Fast food locations as the great American gathering places

Posted on June 26, 2019 by legallysociable

In a society built around cars, is it surprising that McDonald’s might emerge as a consistent gathering place?

For America’s graying cohort, often sectioned off by age at places like senior centers, the dining room of a fast-food restaurant is a godsend. It’s a ready-made community center for intergenerational mingling. The cost of admission is low—the prices beckon those on fixed incomes—and crucially, the distance from home is often short. And that’s just one demographic.

In spite of the plastic seats, the harsh lighting, and in many cities, the semi-enforced time limits for diners, people of all sorts can sit and stay and stay and stay—at birthday parties, first dates, father-daughter breakfasts, Bible-study groups, teen hangs, and Shabbat dinners. Or at supervised visitations and meet-ups for recovering addicts. For those who crave the solace of a place to call home that is not home, a fast-food dining room offers it, with a side of fries…

In the days following the 2014 shooting, the Ferguson McDonald’s had served as a safe harbor for cops on coffee breaks, for reporters needing tables and internet to write and file their dispatches, and for demonstrators escaping clashes with police. “When a protester blasted with tear gas comes moaning through the door,” Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times reported at the time, “there are bottles of soothing McDonald’s milk to pour over his or her eyes.” One worker had been a classmate of Michael Brown and knew his regular order: a McChicken, medium fries, medium drink. (Similarly, the Burger King and McDonald’s near New York City’s Zuccotti Park doubled as unexpected safe spaces for the mostly white demonstrators during the months-long Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011 to gather, organize, and snack.)…

Fast-food restaurants are more than just culturally pluralistic social hubs for unremarkable meals, meaningful rituals, and uncommon encounters. And they are more than just community centers of first and last resort. They’re also places where people can set about building connections and performing the work of whatever their interpretation of repairing the world might be.

Does this mean that fast food restaurants are the problem or they are a symptom of major social issues? The last paragraph of the story cannot help but suggest McDonald’s is problematic in many ways yet the rest of the piece suggests it fills a void.

The civic realm is an interesting place for Americans in recent decades. Personal media use on a daily basis keeps going up. Participation in a number of civic groups has declined. Voter turnout has declined. Church attendance has declined for many religious groups. Trust in public institutions is down. The rise of the automobile roughly 100 years ago means many Americans spend time each day alone in their vehicle. Single-family homes allow people to retreat to their private homes (large from a comparative perspective). Political discourse is rarely civil or productive. The best third places in many communities are private operations involving food (think Starbucks, fast food, local restaurants) with the occasional space that can bring people together. Since McDonald’s are cheap, omnipresent, and stable, why can’t they serve as effective third places given the dearth of other options?

If McDonald’s are not a preferred option, it would be interesting to see a movement dedicated to creating non-profit third places for all residents in many communities. Many current options cater to particular groups of people or have particular goals in mind. Offering an attractive and inclusive third place would take quite a bit of work as would reminding people that this is something they would enjoy participating in.

Low turnout continues in local elections, Chicago as just one example

Posted on February 27, 2019 by legallysociable

The primary for Chicago mayor concluded yesterday and one of the leading stories is the low turnout among the electorate.

There are multiple ways to interpret this data and I would guess some would suggest Chicagoans are not interested in affecting their own fate or argue fourteen mayoral candidates was simply too many. But, here is what I would not want to get lost in the shuffle: voter turnout is low in many American local elections. This is true in some of the biggest cities as well as in small towns and suburbs. And this is in a country that claims to like local government and the ability of residents and community members to be closer to elected officials. While the federal government is large and far away, municipal officials have to address local issues and connect with the needs of their neighbors.

Given the larger decline in participation in civic activity in the United States plus lower confidence in institutions and lower levels of trust, perhaps low voter turnout is not surprising. Yet, one way to counter polarization, divides, and inaction would be for community members and neighbors to participate more in local politics where the distance between themselves and elected and appointed officials is much lower. Of course, such activity is not a guarantee of good outcomes. For example, people can be protectionist at the local level (see examples of NIMBY across locales here, here, and here) just as well as at the national level. At the same time, there are enough stories out there where cities, suburbs, and small towns still do come together to tackle important issues they face. Think of Elwood, Illinois which tried a development plan to bring in jobs and revenue that did not turn out as they had planned.

If local government is a feature of civic life many Americans like, higher rates of participation in voting and serving could help ensure its long term viability.

Accomplishing civic project is “90 percent sociology”

Posted on June 18, 2016 by legallysociable

One local leader in Lakeland, Florida suggested bringing high-speed Internet to the whole county requires sociology:

The key to giving everyone in Polk County access to affordable high-speed Internet has less to do with bandwidth and more to do with community leaders banding together to achieve that goal.

“It’s 10 percent technology and 90 percent sociology,” said Don Selvage, Lakeland city commissioner. “The success or failure of introducing broadband to our citizens rests directly on the shoulders of policymakers in government, corporate executives in the private sector, and grassroots efforts from civic leaders.”

In other words, cooperation and social interaction is required in order to bring about a benefit to all residents. I think he is using the discipline as shorthand for people getting along and compromising.

On the flip side, does this mean that when things are not accomplished in the civic realm it is the result of bad sociology?

The cul-de-sac’s ability to foster community

Posted on October 19, 2013 by legallysociable

A new study suggests the bulb cul-de-sac helps foster cohesion more than other street designs:

In sociologist’s terms, Hochschild ultimately concluded that people who live in traditional bulb cul-de-sacs have the highest levels of attitudinal and behavioral cohesion (covering both how they feel about their neighbors and how much they actually interact with them). People who live on your average residential through-street have the lowest levels (in between the two are “dead-end” cul-de-sacs that lack that traditional, circular social space)…

In his latest research, Hochschild visited 110 homes in demographically comparable Connecticut communities, a third of them located on bulb cul-de-sacs, a third on dead-end cul-de-sacs and a third on through streets. In each case, he tried to interview sets of four adjacent households (as in the diagram above) to home in on how people relate to their immediate neighbors. He asked each household about 150 questions about how they rate their relationship with their neighbors, how often they help each other and socialize together. His results controlled for differences in income, the number of children in a household, and the length of time a family lived on the block…

Hochschild theorizes that there’s something more than self-selection going on here. Hardly any of the people he talked to said they moved to a cul-de-sac in search of (or even anticipating) its neighborliness. Rather, the design of the street itself seemed to facilitate it. If you want to throw a block party on a through-street, you need a permit. If you want to do the same on a cul-de-sac, the street is already effectively blocked off. In a cul-de-sac, Hochschild found, it’s much easier to privatize public space, either by turning the street into an extension of the driveway, or by landscaping the rights-of-way as if they were a private lawn.

Cul-de-sacs create a kind of natural panoptican around children at play. They also give rise to what Hochschild calls “geographically common problems” to be solved, like fallen trees or unplowed snow blocking every family’s exit.

Would evidence from a study like this convince people who don’t like cul-de-sacs that they have some merit? How exactly do you weigh the benefits of community versus the downsides of cul-de-sacs?

Another issue critics might have of cul-de-sacs, even with Hochschild’s findings: they may be good for building internal solidarity with the nearby families – who probably tend to be like you since they live in similar kinds of housing – but that doesn’t necessarily lead to broader social ties and civic engagement. Is a more cohesive cul-de-sac then more likely to engage others outside the cul-de-sac? Or does the time spent building cohesion limit the group’s reach? Such a study could also push those who critique the loss of community in suburbs or amongst sprawl to be more specific with what they envision for community. New Urbanists talk about community all the time but what exactly does that mean? Is it characterized by knowing your neighbors, interacting regularly in public spaces, participating in local politics, all of the above, or something else? Community can exist on multiple levels and it strikes me the cul-de-sac community is an extension of the American household to the similar, nearest neighbors but possibly not much further.

Politicizing the American coffee shop at Starbucks

Posted on October 13, 2013 by legallysociable

Starbucks has jumped into the political fray over the government shutdown with encouragement to sign a petition, wear badges, and follow a hashtag:

Because what’s most interesting about the “Come Together” campaign is what it aims to achieve from a systemic and meta-political point of view: It’s attempting to politicize previously un-politicized places. The coffee shop. The corner Starbucks. That zone of friends and family and familiar strangers, that place of light roasts and light jazz and assorted pleasantries.

This isn’t the first time, of course, that Starbucks has put its, er, cup-acious reach to work for political messaging. Last December, CEO Howard Shultz asked employees in Washington, D.C. stores to hand-write “Come Together” on cups—the better to encourage bipartisanship. Last month, Shultz penned an open letter asking gun-rights activists to stop bringing guns into Starbucks stores. (“Pro-gun activists have used our stores as a political stage for media events misleadingly called “Starbucks Appreciation Days” that disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of ‘open carry.’ To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores.”) And earlier this week, the store offered a promotion—of itself and of, more explicitly, “civility”: “If you come into Starbucks and buy someone else their favorite beverage, we’ll give you a free tall brewed coffee.”

This is what some political theorists refer to as “sub-politics”: politics that play out on a level below traditional political institutions. And Starbucks’ efforts suggest not just a recognition that a store can double as a political platform; they also echo, for better or for worse, what coffee shops were, hundreds of years ago: bustling intellectual marketplaces. Places that were about more than coffee and baked goods and anodyne exchanges—places that were, in fact, about debate, political and otherwise. Places that used their ability to bring people together to join them together in conversation.

I wonder how sociologists who tend to like and promote “third places” – spots between home and work where citizens can form relationships and discuss civic and political matters – would view these attempts by Starbucks. It is not that coffee shops and other such places shouldn’t host political discussions but rather that a large corporation is leading the political charge, not the people. How exactly does this work: can Starbucks sell more coffee/other goods through its activism/patriotism versus how can Starbucks not alienate some consumers (or they have to stick to more bland, bipartisan messages)? There is potential here for a long-term mixing of sacred American values in interesting ways: promoting the public good may be very good for business.

Two other side notes:

1. Is Starbucks really the American coffee shop? It is probably the most recognizable coffee shop brand…

2. Try to imagine other major corporations making such a push. McDonald’s? Coca-Cola? Disney?

Discussing the picture-perfect suburb full of volunteerism and community spirit

Posted on March 12, 2012 by legallysociable

Many communities may say they have community spirit but Wyoming, Ohio may just have more:

In Wyoming, it seems, the homes are a little bit bigger, the students are a little bit smarter and now even the water tastes better.

This city of 8,428 people, which rests on 2.87 square miles of land in the Mill Creek valley, is lovely and charming. The people are affluent and well-educated and happy to tell you how great Wyoming is…

After providing some details about the mostly volunteer fire department, groups in the town that help the community, and the general civic engagement of the residents, a sociologist offers an explanation:

“In sociology, it’s what is called a virtuous cycle. The more people volunteer the more people volunteer,” said Jeff Timberlake, associate professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati.

Timberlake said for good things and for bad, a momentum can happen. When people organize in a way to help their community, it becomes easier for the next person to join.

“It is never just a fluke, when there is something sustained like this. It happens on purpose.”…

“Once a place has a tradition of volunteering, or a tradition of anything, really, it becomes ingrained,” Timberlake said.

That, he says, is a powerful social force. People want to belong, he said. And if you are the only person not helping your community, you can feel left out. That, he says, is a powerful social force.

“Soon enough, people ask themselves, ‘What does it mean to live here?’ ” Timberlake said. “In a place like Wyoming, it sounds like they know the answer.”

Another way we might describe this is to suggest that volunteerism is built into the character of the community. As Timberlake suggests, this character doesn’t simply happen: residents and local groups continually have to engage in the community. This community spirit could disappear rather quickly if the community, or enough residents, chose this. Then, you might be left with a more common split of community duties: 80% do little and 20% or less do most of the heavily lifting. By sustaining a culture where volunteerism and engagement is expected, the character of this community can continue.

It is not uncommon for community leaders to suggest that their community is active and engaged. I’m always a little skeptical when I hear this for two reasons:

(1) It makes the community look better so there is some self-interest here. What politician or leader wants to openly admit that people in their community don’t care? Even in the suburbs, a place where critics say few people know their neighbors or want to get involved in larger issues beyond their homes, it is a badge of honor to say that this particular suburb is a real community. There is also often an implicit comparison here between communities: with a leader saying that their town is really marked by volunteerism and a community spirit, the implication is often that other surrounding towns don’t offer the same.

(2) Few people have objective measures of community spirit or volunteerism. I wonder if leaders tend to think about what range of people are involved in the community: is it the same people all the time or are there different faces? Even then, could anyone say with certainty what percent of the adults in the community are truly engaged? Or even better, could you compare one town’s community spirit to the next town’s? There are ways you could get at this (perhaps start with Census data and look at the percentage of residents who have lived in the community more than five years) but I would guess few communities have this kind of evidence to back up their claims.

I don’t doubt that some communities have higher levels of engagement than others but getting at this in all its complexity certainly would require more evidence and work.

Seeing public libraries as the “third place” between home and work

Posted on March 10, 2012 by legallysociable

The new library director in Evanston, Illinois suggests that public libraries “should be the third most important places in people’s lives”:

Evanston’s new public library director says that the city’s library should be the third most important place for citizens, after work and home, or school and home.

“The public library should be the third most important place for engagement and public discourse, for people to research topics of interest,” said Karen Danczak Lyons, who was appointed as next director of the library during a recent library board meeting…

Like most government entities, the library is faced with budget challenges as it looks to balance the need for revenue with the desire to tread lightly on public pocketbooks. Though she has not taken an in-depth look at the library’s current and projected budgets, Lyons said her first responsibility is to determine how to fund the library’s stated priorities.“Foremost in my mind is serving all areas of the community,” she said. “Where we begin the discussion is to look at what you’re paying right now for your public library and where that funding level is compared to other services. Let’s talk about the role of the library in your life, whether it’s a fair return on the investment or whether you want more.”

This argument reminded me of Ray Oldenburg’s idea of a “third place” where citizens could interact with each other between the spheres of home and work. Could the library really be the center of “engagement and public discourse”? Even though I love reading and learning, I can honestly say I’ve never been to a lecture or discussion at my public library. That isn’t to say that the library doesn’t hold such events – they do – but the events are rare and don’t look interesting enough. (Odd note: our library has been promoting more video game days/friendly competitions for kids. I understand that the library is a safe place and that you want kids around books but are video game competitions really the way to get kids to read?)

I wonder how many residents see the library as a center of civic discussion and engagement (or want to see it as such). I would think another viewpoint is more common, particularly among middle to upper-class Americans: the library is more like a free (or really cheap) bookstore or movie rental place. Many Americans don’t read regularly; I’ve seen different statistics that suggest somewhere around 50% of American adults don’t read one book a year (see some other 2009 statistics about reading from the National Endowment for the Arts here and read the full report “Reading on the Rise” here). And libraries have made this shift along with patrons: they now offer a wide range of electronic services. I understand providing computers – not everyone has access to the Internet and this is a very important feature. But I don’t quite understand the DVD (and to a lesser extend CD) craze as many of these don’t promote discussion and learning about civic issues. In the end, perhaps this is the mindset: I’m paying for the library through my taxes and since I want to be entertained, the library should have what I want.

I do think we need more “third places” in our society but I think libraries have a long way to go before they are truly the third most important place for “engagement and public discourse.”

The cultural side to decreasing American political engagement

Posted on July 7, 2011 by legallysociable

A political sociologist addresses the cultural dimension of American political involvement:

Yet there is also a cultural dimension to democracy and political engagement. In “The Good Citizen,” a well-regarded history of American civic life, sociologist Michael Schudson recalls that in the mid to late 1800s, sometimes considered the golden age of American political participation, election campaigns were often raucously public and partisan affairs, including parades, speeches and debates that made politics popular entertainment. Of course, politics cannot compete with the dazzle of today’s entertainment industry, but Schudson’s point is that politics today is less public than private, less collective than individual.

The most fundamental political act of voting, for example, is in the eyes of many Americans a private and sober affair. As one young professional told me in interviews I conducted to explore how young Americans think about politics, the good citizen sits down alone and does their homework, studying the candidates and issues carefully before casting their vote. This good citizen may seem admirable to contemporary Americans, but would seem strange to many 19th century Americans.

Politics is not just a set of evolving rules, it is an evolving culture, including taken-for-granted notions about politics and citizenship. As we come together to celebrate our Independence Day, let us consider what it would take to engage more Americans in politics. Maybe the answer lies in part in transforming how we think about politics: maybe not as partisan parade, and still less as lonely homework, but rather as the social art of moderate government.

This explanation is interesting as it roots decreased levels of political engagement in a broader cultural shift away from community life and toward individualism. In this scenario, politics may be more entertaining than ever but it is not working, not because of its shallowness or an increased level of vitriol, but because it goes against the private nature of governmental beliefs. Occasionally, politics can tap into the potential of social movements, like the 2008 Obama campaign, but this is difficult to do.

This reminds me of arguments about the privatization of American religion. Is politics now similarly comparmentalized? Americans seem more unwilling to impress their religious beliefs on others; is this the same with politics? How many Americans would say that talking about politics is acceptable in general social settings and how has this changed over time?

Does this all fall under the Bowling Alone thesis?

Viewing the city through 311 calls

Posted on November 9, 2010 by legallysociable

A city is a complex place. But Wired suggests there is a way to make sense of it all: track patterns in the 311 calls that citizens make. With over 50,000 calls a day, the 311 center in New York City offers unique insights into what is happening in the big city:

As useful as 311 is to ordinary New Yorkers, the most intriguing thing about the service is all the information it supplies back to the city. Each complaint is logged, tagged, and mapped to make it available for subsequent analysis. In some cases, 311 simply helps New York respond more intelligently to needs that were obvious to begin with. Holidays, for example, spark reliable surges in call volume, with questions about government closings and parking regulations. On snow days, call volume spikes precipitously, which 311 anticipates with recorded messages about school closings and parking rules.

But the service also helps city leaders detect patterns that might otherwise have escaped notice. After the first survey of 311 complaints ranked excessive noise as the number one source of irritation among residents, the Bloomberg administration instituted a series of noise-abatement programs, going after the offenders whom callers complained about most often (that means you, Mister Softee). Similarly, clusters of public-drinking complaints in certain neighborhoods have led to crackdowns on illegal social clubs. Some of the discoveries have been subtle but brilliant. For example, officials now know that the first warm day of spring will bring a surge in use of the city’s chlorofluorocarbon recycling programs. The connection is logical once you think about it: The hot weather inspires people to upgrade their air conditioners, and they don’t want to just leave the old, Freon-filled units out on the street.

The 311 system has proved useful not just at detecting reliable patterns but also at providing insights when the normal patterns are disrupted. Clusters of calls about food-borne illness or sanitary problems from the same restaurant now trigger a rapid response from the city’s health department. And during emergencies, callers help provide real-time insight into what’s really happening. “When [New York Yankees pitcher] Cory Lidle crashed his plane into a building on the Upper East Side, we had a bulletin on all of our screens in less than an hour explaining that it was not an act of terrorism,” Morrisroe says. After US Airways flight 1549 crash-landed in the Hudson in 2009, a few callers dialed 311 asking what they should do with hand luggage they’d retrieved from the river. “We have lots of protocols and systems in place for emergencies like plane crashes,” Morrisroe explains, “but we’d never thought about floating luggage.” This is the beauty of 311. It thrives on the quotidian and predictable—the school-closing queries and pothole complaints—but it also plays well with black swans.

This strikes me as both clever and pragmatic: 311 functions as a way for citizens to quickly express their needs and have them met but at the same time gives the city a rich source of data about its own problems. And perhaps best of all, it is citizens who volunteer this information rather the city having to employ devices or hire more staff to track a lot of these issues.

In a world that seems to have more and more interesting data sources, this is one that would be fascinating to look at. Do people of different social classes complain about the same things? Do certain land uses generate certain complaints? How many of the calls are generated by “frequent callers”? How many calls are made to speak with a human being when the information is available elsewhere? When people have successful resolutions to their 311 calls, does that lead to increased feelings of goodwill toward the city or higher levels of civic engagement?

Quick Review: The Dumbest Generation

Posted on September 13, 2010 by legallysociable

English professor Mark Bauerlein takes on the younger generations in The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. I will summarize three of the main arguments from this 2008 book and offer some of my own thoughts.

1. To his credit, Bauerlein draws upon a lot of data. This primarily comes from large surveys conducted in the last ten years. It appears that a lot of the data comes to similar conclusions, increasing its validity.

2. One main argument: the new learning style of the younger generation, built around the Internet and browsing text rather than reading books, hasn’t led to improved educational or societal outcomes. While many people have praised these new skills or suggested that they are leading to a new kind of world, Bauerlein says it hasn’t improved much of anything.

3. Another main argument: having all of these options for information, primarily through the Internet but including social media and television, has not opened worlds for younger generations. Instead, younger people tend to use this information for more prosaic ends, like following pop culture or the latest doings of their friends. Just because all of this information is out there, it doesn’t mean they know what to do with it or how to use it.

4. A third argument: the older generation has failed the younger generations by not extolling the virtues of tradition and knowledge. Instead, the older generations have given in and let the younger generations dictate what they should learn and how they should be taught. Older members of society have run with anecdotal positive stories about the Internet (often based on elite, Ivy League or similar students) without considering the broad trends. With little involvement by adults, the younger generations have little interest in civic engagement or the world of big ideas. This books appears to be aimed at the older generations – of course, as Bauerlein points out, the odds of many younger people reading any book, are limited.

5. In what I think is a smart move, Bauerlein suggests early on that this is not just another jeremiad from an older adult against the younger members of society. The data he marshals in his support helps his case though the third main argument (point 4 above) seems a little less certain and more of an opinion. Another point in his claims that this is not a jeremiad: he places a lot of blame for the situation on the older generations that have let the younger generations do what they want.

6. I would have liked to have read more about how Bauerlein thinks these new changes in society, such as the Internet and technology, could be harnessed for better ends. Or is there something inherently bad about these tools – is the medium the message?

7. I am still processing these arguments on a personal level. On one hand, I have some similar questions to Bauerlein’s regarding my generation and technology. At the same time, I am a frequent user of these technologies. I think I am going to need some more time to figure it out.

Overall, this is a thought-provoking read with implications for the future of America.

Legally Sociable

Pleasant Musings on Sociology, McMansions and Housing, Suburbs and Cities, and Miscellaneous Errata.

Tag Archives: civic engagement

Fast food locations as the great American gathering places

Low turnout continues in local elections, Chicago as just one example

Accomplishing civic project is “90 percent sociology”

The cul-de-sac’s ability to foster community

Politicizing the American coffee shop at Starbucks

Discussing the picture-perfect suburb full of volunteerism and community spirit

Seeing public libraries as the “third place” between home and work

The cultural side to decreasing American political engagement

Quick Review: The Dumbest Generation

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