, by the way) because “there are so few clear markers of its boundaries, unlike adulthood or old age.” Few studies have examined people’s views of middle age compared to young adulthood or old age.

So Barrett and graduate student Erica Toothman combed through two waves of nationally representative data collected in the United States in 1995-1996 and 2004-2006 that examined how various factors influence people’s views of the timing of middle age…

Here are some key findings:

• Both women and men view the start and end of middle age as occurring earlier for women than for men, consistent with the argument that a “double standard of aging” exists that disadvantages women.
• Younger adults tend to see middle age as occurring at younger ages than do older adults. In other words, as people grow older, they tend to see this life stage as occurring later.
• People who are more socioeconomically disadvantaged or belong to racial or ethnic minority groups tend to view this stage as occurring earlier than do their peers.
• Others likely to view middle age as occurring earlier include those in poor health, those who began families young, those who are divorced, and those without living parents…

According to Barrett’s research, most people think of middle age as beginning at 44 and ending at 60.

This seems particularly interesting in a youth-obsessed culture. Acknowledging that one might be in midlife means that one also has to acknowledge that their youth is over. Does this bring along ideas about not being as important in society and needing to step aside or to help the younger generation? A range from 44 to 60 is quite narrow – this means that only roughly 16 out of the 80 expected years of life are in the middle.

While Barrett there are few markers that signify midlife, I can think of at least two common markers of midlife in American culture today.

1. Having children. This often signifies something about responsibility and now needing to take care of another person.

2. Reaching milestone birthdays like a 30th or 40th. Just go check out the “humorous” cards available for these milestones to see what popular perceptions are about these days.

Overall, this research seems to be part of a larger push among sociologists to look for the cultural markers of certain life periods. For example, there has been a lot of discussion and research about the boundaries between being a teenager and adult, giving rise to talk of a new liminal period called “emerging adulthood.” These markers and life periods will certainly change as society changes.

Sociologist Dalton Conley to spend sabbatical working for the online University for the People

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Sociologist Dalton Conley has an interesting sabbatical project: working to help the online University for the People up and going.

The international, tuition-free, nonprofit institution, founded in 2009, is a pioneering effort in e-learning and peer-to-peer learning. Using open-source technology and coursework provided gratis by well-regarded institutions, it offers two- and four-year degree programs in business administration and computer science. It has formed partnerships with Yale University, New York University, and Hewlett-Packard, and to date has enrolled 1,400 students from 130 countries.”Higher education is our best cultural product, as far as I’m concerned,” says Mr. Conley. “We also export our less-impressive cultural products, McDonald’s and Hollywood and so forth, so I think it’s a great idea to help folks who want to help themselves to increase their skill sets and help their own countries.”…

As University of the People’s dean of arts and sciences, Mr. Conley will work to expand course offerings. “We need to focus on pragmatic degrees that are going to help individuals in their societies, in developing countries,” he says. He hopes the next two majors will be in health, to train nurses and community-health workers, and education, to train teachers.

This sounds like it could be a very interesting project. However, isn’t access to this free online school still dependent on who has regular Internet access? Without that kind of infrastructure, will this school be best able to help those who most need the help?

Greenwashing Cadillacs and McMansions

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A review of the 2012 Cadillac Escalade compares the greenwashing of the Escalade and McMansions:

And of course, the Escalade is not a paragon of fuel efficiency, but you knew that. Still, 13 mpg city and 20 mpg highway is pretty grim. Much better mileage is available, however, in the form of the Escalade Hybrid. It’s easy to view that car as a cynical bit of greenwashing (sort of like putting bamboo floors in your McMansion), but the Hybrid’s EPA ratings of 20/23 mpg put it on a par with much smaller vehicles — the city rating particularly.

Two thoughts:

1. I’ve asked repeatedly whether McMansions could be considered green. SUVs have similar issues: how many MPG would they need to no longer be considered with derision by critics?

2. The comparison between McMansions and SUVs is not unusual. Here is a finding from my recently published paper on the meaning of the term McMansion: out of the 637 articles that mentioned McMansions in the New York Times between 1/1/00 and 12/31/09, at least 33 compared McMansions and SUVs. Both are often cited as exemplars of excessive consumption (using resources, debt, sprawl, etc.) and many critics would love to leave the two objects to a foregone past.

Building houses designed for blended families

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Architects, real estate agents, and builders are adjusting to selling more homes to blended families:

“More and more people are getting divorced, especially in Paris and its suburbs. We have many customers in this situation. We try to interest them in a certain type of home,” admits Alexandre Colleu, a real estate agent working in suburbia. In France, one out of five children live in a blended family. In Switzerland, more than 22,000 divorces were granted in 2010; the figure has been increasing steadily for the past few years. “Separations are increasing, but so is the speed at which couples find new partners. They are not a market yet, but they’re a target population,” confirms Yankel Fijalkow, author of The Sociology of Housing. “Real estate agents have now found a way of selling homes that would be too expensive for a single family,” he notes. At the National Architecture School in Paris, where Fijalkow teaches, masters-builders and architects are working on the issue: “They are studying the housing models of countries from countries where people live with their extended family rather than within nuclear families,” Professor Fijalkow explains.

Each blended family is different. Some homes are organized so that each generation has their own space– whereas in other houses, people are separated according to family groups. Let’s go back to the aforementioned “nine-room house”. The estate agent describes it: “It is made of two detached houses linked by a footbridge. The couple who wants to preserve their newly-found intimacy can live in one house, and the children in the other. Also, children of blended families are often teenagers who appreciate the idea of having their own private space,” he adds.

Sibrine Durnez, an architect in the Belgian city of Liège, has designed a house with two very separate levels. “The parents did not want to live in a sad, empty house on the weeks when they don’t have custody of their children. So from their floor, they can’t see the kids’ rooms. They also wanted all the children’s bedrooms to be exactly the same size, to avoid jealousy,” she explains, adding that her firm mostly designs small houses for single-parent families.

Other families chose to allocate a part of the house to each “clan,” where they share some rooms but sometimes have two different front doors. The most radical version of this is a perfectly symmetrical house, with a double kitchen and a double living room, which can be separated or joined according to the mood of the day. “It’s important to be able to spend time with each other, but it’s also important to be able to ‘avoid’ each other,” Yankel Fijalkow explains.

This sounds like an interesting adaptation to the Going Solo world: even in families where adults have decided to live together, the emphasis in these homes is on private space where each individual can adjust to the changing family circumstances.

It would be really interesting to hear from families that live in these homes. Does the design help promote family togetherness? In other words, is it more important to simply have the different family members living in the same dwelling than interacting on a regular basis within the dwelling? What happens if families grow closer together and want more common space – do they have to move?

Sociologist argues that there aren’t as many high-paying high-tech jobs as people think

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While commentators suggest that college students should pursue high-tech careers, a sociologist argues that there aren’t as many jobs in this sector as people think:

Finally, it is a big mistake to think that the tech sector is a panacea for the jobs crisis. University of Michigan professor of business and sociology Gerald Davis has examined the data and found that the job-producing high-tech’s potential is consistently overplayed.

“Although the handful of teen billionaires who manage to cash in on the latest app may suggest otherwise, surprisingly few people actually work in the high-visibility success stories of the tech economy,” Davis writes in an article to be presented at the American Sociological Association meeting. “The combined global workforces of Google (32,467), Apple (63,300), Facebook (3000), Microsoft (90,000), Cisco (71,825), and Amazon.com (56,200) — 316,792 as of the end of 2011 — are smaller than the U.S. workforce of [grocery chain] Kroger (339,000). Notably, a recent survey of college graduates under 40 found than one in five listed Google as their most preferred employer, followed by Apple and Facebook. They might as well have chosen the NBA as Facebook, given the firm’s minuscule employment, and Apple’s recent surge in net jobs is almost entirely attributable to the roll-out of its retail stores, where most of its current employees work. The Computer and Electronic Products industry has seen a loss of 750,000 jobs since 2000 as production has been almost universally offshored. But even the Information Services sector, which includes telecommunications, broadcasting, publishing and data processing, shed over one million jobs during the same period.”

It sounds like aspirations and the number of available jobs don’t line up. Some could argue that there are plenty of smaller high-tech firms and start-ups along with plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurship but I’m guessing plenty of young adults would want to work for established (and cool!) companies.

Others have argued that people in or going to college should look at what jobs are going to popular in the future, presumably to avoid industries that are losing jobs. But what commentator would discourage young people from going into the high-tech sector even though they would quickly recommend steering clear of liberal arts degrees?

Sociologist: some people working more hours in order to consume more

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Sociologist Juliet Schor has over the years written about the consumer habits of Americans, notably in The Overspent American. She argues that part of the reason some Americans are working more is they need the money to consume more:

But it seems the enemy we have met is also us, as Pogo long ago predicted. Juliet Schor, author of “The Overworked American” and “The Overspent American,” finds we’ve radically increased our work hours over three decades. Part of that is due to the weakening of unions, which historically reduced excessive workweeks, Schor says.

But it’s also due to a “dramatic upscaling of the American dream” to include ever pricier McMansions, cooler cars and all manner of material want, she argues.

“Comfort is no longer enough,” Schor says in an interview by the Media Education Foundation. “People want luxury.”

Fair enough, although in Michigan’s economy just pizza and Netflix is a luxury for many. Schor’s point is people are overworking themselves while their employers expect the same. Either way, it’s a mechanistic life, always producing, always plugged in — more like a machine than a mind.

Schor discusses the idea of “reference groups,” people that we compare ourselves to. With new kinds of technology, such as television, more Americans were exposed to upper-scale standards of living beyond what they saw around their immediate vicinity. For example, when Americans watched shows with middle-class values like The Cosby Show, they saw a family with a doctor and lawyer as parents (meaning there is a high household income as well as high status) that rarely had to deal with money issues. Over the long run, Schor argues that Americans came to see that sort of lifestyle as normal, something to aspire to in order to be middle-class.

It seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to get some data to test this question: do people who work longer hours consume more (as a percentage of their income)? Could you control for occupation (some might require more work than others), location, whether there is more than one wage earner in the household, and adjust that once you get certain subsistence levels of income you can “afford” to consume more?

A second question: if Schor is correct that television gave people wider reference groups which contributed to consuming to maintain or raise their status, what effect has the Internet had?

Another famous sociology major: Arne Duncan

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Occasionally I highlight famous sociology degree holders such as Ronald Reagan or the current President of Ireland or Martin Luther King, Jr. Add the current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to the list:

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan leads this year’s class of inductees for the Academic All-America Hall of Fame that was announced Tuesday by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Duncan was a basketball co-captain at Harvard and the Crimson’s leading scorer at 16.9 points a game as a senior in 1986-87. He was first-team Academic All-American that year, graduating magna cum laude with a degree in sociology.

He tried his hand at pro basketball from 1987-91, including a stint in Australia.

Some students want to know that sociology majors can make a difference in the US government or in large organizations. This is a good example: Duncan built upon his degree and parlayed into a career in education.

The title of Duncan’s senior thesis at Harvard sounds like something that might come out of a William Julius Wilson text:

Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools[2] and later Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. His senior thesis, for which he took a year’s leave to do research in the Kenwood neighborhood, was entitled The values, aspirations and opportunities of the urban underclass.

It would be interesting to hear Duncan talk more specifically about how a sociology degree has helped him see the world differently and get involved in and move up within government organizations.

Can you imagine what might happen if Duncan, working out of personal experience as well as an administrator, led a charge to include sociology in curriculum?