Tag Archives: methodology

Analyzing what Americans value by examining lots of obituaries

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How are people remembered? One team of researchers analyzed millions of obituaries. Here is the abstract from the recently published study:

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How societies remember the dead can reveal what people value in life. We analyzed 38 million obituaries from the United States to examine how personal values are encoded in individual and collective legacies. Using Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, we found that tradition and benevolence dominated legacy reflections, while values like power and stimulation appeared less frequently. Major cultural events—the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic—were systematically linked to changes in legacy reflections about personal values, with security declining after 9/11, achievement declining after the financial crisis, and benevolence declining for years after COVID-19 began and, to date, not yet returning to baseline. Gender and age of the deceased were also linked to differences in legacy: Men were remembered more for achievement, power, and conformity, while women were remembered more for benevolence and hedonism. Older people were remembered more for tradition and conformity than younger people. These patterns shifted dynamically across the lifespan, with obituaries for men showing more age-related variation than legacies for women. Our findings reveal how obituaries serve as psychological and cultural time capsules, preserving not just individual legacies, but also indicating what US society values collectively regarding a life well lived.

This sounds like a novel means by which to examine American cultural values. Obituaries are regularly published and are often accessible to many readers. But to collect and analyze millions of obituaries requires particular skills. This is a big data approach.

The study could also raise multiple additional research questions:

  1. How many of these obituaries were written by the deceased or decided upon before death? Does this change the content?
  2. What is the process by which people writing the obituary after death decide on the words to use and values to emphasize?
  3. How much do these values in obituaries match what people say they value in life at different stages before they die?

What society defines as “sinful” and ranking the most sinful cities

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A recent Wallethub list of the “most sinful cities in America” is built on this definition of sin:

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“Regardless of any particular religious tenets, certain activities are considered ‘sinful’ by society as a whole. Sometimes, these activities are always bad, like violent crimes or identity theft. In other cases, they may be relatively harmless in moderation but incredibly destructive when not kept under control, such as alcohol use or gambling. The most sinful cities are those where illicit activities and vices alike are the most widespread.” – Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst…

To determine the most sinful cities in America, WalletHub compared 182 cities — including the 150 most populated U.S. cities, plus at least two of the most populated cities in each state — across seven key dimensions: 1) Anger & Hatred, 2) Jealousy, 3) Excesses & Vices, 4) Greed, 5) Lust, 6) Vanity and 7) Laziness.

We examined those dimensions using 37 relevant metrics listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of sinfulness.

I find intriguing the idea that sins as defined by American society are less about religious traditions and more about social constructions of sin. Where do these ideas about sin come from and who defines them? The seven categories seem like they could match up with the traditional seven deadly sins.

If Americans see a list about sins, how many connect that to a religious meaning rather than a social meaning? If Americans grow up loosely connected to religion or are not connected at all, how do they learn about sin? Perhaps sin is more like modern capitalism which sociologist Max Weber argued lost it religious motivations and meanings decades ago. Are these measures good proxies for secularized sins?

Looking at the list of cities, some would not be a surprise. Others might be. For example, a number of cities in what would be considered the Bible Belt make the top 10. There are also some cities that some Americans might assume are higher than they are (Washington, D.C., at #35 and San Francisco at #42, for two examples).

The number of people needed to collect important inflation survey data

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How many people participate in collecting data for a key inflation survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics?

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the office that publishes the inflation rate, told outside economists this week that a hiring freeze at the agency was forcing the survey to cut back on the number of businesses where it checks prices. In last month’s inflation report, which examined prices in April, government statisticians had to use a less precise method for guessing price changes more extensively than they did in the past…

To calculate the inflation rate, hundreds of government workers called enumerators fan out across cities each month to check how much businesses are charging for products like blue jeans and services like accounting, largely by visiting brick-and-mortar stores. Statisticians in Washington, D.C. roll those figures together into the consumer-price index, a data stream that shows how the cost of living is changing for typical Americans.

If the government’s enumerators can’t track down a specific price in a given city, they try to make an educated guess based on a close substitute: say, cargo pants instead of slacks. But in April, with fewer workers on hand to check prices, statisticians had to base their guesses on less comparable products or other regions of the country—a process called “different-cell imputation”—much more often than usual, according to the BLS…

The inflation rate determines how much social-security benefits go up each year, and where federal tax brackets are set. Private-sector contracts such as wage agreements between companies and unions routinely reference the inflation rate. Payments on $2 trillion of inflation-protected federal bonds hinge on the inflation rate, as do yields on standard Treasury bonds. Businesses, investors and policymakers rely on the reading to guide their decisions. The Federal Reserve is laser focused on inflation data when it sets interest rates for the country.

Surveys require a lot of work to put together. Questions and methods need to be thought through and tested. Data needs to be collected. Analysis requires skill. Sharing results and interpretations is important.

The particular issues outlined above seem to have to do with (1) collecting data, which relies on going out and finding prices, and (2) dealing with missing data, which is related to #1 but is an issue for many surveys. If the survey is utilized by a large number of people, the choices made in the survey process can then affect decisions and policies.

It will be interesting to see what happens here. At what point do academics, policymakers, and others decide that the survey data may not be trustworthy? Which government surveys – and there are many – get priority for funding and having enough employees?

A list of the 30 fastest growing wealthy suburbs includes two suburbs with population declines

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I recently found a list of wealthy American with the most population growth. But I noticed that the list ends with two suburbs that lost population during the time period of interest (2018-2023). I suspect this might be because how they selected the communities on the list.

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Methodology: For this study, GOBankingRates analyzed suburbs to find the fastest-growing wealthy suburbs in America. First GOBankingRates found the places with a population between 25,000 and 100,000 according to the U.S. Census American Community Survey. The metro area for each location was found and only the metro areas with a population of 1 million or more were kept. With these suburbs isolated, the numerical and percentage change in population from 2018 to 2023 were found for each city using data from the American Community Survey Census from 2018 and 2023. For each location, GOBankingRates found total population, population ages 65 and over, total households, and household median income all sourced from the American Community Survey. Only places with a median household income of $150,000 or more were kept for this study. Using this data the percentage of the population ages 65 and over were calculated. The cost-of-living indexes were sourced from Sperling’s BestPlaces and include the grocery, healthcare, housing, utilities, transportation, and miscellaneous cost of living indexes. Using the cost-of-living indexes and the national average expenditure costs, as sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, the average expenditure cost for each location were calculated. The livability index was sourced from AreaVibes for each location and included as supplemental information. The average single-family home value was sourced from Zillow Home Value Index for November 2024. Using the average single-family home value, assuming a 10% down payment, and using the most recent national average 30-year fixed mortgage rate, as sourced from the Federal Reserve Economic Data, the average mortgage can be calculated. Using the average mortgage and average expenditure costs, the average total monthly and annual cost of living were calculated. The cities were sorted to show the highest percentage population increase first to show the places with the fastest-growing wealthy suburbs in America. All data was collected on and is up to date as of Jan. 6, 2025.

The bigger question is this: how many suburbs in the United States of population 25,000 to 100,000 have median household incomes over $150,000? I suspect this is not a huge list. Hence, there are only 28 suburbs who meet this criteria and grew between 2018 and 2023.

But it may not take much to change the parameters to include more suburban communities on the list. For example:

  1. What if the median household income was $140,000? Is there a strong reason for leaving the cutoff at $150,000?
  2. Why limit the population to communities between 25,000 and 100,000? If the list could includ communities between 10,000 and 100,000, are there now more growing wealthy suburbs?
  3. Limiting the analysis to metropolitan areas with 1 million people reduces the number of possible regions and suburbs. If the cutoff is 1 million people in an MSA, this means a little over 50 regions are included. Lower the region’s population and you would have more suburbs that might meet the criteria.
  4. Change the list from 30 suburbs to 20 and then the last one on the list would have 5% population growth.

Trying to count all the government bodies in Illinois

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Different sources provide different counts of government bodies in Illinois:

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There are so many units of government in Illinois that people can’t even agree on the total because of differences over what technically qualifies as a government body. The U.S. Census Bureau says 6,930, while the Illinois Department of Revenue, which tracks governments authorized to levy property taxes, reports 6,042. The state comptroller’s office lists 8,529, and a study by the Civic Federation tallied the number at 8,923 as of 2019.

Regardless of the exact answer, the number of governments in Illinois outpaces that seen in bigger states, including Texas (which has 5,533, according to the Census Bureau), Pennsylvania (4,851) and California, a state with a population three times the size of Illinois but half as many local government units…

Today the state has more than 5,700 special-purpose governments, including 851 school districts, 861 drainage districts, 838 fire protection districts, 376 library districts, 348 park districts and 320 multi-township tax assessment districts, according to the state comptroller’s office. Many of the state’s nearly 1,400 districts dedicated to roads and bridges have boundaries overlapping its 1,425 townships.

Most of these governments are outside the Chicago region and represent only a sliver of the state’s population. Nearly two-thirds of Illinois residents live in the six-county Chicago metropolitan area. Meanwhile, 51 of Illinois’ 102 counties have fewer than 25,000 residents, and 15 of those have a population under 10,000, according to a 2021 Civic Federation report. About two-thirds of Illinois’ school districts have fewer than 1,000 students enrolled, and there are 26 school districts with fewer than 100 students.

Two figures stand out:

  1. How do the different counters get to numbers so far apart? The difference is roughly 2,000 bodies of government – what exactly is the scope or taxing ability of these bodies? On the national level, who is considered to have an official count in these area?
  2. Americans tend to like local government that responds to local needs. On one hand, all these government bodies are exerting the will of the people to control local activity. On the other hand, this could be viewed as micromanaging. Certainly there are merges that could happen in some of these categories to take advantage of economies of scale and more efficiently serve a slightly larger population? (I have discussed townships before.)

The focus of this long article is the corruption and lack of oversight than can happen because of so many government bodies. The few times a resident might be reminded of all these bodies is when they see a property tax bill or during election season when there are candidates for all sorts of spots in different bodies.

So is one way to interpret the number of government bodies in Illinois is to suggest that the price of corruption is not enough to convince residents and/or local leaders to give up local control?

Counting the hours spent talking about the possibility of merging Chicago area transit agencies

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As conversations take place regarding possibly merging transit agencies in Chicagoland, I wondered if it would be possible to count all the hours of talking, making deals, and working out details. What would the number be? I imagine someone working to provide an accurate count or estimate might run into a few methodological issues:

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-Which conversations to count? Is this primarily about formal debate in the legislature or public hearings about the possibilities? Can media reports (whether TV, print, radio, others) count as time? Do digital conversations (texting, emails, in particular apps) count?

-How to count less formal conversations. If conversations take place behind the scenes as opposed to in public settings, can they be found or discovered? What kind of work is needed to track these down?

-Are people willing to talk about their talking? Some might be more willing, some less so. Or perhaps people would be more willing to talk after some major decision is made.

-Do we have some ballpark numbers of how many hours go into major decisions in governments or organizations? What is a “typical” range?

Given the scope of possible changes and the implications whether change occurs or not, the process and the time devoted to it could be worthy of study.

Questioning Census population estimates when they show declines in Illinois

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A story on Census population estimates for Illinois’ communities includes some pushback against the numbers:

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While the 2020 census counted responses from household surveys, the annual estimates between the 10-year counts are based in part on counting births, deaths, and moves in and out, using the number of tax returns and Medicare filings.

The numbers do not reflect the recent influx of 41,000 migrants bused and flown to Chicago since August 2022. Census methodology does not account for migrant arrivals. Immigrants are typically hard to count because they may be transient, may not speak English and may want to stay under the radar, researchers said.

Oak Lawn Mayor Terry Vorderer, for one, didn’t buy the new estimates, noting that his town has added new townhomes while not losing housing stock…

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office also threw water on the results, highlighting past faulty counts made by the Census Bureau.

“For the last decade, the narrative that Illinois is losing population was fed, by what turned out to be, inaccurate annual preliminary estimates,” Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough said in a statement. “Illinois remains one of the most populous states in the nation and is on the rise.”

International migration — which has risen nationwide — has nearly tripled in Illinois since 2021, Gough said. The state is in the process of challenging census data to ensure it receives adequate federal funding for programs like Medicare, affordable housing and homeland security, he added.

Is this about methods for counting populations or is this more about politics? For better or worse, these annual estimates have become media stories. Some places are gaining residents, others are losing. Communities with population loss have a hard time shaking all the associations that come with it. The implication is that population loss indicates decline and problems while growth is good.

On the other side, measuring populations is a sizable task. This is why so much effort is expended every ten years. The annual estimates have their own methodologies. They are estimates. This means there is some margin of error. These margins of error should be reported, even if the emphasis in the media continues to be on a concrete number of people gained or lost.

Census numbers might not be perfect but I would be interested in seeing the compelling evidence to suggest their estimates of population declines in some Illinois communities are far off or completely wrong.

Are these 15 factors that decide the best suburb or community the ones people to use to make a decision?

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In recently looking at the list of the “2024 Best Suburbs to Live in America” according to Niche, I was curious about their methodology. Here are the factors they consider:

This is a long list and it is hard to quickly think of something that should be on the list that is not.

But is this how people select a house or a community? Do they look at all of these factors? Do some of these play a more outsized role than others? Imagine a realtor having a list like this with potential buyers and going through each factor. If you put people in a more controlled setting and asked them to decide between potential suburban places to live, is this how they would decide?

I suspect making a decision is less rational than this full list suggests and is more about having a feeling about a particular house, neighborhood, and/or community. They hear from people or they enjoy driving through the community or what they see in a particular residence appeals to them. Of course, different buyers or potential residents might emphasize different factors and still arrive at the same outcome.

Assessing public arguments as an academic

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Two recent encounters with arguments made – one on a podcast, one in a book meant for a broad reading audience – reminded me of the unique ways academics assess arguments. In both cases, the makers of the argument made connections across different sources and sets of evidence to present a particular point of view. As I considered these arguments, here are two features of my own thought processes that stood out:

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  1. A tendency to defer to those with expertise in a particular area rather than assemble broad arguments with multiple data sources. It is difficult to make big arguments with multiple moving pieces as this might cover ground addressed by numerous scholars across different disciplines. In academia, scholars often have fairly narrow sets of expertise. Can one argument adequately represent all the important parts of knowledge? Why not assemble a larger argument from the clear expertise multiple scholars hold rather than try to do it as one person or a small team?
  2. An interest in assessing the methods and form of the argument from a disciplinary perspective. Different academic fields go about the study of the world differently. They have different methods and think differently about what might count as evidence. They put their arguments together in different ways. The content of an argument or the rhetorical force of an argument matter but we often expect them to be presented in particular ways. Go outside these methodologies or formats and academics might struggle to past this.

Based on this, I wonder how well academics can work with arguments made to the public when we have been trained in specific that work within the parameters of academia.

Studying both individual communities and patterns across communities

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In considering places in the United States, is it better to study a community in-depth and get at its uniqueness? Or, is it better to look for patterns across places, focusing more on what joins types of communities compared to other types?

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The last two posts have introduced this question through an unusual place in western Pennsylvania and all the histories communities across the United States have. And this is a common issue in urban sociology and among others who study cities and places: should we seek to adopt model places that help us understand sets of places – think of the odd quote that “There are only three great cities in the US and everywhere else is just Cleveland” – or focus on all of the particularities of a particular place or region?

I have tried in my own work to do some of both when studying places and buildings. Two examples come to mind. In 2013, I published an article titled “Not All Suburbs are the Same: The Role of Character in in Shaping Growth and Development in Three Chicago Suburbs.” I built off in-depth research on three suburbs to compare how internal understandings of character affected how they responded differently to changes in the Chicago region and changes to suburbs more broadly. On one hand, these suburbs that shared important similarities have different character and on the other hand they still fit within the category of suburbs that sets them apart from different kinds of places.

As a second example, take the book Building Faith I co-authored with Robert Brenneman. We provide case studies of particular religious congregations as they navigate constructing and altering buildings as those physical structures shape their worship and community. These case studies among different religious traditions and in different locations highlight unique patterns in these congregations and places. Yet, we also look across places, considering patterns of religious buildings in suburbs, in Guatemala, and a few other places.

In both works, knowing the particulars and examining the broader patterns are helpful. Different researchers might go other routes; why not investigate even further in these particular cases? What else is there in archives, interviews, ethnographic observation, etc. that could reveal even more details? Or, go the other direction: look at patterns in hundreds or thousands of places to find commonalities and differences across more settings.

But, I find that the particularities of a certain place make more sense in light of broader patterns and those broader patterns make more sense knowing some local or micro patterns. Having a sufficient number of cases or a varied enough set of cases to make these links can be tricky. Yet, I enjoy approaching places this way: digging into both the histories of particular communities and seeking broader patterns that hold across communities.