It’s strange to imagine now, but prior to the 1920s, city streets looked dramatically different than they do today. They were considered to be a public space: a place for pedestrians, pushcart vendors, horse-drawn vehicles, streetcars, and children at play.
“Pedestrians were walking in the streets anywhere they wanted, whenever they wanted, usually without looking,” Norton says. During the 1910s there were few crosswalks painted on the street, and they were generally ignored by pedestrians.
As cars began to spread widely during the 1920s, the consequence of this was predictable: death. Over the first few decades of the century, the number of people killed by cars skyrocketed…
The turning point came in 1923, says Norton, when 42,000 Cincinnati residents signed a petition for a ballot initiative that would require all cars to have a governor limiting them to 25 miles per hour. Local auto dealers were terrified, and sprang into action, sending letters to every car owner in the city and taking out advertisements against the measure…
In response, automakers, dealers, and enthusiast groups worked to legally redefine the street — so that pedestrians, rather than cars, would be restricted.
This reminds me of Jane Jacobs’ description of the busy streetscape in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. She wrote of a street with plenty of pedestrians, lots of activity on the sidewalks, and numerous uses for nearby buildings. It is the kind of lively place that is relatively rare in American cities. As Jacobs notes, this is due, at least in part, due to the prominence given to vehicles. If the emphasis is on moving as many vehicles as quickly as possible through places, this lively streetscape will not happen.
The answer here it probably not to eliminate jaywalking as pedestrians would have a difficult time crossing wherever they want. Instead, addressing jaywalking would require rethinking streets all together. What is the role of pedestrians? What is the role of vehicles? What do we want for our streets?
According to this map, most stadiums are pretty close to downtown. Some are further away – Texas, Kansas City – while others are close to ten miles away but still in the city (both New York teams).
My suspicion – without looking hard at the data – it that this may not be true of all of the major sports leagues in the United States. Baseball stadiums are often close to downtown but this may not hold across other sports. At least a few NFL stadiums are in the suburbs.
Do cities believe baseball stadiums are economic engines? Do teams closer to downtowns draw more fans? Do team owners see locations closer to downtown as more desirable, particularly with the trend to make money on developing land around the stadium?
Herold opens his book by visiting his hometown, a Pittsburgh suburb called Penn Hills. In many ways, the story of this particular suburb captures it all. When Herold’s family moved here in 1976, the average home price in 2020 dollars was $148,000. Now it’s $95,000. Herold knocks on a door just down the street from where he grew up, and there meets Bethany Smith, who has recently purchased the house with her mom. She’s single and Black and undaunted, raising a son, Jackson, for whom she wants the absolute best, which means finding a well-resourced, nurturing school and buying a home, an investment that will serve as a foundation to building wealth. (She’s also gotten priced out of her gentrifying neighborhood in Pittsburgh.)
But Bethany has walked into a mess of a town. Signs of wear and tear are everywhere: most notably, a collapsing sewer system and a school district that is $9 million in debt. According to Herold, the town didn’t invest in infrastructure improvements, kicking any needed repairs down the road. Financial mismanagement is everywhere. Enrollment in the schools has steeply declined. White families like Herold’s have moved out; Black families have moved in. It’s a pattern, Herold writes, repeated in suburb after suburb. It’s what I witnessed in Cicero with Latino families. Herold poses the question that drives his reporting: “How are the abundant opportunities my family extracted from Penn Hills a generation earlier linked to the cratering fortunes of the families who live there now?”
We have, Herold suggests, been looking directly at this problem—and either haven’t acknowledged what’s occurring or, worse yet, don’t care. He points to Ferguson, Missouri, an inner-ring suburb just outside St. Louis, where in the summer of 2014 a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, a Black teen. In the news coverage that followed, people were shocked to learn that more than 20 percent of the town’s operating revenue came from fees, fines, and court summons collected from the town’s mostly Black residents, a result of aggressive policing. This was because Ferguson had gone the way of so many inner-ring suburbs…
Charles Marohn, whom Herold describes as “a moderate white conservative from Minnesota,” is the one to lay out Ferguson’s decline to him. According to Herold, Marohn had a hand in building suburbs, but he has since had an awakening. Marohn suggests that what’s happened in places such as Ferguson and Penn Hills is the equivalent of a Ponzi scheme. It’s “the development version of slash-and-burn agriculture,” he tells the author. “We build a place, we use up the resources, and when the returns start diminishing, we move on, leaving a geographic time bomb in our wake!”
I have not read the book. As someone who studies suburbs, here are the first four thoughts that come to mind:
Inner-ring suburbs are a unique type of suburb. Right next to a big city, they often look similar to urban neighborhoods (denser buildings), have similar demographics to cities (more residents of color), and can face similar issues as cities. They are suburban but day to day life may not look like that of sprawling subdivisions of recently-constructed single-family homes. That white residents have left these suburbs and these communities may struggle for resources is true. I recommend Bernadette Hanlon’s book Once the American Dream: Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States.
Suburbs as a whole and as individual communities experience different waves of development. Inner-ring suburbs were some of the first suburbs in the United States (and some were annexed into the big city). The issues described in this review also face other suburbs who may have had a particular character for decades. Communities change as both external forces and internal forces are applied to the suburb.
That’s why, for the past two weeks, a huge chunk of the internet’s attention has been focused on one baffling phenomenon in particular: What, exactly, is a Stanley cup, and why are suburbanites willing to scuffle over it in their most sacred space (their local Target)?
Let’s recap. As the new year began, Stanley, a century-old company that for much of its history made reinforced lunch boxes and drinking vessels for outdoorsmen and blue-collar workers, launched three pink, limited-edition Valentine’s Day versions of its jumbo-size Quencher cups, all in different shades of pink and only available at Target. The third of these cups, which came out a few days after the first two, was the grandaddy of them all—a new addition to the brand’s ongoing partnership with Starbucks, glazed in a shimmer finish instead of Stanley’s standard matte. All three flew off the shelves. Fans lined up in parking lots in the predawn hours to increase their chances of snagging one. In at least one instance captured in a now-viral video, an argument erupted over who was cutting whom in line, fingers were pointed, and a store manager was summoned to referee. A few videos of rushing shoppers and tepid interpersonal conflicts, plus one that appears to show store patrons trying to tackle a man who had grabbed a box full of tumblers and made a run for it, did the rounds on TikTok before jumping to local news broadcasts and the generalized zeitgeist.
As the internet watched this extraordinarily mild suburban chaos unfold, people understandably had some questions.
In a consumer-driven economy, trends come and go. What is more interesting to me here are the descriptions of how this fits with and/or upsets suburban life. The implication is that suburbanites at Target do not typically act this way. One study suggested suburbanites tend to avoid open conflict. Additionally, Target might be sacred space where a customer can savor the shopping experience. This kind of behavior does not fit within a calm setting. The suburbs are not typically about chaos; residents want to achieve the American Dream and have stability and predictability.
So far, I have not heard of anything involving Stanley that has seriously affected the suburban lifestyle. These are momentary interruptions to everyday life. Of course, they will likely be repeated for another desired item at some point.
Central to the pitch of the American Dream is a house. Homeownership, the traditional thinking goes, is the surest way to build wealth. Save up for a down payment, buy a starter home, and definitely don’t spend too long throwing money away on rent.
That dream has become more fantasy in the Covid-era economy.
The second sentence goes a different direction. Buying a house is about making money. This might be in addition to other reasons for buying a home including: the status of owning a home; enjoying the home; maintaining and improving a piece of private property; and being a part of the community.
I often typed “hipster coffee shop” into the search bar as a shorthand because Yelp’s search algorithm always knew exactly what I meant by the phrase. It was the kind of cafe that someone like me – a western, twentysomething (at the time), internet-brained millennial acutely conscious of their own taste – would want to go to. Inevitably, I could quickly identify a cafe among the search results that had the requisite qualities: plentiful daylight through large storefront windows; industrial-size wood tables for accessible seating; a bright interior with walls painted white or covered in subway tiles; and wifi available for writing or procrastinating. Of course, the actual coffee mattered, too, and at these cafes you could be assured of getting a cappuccino made from fashionably light-roast espresso, your choice of milk variety and elaborate latte art. The most committed among the cafes would offer a flat white (a cappuccino variant that originated in Australia and New Zealand) and avocado toast, a simple dish, also with Australian origins, that over the 2010s became synonymous with millennial consumer preferences. (Infamous headlines blamed millennials’ predilection for expensive avocado toast for their inability to buy real estate in gentrifying cities.)
These cafes had all adopted similar aesthetics and offered similar menus, but they hadn’t been forced to do so by a corporate parent, the way a chain like Starbucks replicated itself. Instead, despite their vast geographical separation and total independence from each other, the cafes had all drifted toward the same end point. The sheer expanse of sameness was too shocking and new to be boring…
My theory was that all the physical places interconnected by apps had a way of resembling one another. In the case of the cafes, the growth of Instagram gave international cafe owners and baristas a way to follow one another in real time and gradually, via algorithmic recommendations, begin consuming the same kinds of content. One cafe owner’s personal taste would drift toward what the rest of them liked, too, eventually coalescing. On the customer side, Yelp, Foursquare and Google Maps drove people like me – who could also follow the popular coffee aesthetics on Instagram – toward cafes that conformed with what they wanted to see by putting them at the top of searches or highlighting them on a map…
Simply existing as a coffee shop isn’t enough; the business has to cultivate a parallel existence on the internet, which is a separate skill set entirely. “It almost feels like, you must have a social media acumen, you must be savvy in this area that is adjacent to your business, but not directly embedded in your business, in order to be successful and visible,” Walsh continued. That means plenty of tagged photos on Instagram and positive user reviews on the business’s listing on Yelp or Google Maps…
The other strategy is to remain consistent, not worrying about trends or engagement and simply sticking to what you know best – staying authentic to a personal ethos or brand identity in the deepest sense. In a way, coffee shops are physical filtering algorithms, too: they sort people based on their preferences, quietly attracting a particular crowd and repelling others by their design and menu choices. That kind of community formation might be more important in the long run than attaining perfect latte art and collecting Instagram followers. That is ultimately what Anca Ungureanu was trying to do in Bucharest. “We are a coffee shop where you can meet people like you, people that have interests like you,” she said. Her comment made me think that a certain amount of homogeneity might be an unavoidable consequence of algorithmic globalisation, simply because so many like-minded people are now moving through the same physical spaces, influenced by the same digital platforms. The sameness has a way of compounding.
As a different kind of place, fast food restaurants are often criticized for their sameness. As part of a larger brand, individual locations feature similar food, aesthetics, and signs that provide familiarity for patrons.
Coffee shops are supposed to be the antithesis. They are cool while fast food is formulaic and bad for you. They offer sophistication rather than mass production. They allow space for quietly working or interacting with friends while fast food places are about efficiency and moving people in and out.
But, this piece suggests the Internet and a particular class of people have helped contribute to sameness across continents. These may be independent coffee shops but they are trying to respond to global patterns. Do customers really want a unique place or do they want some predictability? The McDonaldization (from sociologist George Ritzer) of space is worth considering more as physical spaces are shaped by Internet realities. People operate and interact in both realms. The suggestion here is that the Internet is driving the shaping of physical spaces and the reverse could happen as well.
Some of these comments excessively attributed a positive outcome to personal influence and merit. Others obscured good fortune while elevating narratives of bold triumph over one’s circumstances (even though the former was a prerequisite for the latter). What they shared, though, was a focus on individual agency and control that seemed rather incongruous with the reality of becoming a parent.
For most people, becoming a parent (or merely trying to become one) represents a headlong leap into an existence of radically diminished control over high-stakes outcomes. To successfully welcome a child into a family, whether by adoption, surrogacy, IVF, or paleo-style conception, relies on the cooperation of many factors that lie beyond our control. Getting pregnant is not as easy as pulling an all-nighter to finish a presentation, carrying a healthy pregnancy to term is not like training for a half-marathon, and having a healthy newborn is not like acing an exam, although our expectations of agency may be anchored to such prior experiences with goal achievement.
What accounts, then, for these tendencies to assume personal agency and overlook external factors, especially in life chapters when so much is out of our hands? I nominate Western individualism, the myth of the American dream, the platitudes of self-help and positive thinking, and the justifications of meritocracy…
One of the great puzzles of parenthood, and life in general, is learning to accurately draw the boundaries of our control and act accordingly. Within those boundaries, plenty of opportunity remains to exercise judicious self-efficacy and responsibility for our actions. But so many crucial outcomes rest at least partially on factors beyond our bubble of agency. And when their influence is in our favor, the soundest response is not meritorious pride but humble gratitude.
Sociologists describe the two sides described above as agency and structure. Individuals have choices they can and do make. Structures – institutions, systems, groups and networks, etc. – organize the world and constrain or empower actors. Compared to the American perspective described above that tends to emphasize individualism and outcomes based on one’s own efforts, sociologists tend to emphasize structures and the ways individuals and actors are situated within them.
Parenting provides an interesting context in which to consider this: babies are dependent on adults, but how much influence do parents have in the long run? Some but not total. And parents are influenced by particular contexts and their own settings. Yet, it would likely take a long time for American parents to move to a perspective emphasizing structures in raising kids.
But the legal avenue available to opponents was through environmental law because, across this country, if you want to stop the government from doing something—such as building a border wall or just allowing new housing—an environmental lawsuit is the clearest way to challenge it.
The lawsuits may not win but they serve their purpose by providing significant delays. The lawsuits also require resources and provide time for the public to think further about the sides. Delays can drive up costs and plans for communities and developers can change in the mean time.
The basis of the article about Minneapolis is the premise that the city and region need more housing, particularly with growing populations. But, building housing and changing regulations about housing is contentious and time-consuming. People disagree, even among those who might appear to be on the same side (environmentalists, pro-housing, etc.). Are lawsuits the way decisions about development and the environment should be made? Environmental lawsuits can help check problematic plans but they can also be less helpful. Are there better systems for working out differences of opinions about development?
McBroom said Naperville has provided migrants safe passage to Chicago without spending taxpayer dollars to house or aid them.
But with more migrants arriving in the area, McBroom says the city should look into whether any residents or organizations are willing to help.
“My idea would be let’s find out … let’s find out who’s willing to help,” he said, adding that Naperville is an affluent community with many large homes. “If there are people who would do that, God bless them.”
There are no known organized efforts in the suburbs for residents to take in asylum-seekers…
Meanwhile, McBroom acknowledges there are many unanswered questions about his idea to have Naperville residents voluntarily house migrants. Some of those include the impact the proposal may have on local schools and what role the city would play in managing a list of volunteer hosts.
This idea has the potential to bypass community-level initiatives and instead coordinate efforts of residents and property owners. How much space might be available in homes and buildings in a suburb with nearly 150,000 residents? How many people would volunteer?
I could only imagine what might happen among (1) neighbors of people who are willing to house migrants and (2) if names and addresses of individual hosts became known to the public.
We will see where this goes, but I imagine it would not go too far if there is the possibility of state money available to communities in the near future.
As a result, empty-nest Baby Boomers own 28% of large homes — and Milliennials with kids own just 14%, according to a Redfin analysis released Tuesday. Gen Z families own just 0.3% of homes with three bedrooms or more…
This is a change from the historical norm, according to the research. Ten years ago young families were just as likely as empty nesters to own large homes…
For those who own their home outright, the median monthly cost of owning a home, which includes insurance and property taxes, among other costs, is just $612, according to the report.
“Logically, empty nesters are the most likely group to sell big homes and downsize,” said Bokhari. “They no longer have children living at home and don’t need as much space. The problem for younger families who wish their parents’ generation would list their big homes: Boomers don’t have much motivation to sell, financially or otherwise.”…
This speaks to one of the assumptions of American housing: older adults are expected to move out of larger homes and move to smaller homes or ones that better suit their needs later in life. This frees up their homes for the next generation to move into.
Is this the way it has always worked? Might patterns change heading into the future?
Several thoughts on these trends:
Americans like bigger homes. As the size of American homes has increased, might Americans want to keep these larger homes as long as possible?
Houses are places to live and strategic investments. Older residents may not need all that space but wouldn’t they want to cash out as late as possible on this large asset?
An emphasis on living independently and youthfully may mean that staying in a house is a sign of vitality (while moving would be a sign of weakness). Why sell if you can still live in a big house?
This could be the product of a unique confluence of factors in recent decades: a sizable birth cohort, a change in what housing is and what housing is available, and an unprecedented growth in housing values.
Legally Sociable 