Tag Archives: cities

Call for more comparative study of poor urban neighborhoods using new techniques

Posted on by

Urban sociologist Mario Small recently argued sociologists and others need to adopt some new approaches to studying poor urban neighborhoods:

Small, who is also dean of UChicago’s Division of the Social Sciences, studies urban neighborhoods and has studied the diversity of experiences for people living in poor neighborhoods in cities across the country.

Studying only a few neighborhoods extensively fails to capture important differences, he said in a talk, “Poverty and Organizational Density,” at a session Feb. 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago…

“The experience of poverty varies from city to city, influenced by neighborhood factors such as commercial activity, access to transportation and social services, and other facets of organizational density,” Small said.

He explained that new sources of information, ranging from open city data to detailed, high-resolution imagery from commercial mapping services, provide new opportunities to compare the experience of the poor among multiple cities, in turn pointing cities and service providers toward optimal decision-making about policies, investment, or other interventions.

One of these changes is driven by changes in technology, the ability to collect big data. This can help sociologists and others go beyond surveys and neighborhood observations. Robert Sampson does some of this in Great American City with the ability to map the social networks and neighborhood moves of residents from poorer neighborhoods. Big data will be enable us to go even further.

The second suggestion, however, is something that sociologists could have been doing for decades. Poor neighborhoods in certain cities tend to get the lion’s share of attention, places like Chicago, New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. In contrast, poor neighborhoods in places like Dallas, Miami, Seattle, Denver, and Las Vegas get a lot less attention. Perhaps I should return to a presentation I made years ago at the Society for the Study of Social Problems about this very topic where I suggested some key factors that led to this lack of comparative study…

What does a US Army version of a US city look like?

Posted on by

The Telegraph looks at a new city created by the US Army in Virgina to be used for training purposes:

The 300 acre ‘town’ includes a five story embassy, a bank, a school, an underground subway and train station, a mosque, a football stadium, and a helicopter landing zone.

Located in Virginia, the realistic subway station comes complete with subway carriages and the train station has real train carriages…

There are also bridges and several other structures which can be transformed into different scenarios.

The $96 million is designed to meticulously “replicate complex operational environments and develop solutions”.

Lots of movies portrays scenes of fighting in American streets, often facing aliens, but I assume the military has some strong ideas about what works and doesn’t work military in the average American big city. How do US cities fare in battle situations? In other words, I assume most American urban planning doesn’t think much about creating defensible positions or providing ways to best move troops and supplies. Instead, it was guided by ideas of how to create certain kinds of streetscapes, how to efficiently move cars through cities, and leaving spaces for both private and public settings.

I wonder if the Army has some advice about how better to plan cities once they start going through exercises.

Beijing air pollution said to be “barely suitable for life”

Posted on by

Bad pollution in Beijing is nothing new but a new report sounds a dire note:

Severe pollution in Beijing has made the Chinese capital “barely suitable” for living, according to an official Chinese report, as the world’s second-largest economy tries to reduce often hazardous levels of smog caused by decades of rapid growth…

The report, by the Beijing-based Social Science Academic Press and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, ranked the Chinese capital second worst out of 40 global cities for its environmental conditions, official media reported on Thursday.

China’s smog has brought some Chinese cities to a near standstill, caused flight delays and forced schools to shut.

Beijing was hit by severe levels of pollution at least once every week, according to the 2012 Blue Paper for World Cities report. That was on top of a significant level of air pollution covering the capital for 189 days in 2013, according to city’s Environmental Protection Bureau.

While U.S. readers might marvel at this, it wasn’t too long ago that some American cities had a similar problem. Check out some of the pictures of 1940s Pittsburgh or read about the Donora Smog incident near Pittsburgh that killed 22 in 1948. Some of these issues persist today: Los Angeles, and other cities in California, still have persistent smog and particulate issues.

Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, again topped the charts for ozone pollution, and finished fourth for particulate pollution such as dust and soot, in the American Lung Association’s annual national air quality report card, released on Wednesday…

In terms of air quality, California as a whole dominated the list of the most polluted U.S. cities, accounting for seven of the top 10 for ozone and eight of the top 10 for annual levels of particulate pollution, the American Lung Association said.

Nearly 90 percent of Californians, or 33.5 million people, live in areas plagued by unhealthy air, especially in Los Angeles, the so-called Inland Empire region east of the city, the state capital of Sacramento, and the agricultural heartland of the San Joaquin Valley, the group’s study found…

However, many California cities have shown steady progress on improving air quality, particularly the Los Angeles region, whose ozone levels have fallen by 36 percent since the organization’s first State of the Air report card in 2000.

See some pictures of smog in Los Angeles over the years here.

Computer models of the effects of gerrymandering on urban and rural voters

Posted on by

A new computer simulation of voting patterns by geography in the United States suggests gerrymandering may not be the cause of Republican majorities in the House:

To examine this hypothesis, we adapted a computer algorithm that we recently introduced in the Quarterly Journal of Political Science. It allows us to draw thousands of alternative, nonpartisan redistricting plans and assess the partisan advantage built into each plan. First we created a large number of districting plans (as many as 1,000) for each of 49 states. Then we predicted the probability that a Democrat or Republican would win each simulated district based on the results of the 2008 presidential election and tallied the expected Republican seats associated with each simulated plan.

The results were not encouraging for reform advocates. In the vast majority of states, our nonpartisan simulations produced Republican seat shares that were not much different from the actual numbers in the last election. This was true even in some states, like Indiana and Missouri, with heavy Republican influence over redistricting. Both of these states were hotly contested and leaned only slightly Republican over all, but of the 17 seats between them, only four were won by Democrats (in St. Louis, Kansas City, Gary and Indianapolis). While some of our simulations generated an additional Democratic seat around St. Louis or Indianapolis, most of them did not, and in any case, a vanishingly small number of simulations gave Democrats a congressional seat share commensurate with their overall support in these states.

The problem for Democrats is that they have overwhelming majorities not only in the dense, poor urban centers, but also in isolated, far-flung college towns, historical mining areas and 19th-century manufacturing towns that are surrounded by and ultimately overwhelmed by rural Republicans.

A motivated Democratic cartographer could produce districts that accurately reflected overall partisanship in states like these by carefully crafting the metropolitan districts and snaking districts along the historical canals and rail lines that once connected the nonmetropolitan Democratic enclaves. But such districts are unlikely to emerge by chance from a nonpartisan process. On the other hand, a Republican cartographer in these and other Midwestern states, along with some Southern states like Georgia and Tennessee, could do little to improve on the advantage bestowed by the existing human geography.

Perhaps this introduces a new strategy for political parties: the need to have more evenly distributed support rather than large clusters of support. But, as the bottom of the article notes, certain redistricting strategies like in Illinois or Maryland can provide Democrats some help in spreading out the effects of their urban voters.

The American cities with the highest percentage of households without a car

Posted on by

As part of a look at the connection between education levels and car ownership, Derek Thompson includes this information about which American cities have lower rates of car ownership:

Here are the non-car household rates in 30 large U.S. cities (the national average is in RED):

Source: Michael Sivak, University of Michigan

What do NYC, DC, Boston, and Philadelphia have in common? For one, they’re old, crowded cities with good (okay, decent) public transit. “The five cities with the highest proportions of households without a vehicle were all among the top five cities in a recent ranking of the quality of public transportation,” Michael Sivak, director of Sustainable Worldwide Transportation at Michigan, told WSJ.

That might be the most important, variable, but it wasn’t the first thing this graph reminds me of. When I see New York, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, the first thing I think is: These are all the classic, even cliche, magnets for elite college graduates. 

So I compared the cities’ non-car ownership rates to their share of bachelor’s-degree holders. And it turns out there is a statistically significant relationship between being college-dense and car-light.

Then follows a correlation chart – but no number or measure of the significance of the relationship! If one is going to claim a statistically significant relationship, more information needs to be provided like the correlation coefficient and the significance level.

That said, larger Sunbelt cities don’t come out well, nor do smaller Northern or Midwestern cities. All together, these cities are more likely to have sprawl and not have the kind of dense downtowns like Manhattan or the Loop that supports a lot of workers traveling to a single area each day. There was less historical incentive in these communities to build mass transit (outside of commuter rail) and such services, particularly subways or light rail, are quite expensive to build today in more sprawling conditions.

Planning for the first “truly urban” presidential library

Posted on by

Plans for the Obama Presidential Library to be located in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago note that such a location would be the first urban presidential library:

A helpful tipster has provided Curbed Chicago with a 32-page PDF full of renderings for a future Obama Presidential Library from the office of architectural critic/design studio leader Michael Sorkin. Who paid for said thing to be designed? We cannot say. What we do know is that the document makes the case for ” the first Presidential Center to be truly urban,” and located in Chicago, in the Woodlawn neighborhood. The document argues that Chicago, not Honolulu, is the better city to host, because,

“it is the city where the Obamas will presumably live post-presidency” and it is “where Obama made his first deep contributions in public service and the place to which he returned to begin and advance his political mission.”When it comes to a neighborhood, Sorkin argues that

“my own sense is that – far and away – the best choice would be Woodlawn, on the city’s South Side, and that several large vacant sites on 63rd Street most perfectly fit the bill.”

There are 13 presidential libraries so far, dating back to Herbert Hoover. Several are located in big cities: Dallas (Bush II), Austin (Johnson), Atlanta (Carter), and Little Rock (Clinton). But, these are Sunbelt cities which have more square mileage and are more sprawling (due to an ability to annex more land compared to Northeast and Midwest cities where annexations stopped around 1900). So, I presume the argument here is that the Obama library in Woodlawn would be in a true urban neighborhood, in Chicago, the “city of neighborhoods,” rather than a gleaming suburban-like setting.

Would Sorkin consider the former Michael Reese site, another possible option in Chicago, similarly “truly urban”?

New study: “The Urbanization of the Eastern Gray Squirrel in the United States”

Posted on by

Continuing the discussion of nature and urban areas, read about a new study of the urban patterns of the Eastern Gray Squirrel:

Benson explains that though many people may think that squirrels have simply persisted in urban landscapes since Europeans arrived in the U.S., their presence is actually the result of intentional introductions.

“By the mid-19th century, squirrels had been eradicated from cities,” he said. “In order to end up with squirrels in the middle of cities, you had to transform the urban landscape by planting trees and building parks and changing the way that people behave. People had to stop shooting squirrels and start feeding them.”

In researching the history of squirrels in American cities, Benson found the first documented introduction occurred in Philadelphia’s Franklin Square in 1847. Other introductions followed in Boston and New Haven in the 1850s. These early releases were small in scale, and intended to “beautify and add interest to the parks,” Benson says…

Benson also found signs in his research that squirrels played another important role for city residents, particularly children: as moral educators.

“Feeding squirrels becomes adopted as a way of encouraging humane behavior,” Benson said…

By the time the environmental movement took hold in the 1960s and 1970s, Benson argued, squirrels in the urban environment were no longer widely seen as morally significant members of the community and instead began to be viewed with a more ecological mindset. Ideas of letting them live out life “as nature intended” took a stronger hold.

In other words, Americans have been influencing the habitats and behaviors of squirrels for over a century and a half. It is interesting to see the progression from wanting to have more squirrels and nature (within a particular urban vision of parks), to feeding squirrels, to taking a more hands-off approach. What how will humans interact with squirrels in a few decades?

One of the stranger places for human-squirrel interactions is the campus of the University of Notre Dame. Squirrels are regularly seen outside the dining halls with large pieces of food, like muffins or cookies. Some of these squirrels were also quite large which appeared to hamper their running abilities. I have no doubt that students or visitors occasionally fed the squirrels. See some examples at the Squirrels of Notre Dame Facebook page or this 2011 column from the student newspaper on how the squirrels are viewed (hint: the title is “Reasons we love squirrels”).

Older workers left behind when companies move back to the city?

Posted on by

As some companies choose to return to the big city, are older workers left behind?

After decades of big businesses leaving the city for the suburbs, U.S. firms have begun a new era of corporate urbanism. Nearly 200 Fortune 500 companies are currently headquartered in the top 50 cities. Many others are staying put in the suburbs but opening high-profile satellite offices in nearby cities, sometimes aided by tax breaks and a recession that tempered downtown rents. And upstart companies are following suit, according to urban planners. The bottom line: companies are under pressure to establish an urban presence that projects an image of dynamism and innovation…

For longtime employees, however, corporate moves to the city mean longer commutes and disrupted schedules and family life. And the corporate quest for youth and innovation can leave some workers feeling slightly unwelcome.

“We joked about the older suburbanites being excluded from the new [business] model,” said Jon Scherf, age 42, a marketing professional who left Hillshire shortly before its December 2012 move to downtown Chicago. “They would’ve been happy to have me but they’re also happy to bring in new blood.”…

For longtime employees, it has been a more complicated switch. Melissa Napier, treasurer and senior VP of investor relations at Hillshire, bought a house in Downers Grove in 2007 and lives there with her husband and two sons. While she now attends more social and networking events downtown, her commute, once a 10-minute drive, now gets her home at 7:30, an hour later than before…

But the employers that sought them out in the city are unlikely to follow them back to the suburbs, said Mr. Phillips of the Urban Land Institute.

Now that I think about it, I don’t remember Richard Florida, known for analyzing the young creative class that wants urban amenities, discussing the possible impact on older workers. I suppose the argument could be made that attracting young workers, wherever they might work, would help raise all boats. But, as long as the perception continues that suburbs are better places for raising families due to their schools and safer spaces, this divide between younger/urban workers and older/suburban workers may continue.

Big city mayors discuss why no sitting mayor has ever been elected President

Posted on by

Watch this video of current big city mayors talking about why no one has ever moved from sitting mayor to American President. The most common reason given: mayors have to make decisions, big and small and often pragmatic, all the time and this doesn’t line up with the gotcha politics of today and keeping all the constituents happy. It may be just me reading into the video but it seems like these mayors give this reason with both a sense of pride and regret: “Hey, we make tough decisions all the time and this can make people mad. Unfortunately, we don’t get rewarded at the highest level for such choices.”

I suspect there is more to this story, particularly if we asked the mayors of the biggest cities, and it would be worth hearing more.

More than hunting needed in considering having too much nature in the suburbs, city

Posted on by

A recent Time cover story called for hunting to thin out the wildlife that is now flourishing in many American suburbs and cities. While the story focuses more on the resurgent populations of deer, Canadian geese, and other animals that have thrived because humans have changed the setting (often removing the predators, providing easy food sources, etc.), the story presents a chance to have a larger conversation about the intersection of nature and suburbs.

The formation of the first suburbs, in England in the late 1700s and in the United States in the mid-1800s, was driven in part by a desire to be closer to nature. The growing cities of the Industrial Revolution, places like London and New York City, were home to an increasing number of polluting factories and more disease. Interestingly, the nature in the early suburbs was often still quite curated: building around central parks or building winding streets to take advantage of natural ridges and groves. As suburbs expanded, lots were generally smaller and nature was reduced to smaller lawns. Of course, these lawns today can’t be “natural” – most places have regulations about the height of the grass as the appearance of a well-manicured lawn. Similarly, suburban critic James Howard Kuntsler makes fun of some of the “natural” features of today’s suburbs, like the trees in the middle of big parking lots outside big box stores.

The best book I’ve read on the subject is The Bulldozer in the Countryside by historian Adam Rome. Many suburbs and cities today are plagued by the consequences of running roughshod over nature in matters like dealing with stormwater or residents hoping to save open space or Forest Preserves now trying to acquire land.