Tag Archives: American culture

The recent fate of suburban “lifestyle centers”

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In sprawling suburbia, there can often be a lack of central spaces where people come together. One recent solution proposed by developers is to build “lifestyle centers,” basically walkable outdoor shopping areas where people can park and spend a day. Here is an update on how these facilities have fared in recent years:

All forms of real estate were punished by the financial crisis, but among the hardest hit was the category that includes the Arboretum. Known as lifestyle centers, they are upscale suburban and exurban developments fashioned as instant downtowns, replete with lush landscaping, communal gathering spaces and a faux Main Street vibe. Eschewing traditional anchors and recession-proof tenants such as grocery stores, the centers promote traffic-building events such as wine tasting, concerts and exhibitions.

Nationally, lifestyle vacancy rates grew faster than any other retail segment, and rents declined the most, an average of $7.38 per square foot, during the last three years, according to CoStar…

Across the Chicago market, shopping center vacancy rates have made slow progress, dropping to 8.6 percent in the first quarter from a high of 9 percent last year, according to the CoStar Retail Report. In 2007, prerecession vacancy rates were below 7 percent…

The lifestyle center blueprint is generally credited to Poag & McEwen, a Tennessee-based developer that pioneered the concept outside Memphis in 1987. The firm has since built more than a dozen centers nationwide, including the north suburban Deer Park Town Center, which opened in 2000 as the area’s first…

I’ve been to a few of these facilities in the Chicago area and the experience is fascinating . I haven’t seen any sociological research on these relatively new spaces but here are some interesting facets:

1. This article suggests these centers can be “instant downtowns.” It would be interesting to see whether these facilities are typically built in places that already have downtowns (so they are competition or supplementary if the community is quite large, like the center at the northwest corner of Route 59 and 95th Street in Naperville) versus being built in suburban communities that never had downtowns (so these facilities are more like replacements). I would also imagine that many suburbanites also have a different image of downtown, more similar to a “Main Street” commonly found in small towns (and enshrined at Disneyworld). But perhaps “a faux Main Street vibe” is good enough for suburbanites. What would it take for one of these facilities to really catch on in a suburban community and replicate some of the functions of a downtown?

2. Can these really be “public spaces”? Do people actually come here regularly to sit and interact with others or are they more like outdoor shopping malls? It seems like there needs to be a critical mass of people who would visit these facilities and would also commit to them before they would be more than shopping malls. These places are a long way from the neighborhood life suggested by people like Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. (I also wonder how much of these facilities are actually private property versus public property.)

3. How many of these facilities are accessible by anything other than cars? It is one thing to push New Urbanist concepts (walkability, denser spaces, more traditional architecture) but another to plop New Urbanist designs in the middle of typical auto-centric communities.

4. What sort of lifestyles are promoted by such centers? It is likely the typical American consumerism of middle and upper-class suburbia that one can find elsewhere with perhaps a few events or activities might to provide a touch of color and attract people (wine tastings, exhibitions, etc.).

5. Is an investment in a facility like this better than an investment in strip malls or more conventional shopping centers? I imagine communities might find them more visually attractive but do they generate more sales tax revenue?

Questions to ask about the wealth gap in the United States

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The income and wealth gap (also here for information about wealth) in America has grown in recent decades. But rather than simply decry this trend, a sociologist suggests that we should ask some questions:

When it comes to division of wealth, the topic is best tackled by asking questions rather than making statements, according to Mike Dalecki, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

“How big a gap should there be?” he said, of the wealth divide in the U.S.

“At what point does that gap become so great that we start to have serious societal problems?” Dalecki asked…

How much money do people need to make per year to be satisfied?

If the nation’s wealth divide continues to expand, is there a failure in the economy itself or the ways the rules are written?

Should the wealthiest people pay more taxes?

At what point will they be taxed so much they leave for a different state or country?

These are some good questions because they address larger issues: how do these figures relate to American values and policies? What is an appropriate gap in wealth and how far should we go through measures like taxes to try to limit this gap? These questions link the wealth gap to larger structural and cultural concerns that should interest many Americans. These are the kind of questions I like to ask my Introduction to Sociology courses because they then have to think about how this issue of inequality relates to their thoughts about a “good” or “just” society.

I also think the emphasis here on wealth, instead of just income, is helpful. Income gives you part of the picture but wealth is more accurate measure of the resources people accumulate over time and then can pass on to their descendents. This wealth gap is particularly stark between racial and ethnic groups.

Attempting to set up an American style home lending system in Russia

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Housing and mortgage industries can be quite different across countries. While many Americans might be quite used to our system (even though the system of 30 year mortgages we know now was a product of the mid-twentieth century), what happens when you try to apply the American system to another context? A sociologist looked at how this worked out in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union:

The new government tried to create a housing market by replicating the American housing system, essentially using the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, as a template to encourage Russians to take out mortgage loans.

“This was all designed by USAID, one of their biggest foreign aid programs ever,” Zavisca said. “It was an American model of what a housing market is: home ownership and securitized mortgages.”

Supposedly all of that privatized housing and wealth would spur the natural development of a housing market. Those who felt they had more housing than they needed would look to trade down and use the leftover money for other things. The private sector would emerge to produce housing for those who had been left out.

“That didn’t really happen,” Zavisca said.

Housing construction declined by 70 percent from 1992 to 2002, the first decade after the Soviet era. The construction industry in Russia has evolved to cater to wealthy and well-to-do middle class clients who could pay with cash, but there is a lack of trust by both contractors and consumers. No one wants to pay up front and wait, or deal with credit.

Unlike Americans who for decades have willingly taken on 30-year mortgages to buy housing, Russians have largely balked at the notion. Even when young families were offered a $10,000 credit, roughly a year’s wages and the equivalent of $60,000 in the U.S., toward the down payment for a house, Zavisca said there was little interest.

“Few Russians are willing to take out mortgages because the risk of foreclosure is unacceptable, and because they view interest payments – which they call overpayments – as unfair. As one Russian put it: ‘To enter into a mortgage is to become a slave for 30 years, with the bank as your master.'”

That hasn’t stopped Russians from going into debt, though. They may be averse to mortgages but they love credit cards, small consumer loans and point-of-purchase store credit.

“In my interviews, people there often compared credit card debt favorably to mortgages, the inverse of here in the U.S., where mortgages are viewed as virtuous and responsible.

“Russia is completely the opposite. It may be a legacy of Soviet entitlement to housing, where housing is viewed as a right to them. Even thought the Soviet government owned the housing, people thought of it as their own and had the right to pass it down to their children, or swap with someone who wanted to trade with you.

“It was a kind of quasi-marketplace. It just wasn’t financialized.”

She said Russians find it odd that Americans call themselves “homeowners” from the day they close on a mortgage loan. For Russians, ownership only begins after all debts are paid off.

This suggests that our system may be more cultural than anything else. It goes beyond just being used to a particular set of economic and financial tools regarding homeownership; these instruments are backed by a particular set of cultural values that sees mortgages, and working hard to reach the point where one can afford a mortgage, as acceptable. The Russians may have a point here: one doesn’t technically own a home until the mortgage is paid and with the high rates of American mobility (moving roughly every 5-6 years on average), many homes are never truly owned.

It would be interesting to hear how Americans, in USAID or elsewhere, explained why this didn’t work in Russia. Have we tried implementing similar policies elsewhere and if so, how did those situations work out?

A “children at play” sign as a symptom of a larger issue rather than the solution

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In Traffic, Tom Vanderbilt argues that Americans rely on a lot of road signs even though there is little to no evidence that having more signs increases the safety of drivers and pedestrians. As an example, Vanderbilt looks at the “children at play” signs:

Despite the continued preponderance of “Children at Play” on streets across the land, it is no secret in the world of traffic engineering that “Children at Play” signs—termed, with subtle condescension, “advisory signs”—have been proven neither to change driver behavior nor to do anything to improve the safety of children in a traffic setting. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program, in its “Synthesis of Highway Practice No. 139,” sternly advises that “non-uniform signs such as “CAUTION—CHILDREN AT PLAY,” “SLOW—CHILDREN,” or similar legends should not be permitted on any roadway at any time.” Moreover, it warns that “the removal of any nonstandard signs should carry a high priority.”…

If the sign is so disliked by the profession charged with maintaining order and safety on our streets, why do we seem to see so many of them? In a word: Parents. Talk to a town engineer, and you’ll often get the sense it’s easier to put up a sign than to explain to local residents why the sign shouldn’t be put up. (This official notes that “Children at Play” signs are the second-most-common question he’s asked about at town meetings.) Residents have also been known to put up their own signs, perhaps using the DIY instructions provided by eHow (which notes, in a baseless assertion typical of the whole discussion, that “Notifying these drivers there are children at play may reduce your child’s risk”). States and municipalities are also free to sanction their own signs (hence the rise of “autistic child” traffic signs)…

One of the things that is known, thanks to peer-reviewed science, is that increased traffic speeds (and volumes) increase the risk of children’s injuries. But “Children at Play” signs are a symptom, rather than a cure—a sign of something larger that is out of whack, whether the lack of a pervasive safety culture in driving, a system that puts vehicular mobility ahead of neighborhood livability, or non-contextual street design. After all, it’s roads, not signs, that tell people how to drive. People clamoring for “Children at Play” signs are often living on residential streets that are inordinately wide, lacking any kind of calming obstacles (from trees to “bulb-outs”), perhaps having unnecessary center-line markings—three factors that will boost vehicle speed more than any sign will lower them.

So the signs are more of a band-aid to a larger problem which Vanderbilt discusses more in his book: streets and roads are generally designed in America for cars to go fast rather than as structures that also accommodate pedestrians and other neighborhood activities. Signs can’t do a whole lot to reduce the effects of this structure even though citizens, local officials, and some traffic engineers continue to aid their proliferation. In a car-obsessed culture, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by all of this: people want to be able to move quickly from place to place.

This all reminds me of the efforts of groups like the New Urbanists who suggest the solution is to redesign the streetscape so that the automobile is given a less prominent place. By putting houses and sidewalks closer to the street, planting trees near the roadway, allowing parking on the sides of streets, and narrowing the width of streets can reduce the speed of drivers and reduce accidents. Of course, one could go even further and remove all traffic signs altogether (see here and text plus pictures and video here).

I wonder if we could use Vanderbilt’s examples as evidence of a larger public discussion about the role of science versus other kinds of evidence. There may be a lot of research that suggests signs don’t help much but how does that science reach the typical suburban resident who is concerned about their kids playing near the street? If confronted with the sort of evidence that Vanderbilt provides, how would the typical suburban resident or official respond?

A mostly middle-class world by 2022

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In recent decades, hundreds of millions of people in the developing world have moved from poverty to the middle class. These numbers are only expected to grow in the coming years:

The world will, for the first time in history, move from being mostly poor to mostly middle-class by 2022, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development projects. Asians, by some predictions, could constitute as much as two-thirds of the global middle class, shifting the balance of economic power from West to East. Already, some analyses of International Monetary Fund data suggest that the size of the Chinese economy could eclipse that of the United States in just five years…

But today’s middle-class boom is unlike the Industrial Revolution, in which rising prosperity became a catalyst for increased individual and political freedom. Those in the emerging global middle classes – from an Indian acquiring a flush toilet at home to a Brazilian who can now afford private school to a Chinese lawyer with a new car in the driveway – are likely to redefine their traditional roles, and in doing so, redefine the world itself.

“I would expect that as the global middle class gets transformed by the entrance of hundreds of millions of Indian, Brazilian, and Chinese families, the concept of what we see as the middle-class values may change,” says Sonalde Desai, a sociologist with the National Council of Applied Economic Research in Delhi (NCAER). “Historically, sociologists have defined ‘middle class’ as those with salaries…. I think ‘middle class’ is very much a state of mind.”

As the article suggests, it will be fascinating to see what this majority global middle class will act like: will they follow the individualistic and consumeristic American model or chart a new course? And might the American middle class also change in response to or in conjunction with these global changes?

It is interesting that this article contains very little discussion of why the global middle class is surging. Is it because of capitalism? Globalization? Specific policies from groups like the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund?

In an editorial on the same topic, the Christian Science Monitor argues there is a need to maintain social values and avoid a “moral vacuum”:

A moral vacuum can strike any rising middle class. Battles for status erupt in a competition for consumption. (In China, it’s Louis Vuitton that defines prestige.) Material goods are seen as a ladder to upward mobility.

A consumer culture can also leave young people with a lack of purpose, as China knows well. And youth often have bicultural identities: one in tradition and one in the global market of high-tech communications and Western media. They may feel no kinship to either and can easily become alienated.

So cheers for the newly well-off. But they need a spiritual foundation before they build those McMansions.

It is revealing that the McMansion is the exemplar here of a soulless middle class.

The Oprah Winfrey Show as “sociological patent office”

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With the wind down of The Oprah Winfrey Show, various commentators are trying to assess its impact on American culture. How about seeing the show as a “sociological patent office”?

Oprah’s show, meanwhile, became a kind of sociological patent office, the first stop for anyone with an idea or a product or apology to sell. With her rich alto and soulful eyes, her comfortable curves and pitch-perfect mix of hubris and self-deprecation, she was the mother/sister/wife/rabbi/friend we never had, the lap that would envelope us even as the hand slapped us to attention. When James Frey lied to Oprah, even Frank Rich, then New York Times grand poo-bah of punditry, came on the show to give him what for.

This paragraph seems to suggest that Oprah was a cultural gatekeeper: if people made it onto her show, they were able to make a (presumably successful) pitch to the larger American public. In a world awash in information and cultural products, people could turn to Oprah for her opinion and stamp of approval. She was a cultural critic without necessarily acting like the snobby/elitist critics one finds in newspapers, on news shows, or online. How exactly was Oprah able to become this gatekeeper – was it simply because of her growing audience (according to this critic, due to a message of self-empowerment) that was able to consume a lot of goods on their own (everything from O magazine to the OWN tv network) or was Oprah particularly astute at reading what the American public wanted or needed?

Since we are likely to see a lot about Oprah’s successes over the years, were there also plenty of times where Oprah’s “sociological patent office” was unsuccessful? James Frey was one notable example but Oprah then had a chance to reverse her course by publicly dealing with Frey on her show.

Men’s Health on the isolation of suburbia

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One can find commentary about suburbs almost anywhere, including at a Men’s Health blog. Here are their thoughts about the isolation of suburbia:

Researchers note that urbanites find liveliness, other people, and diversity more satisfying than those in the suburbs do. Suburbanites seem to find more satisfaction in economic status…

In the process, we replaced urban “stoop culture” with isolation. “Immigrants and other urbanites used to have casual interactions on a daily basis,” she says. “But once people started moving to the suburbs, they lost that sense of spontaneous social interaction.”

Sure, suburbanites technically could have walked the distance to their neighbor’s house. But the focus was more on individual households—partly due to the decline of the extended family. “Moving to the suburbs also meant moving away from your extended family into single family households,” Park explains.

This made our individual—fenced in—households the focus of our lives. Not just that—our new neighbors had different backgrounds and we had less in common with them, meaning forming new relationships took even more effort. (Fortunately, we finally had the TV to turn to instead!)…

The problem isn’t really suburbia itself; it’s isolation, which can affect anyone. (Fess up, city dwellers. Do you really even know who lives next door?)

On one hand, this post trades in some common images of suburbia: isolated homeowners who really live in “Disturbia, USA” (in the headline) and a thesis that asks “what’s wrong with the modern suburb?.” On the other hand, this issue of isolation is a commonly-cited problem in American life today. Interestingly, the last part of the post I cited above suggests the problem of isolation is found in both cities and suburbs. So is the problem really suburbia or is suburbia simply a symptom of larger issues of individualism and status-seeking within American culture?

Highlighting the isolation and independence of McMansions

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A feature of McMansions that sometimes draws criticism is the possible isolation they offer their inhabitants. Neighborhoods of these homes are sometimes envisioned as wastelands where neighbors don’t know each other and really don’t want to have any interaction. Here is an illustration of this idea within an article about the “peer-to-peer economy”:

The mentality peaked during the ’90s and first half of the last decade. Heaven was a safe job, a McMansion, a Target (TGT) in your city, a Starbucks (SBUX) down the road, a credit card with no limit, and a seven-figure bank account. No need to ever interact with strangers! The perfect bliss of isolation, err, “financial independence.”

The general idea here is that the goal of life during this time period was to have so much money that people don’t have to interact with others that they don’t want to interact with. While this may be in the name of being “financially independent,” it is really about becoming self-sufficient and not having to depend on anybody.

Several thoughts about this:

1. Even with this so-called “financial independence,” it is hard to escape the need for other people. I’m reminded of Durkheim’s idea of organic solidarity where people are more interdependent on others than ever due to the division of labor but also feel more independent. This seems related to American cultural ideas of individualism: the goal is to become a self-made man/woman who can do it all on their own. Can we then interpret advice from people like Dave Ramsey as promulgating American individualism more than fighting debt?

1a. This fear of strangers is an interesting idea. It is often invoked when talking about the formation of American suburbs (white flight out of cities) or gated communities (trying to keep certain people out). I wonder if there is survey data that would suggests Americans are more afraid of strangers than citizens of other countries.

2. Is a single-family house more of a place to avoid people or to build up the individual and the family unit?

3. I understand the idea of a McMansion and a large bank account fitting the theme of isolation but what do a safe job, Target, and Starbucks have to do with it? In all three of these settings, people interact with others, particularly on the job. With money, one can purchase a customizable experience at Target and Starbucks but this would be true in a lot of commercial settings.

First Dairy Queen to be celebrated in Joliet

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Americans are well-known for their fast-food culture that has since spread around the world. Joliet, now the fourth largest city in Illinois, will honor the nation’s first Dairy Queen:

Joliet will celebrate its heritage as the home of the first Dairy Queen as  part of the Route 66 Red Carpet Corridor Festival on Saturday,

The Joliet Area Historic Museum will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and feature displays of Dairy Queen memorabilia, photos and original product sample packages. Visitors will get a Dairy Queen Dilly Bar.

The first Dairy Queen opened June 22, 1940 at 501 N. Chicago St., now the site of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Sheb Noble opened the store and sold soft-serve ice cream cones for 5 cents.

The Dairy Queen closed in the early 1950s, and over the years the building has housed a lawn-mower repair business, furniture store, motorcycle shop and plumbers.

I wish this article had more information about the growth of Dairy Queen: how did it go from this one location to “more than 5,700 locations operating throughout the United States, Canada and 22 other countries“? According to Dairy Queen’s website, the growth happened quickly:

Back then, food franchising was all but unheard of, but the new product’s potential made it a natural for such a system. When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, there were less than 10 Dairy Queen stores. However shortly after the war, the system took off at a pace virtually unrivaled before or since. With only 100 stores in 1947, it grew to 1,446 in 1950 and then to 2,600 in 1955.

It sounds like they found a particular market niche, soft-serve ice cream,  and really capitalized even before other iconic fast-food restaurants, like McDonald’s (whose first franchised restaurant, the ninth overall, opened in Des Plaines, IL in 1955), really took off.

I’m not sure there is any other fast-food place that can compete with the Blizzard (sorry McFlurrys). And I’ve had my fair share.

Proposal for government to study driving tax by mile

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I’ve occasionally written about the gas tax (see here and here for recent examples) as well alternative forms of deriving tax revenue from driving (see here). There is a report that the Obama administration has proposed a new federal study that would look at taxing drivers per mile driven:

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive…

Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.

The CBO report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), who has proposed taxing cars by the mile as a way to increase federal highway revenues…

The administration seems to be aware of the need to prepare the public for what would likely be a controversial change to the way highway funds are collected. For example, the office is called on to serve a public relations function, as the draft says it should “increase public awareness regarding the need for an alternative funding source for surface transportation programs and provide information on possible approaches.”

I have several quick thoughts about this:

1. Doesn’t the government have to go to some method like this in the future with the advent of electric cars? If people are buying less gasoline (which is generally thought of as a good thing), then gas tax revenue will decrease.

2. If a tax like this were implemented, does this deincentivize purchasing electric cars or more fuel-efficient vehicles? Although you might pay less at the pump for gas, you would then pay more for driving longer distances.

3. How much of this is going to turn into a public relations battle? It is interesting that the proposed study would look into this. I’m sure a few things would worry some people:

a. How is the government going to use this tracking information since they will already be tracking the miles driven? Of course, this is potentially already an issue in states with toll transponders like Illinois and the IPass system

b. Is this a tax on mobility or on the American way of life (i.e. sprawl)? It would be interesting to see how this new tax might compare to existing costs for driving. Overall, this article reminds me that driving is not cheap – it may feel like freedom but it is expensive freedom.

4. Is a tax for miles-driven too broad? Different vehicle sizes put different stress on road surfaces. Should a tax also take this into account? Or is the difference between a Honda Insight and a Honda Pilot not significant?

5. There could be some interesting consequences of this. Would there be fewer road trips and driving vacations? Would the airline industry (and the rail/high speed rail industry) benefit? Would putting the costs into miles driven rather than tacked onto a gallon of gasoline make people think twice about purchasing a home further from their work?