Tag Archives: perceptions

Reminder after murder in Naperville: the suburb has the lowest crime rates of a city its size in Illinois

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In the aftermath of a murder Friday night in Naperville, I wanted to issue a reminder about crime in Naperville before anyone jumps to any conclusions about violence in the suburb. Naperville is a safe place:

Naperville is by far the safest city of its size in Illinois.

The 2010 crime statistics released by the FBI Monday show that the level of crime in Naperville is far lower than is typical for Illinois’ largest cities.

For every 10,000 residents in the city, there were about 151 property crimes in Naperville, compared to 203 in Elgin and 216 in Aurora…

Rockford and Springfield reported by far the highest crime rates among the state’s largest towns. For every 10,000 Naperville residents, 9 violent crimes were reported. Elgin (33), Aurora (36) and Joliet (36) had the next best rates.

Violent crime is rare in Naperville although not unheard of. The city likes to trumpet the low crime rate. Notice how it is part of the one paragraph lead-in to the “Welcome to Naperville” video on the city’s website:

Located 28 miles west of Chicago, Naperville, Ill., is home to approximately 145,000 people. This vibrant, thriving city consistently ranks as a top community in the nation in which to live, raise children and retire. The city is home to acclaimed public and parochial schools, the best public library system in the country, an array of healthcare options and an exceptionally low crime rate. Naperville has ready access to a variety of public transportation, housing and employment options. The city’s diversified employer base features high technology firms, retailers and factories, as well as small and home-based businesses. Residents also enjoy world-class parks, diverse worship options, the opportunity to serve on several city boards and commissions, a thriving downtown shopping and dining area, a renowned living history museum known as Naper Settlement and an active civic community.

Not just a “low crime rate” but an “exceptionally low crime rate.” This pitch is made by many people beyond City Hall.

Still, a well-regarded suburb like Naperville must always be wary of perceptions. Murders in your downtown entertainment district are not the kind of news that you want. Even if crime rates are low, perceptions can change quickly and crime is one of those factors that pushes suburbanites into other communities. See this commentary from one of the Naperville high schools:

As the population rises within Naperville so do the crime rates. Naperville is known as one of the safest cities to live and raise a family in. The town claims to have a protected and secure profile, though lately there have been signs of increasing crime rates.

Naperville police have found that burglaries rose nearly thirty percent since last year while robberies climbed nearly thirty-five percent. Although property crime rates are on the rise, violent crime has decreased from the past few years.  A few months ago, senior Stephy Drago had a few friends over at night. There was about eight cars lined up in front of the house and two of the cars were broken into. A paycheck and an IPod were stolen from one car and money from the other…

Even though property crime continues to expand, recently the Naperville Police Department has let go of six police officers in late November due to a budget deficit. Hundreds of residents protested through Downtown Naperville to the outside of City Hall objecting the layoffs of these officers…

Still, proper precautions should be taken such as hiding important valuables if left in a car or locking a garage door at night.

Even though the article says Naperville has low crime rates, the perception is that crime is always just lurking around the corner. Without the “right” number of police, the safety of the town could quickly disappear. Since Naperville is such a large suburb, I wonder if it is easier for people to make the association between crime rates and the big city, making Naperville into a different kind of place. Perhaps this all says more about how Americans think about crime in general: even in the nicest places, the perceived risk of crime is up.

We shall see what happens: I assume the city will go out of its way to assure residents that this downtown incident is an isolated one and not in the character of the community. On the other hand, residents and others might start to wonder if this sort of news will become “normal.” Managing these perceptions and expectations will be important as Naperville moves forward.

Indicators that loyalty among family members is up in America

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Even though we supposedly live in a disconnected and fragmented age, there are some indicators that suggest Americans feel more loyal toward their families than in the past:

“There’s been a social and economic change that’s actually made us more dependent on family loyalties,” says Stephanie Coontz, author of “Marriage, A History” (Penguin).

“You don’t know your neighbors. It would be crazy to be loyal to your employer in the same way you used to be because your employer’s not going to be loyal to you. All of those things have simultaneously made us want more loyalty — long for more loyalty — and try, I think, to have more loyalty in our personal lives.”

Loyalty itself is difficult to measure, but likely indicators such as family closeness appear to be on the rise. A 2010 Pew Research Center study found that 40 percent of Americans say their family life is closer now than when they were growing up, and only 14 percent say it is less close. Another Pew study showed that the percentage of adults who talked with a parent every day rose to 42 percent in 2005 from 32 percent in 1989.

The family loyalty picture is complex, with Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, saying that though couples who marry today are less likely to get divorced than couples that married in the 1970s, more people are forgoing marriage or delaying it.

The article suggests several reasons why people would be feeling more loyal toward their family today: rapid economic and social change, different expectations about family life, and people are entering intimate relationships more cautiously.

There could also be a few other factors at work:

1. I wonder if there is some social desirability bias in answering a question about family closeness. What adult today would say they are doing a worse job in creating family closeness than their parents did? Also, there is a memory issue here: how many current adults can accurately remember or assess the closeness of their family when they were younger? Their current family status is much more immediate.

2. I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned in the article: it is relatively easier to communicate in families with the advent of email, cell phones, and text messages. However, I wonder if these easier methods of connection mean that people are confusing connected with closeness or if they are indeed one and the same.

Even if loyalty isn’t truly up compared to the “golden era” decades ago (at least in our popular culture we have this image of an era where the nuclear family never let each other down), the perception that loyalty is more important or stronger matters. This is an expectation that many people will bring to relationships and affect their actions.

(A side note: Wilcox and Coontz get interviewed for a ridiculous number of news stories about family life and marriage.)

Perceptions of crime even as the top 15 most common causes of death no longer includes homicide

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I’ve noted before (see here and here) that perceptions of crime do not match the actual falling numbers. Here is more good news on the crime front: homicide has dropped off the list of the United State’s top 15 causes of death.

For the first time in almost half a century, homicide has fallen off the list of the nation’s top 15 causes of death, bumped by a lung illness that often develops in elderly people who have choked on their food.

The 2010 list, released by the government Wednesday, reflects at least two major trends: Murders are down, and deaths from certain diseases are on the rise as the population ages, health authorities said…

This is the first time since 1965 that homicide failed to make the list, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

Murders have been declining nationally since 2006, according to FBI statistics. Falling homicide rates have been celebrated in several major cities, including New York City, Detroit and Washington.

To play a contrarian for a moment, perhaps things still aren’t great: there are still a lot of murders happening (there were still just over 16,000 in 2010 and homicide is still #16 on the list); perhaps the drop homicide from this list is more of a function of other diseases claiming more lives; and perhaps we wouldn’t usually think of murder as being a top killer (it is far away from the figures for heart disease and malignant neoplasms).

At the same time, this is good news as the number of murders dropped. Yet, Americans might perceive that they are more at risk from violent attacks than some of the leading causes of death. While the media might report on the drop in violent crime, the overall story still seems to be that crime happens frequently and could happen to you.

h/t Instapundit

When Aon leaves for London, is Chicago still a world class city?

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With the news this week that Aon Corp. is moving its headquarters from Chicago to London, a familiar question arises: will Chicago take a hit to its image as a world class city?

“It is appropriate to ask that question, not as a general hand-wringing kind of thing, but in the classic 120-year or more tradition of Chicago,” said urban strategist Paul O’Connor, a former deputy director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development who was founding executive director of the 13-year-old World Business Chicago.

“You do have a special case here in Chicago insofar as the business leadership has for at least 120 years been intimately involved in the strategic growth and development of the city as an international center,” O’Connor said. “This is a phenomenon you don’t find historically in any other big American city. So the capabilities of the leadership of Chicago business to affect long-term outcomes of global competitiveness and whether this remains an easy place to attract the top level of talent, that’s the core issue.”…

“There are underpinnings that matter,” O’Connor, now with architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, said from China, where he’s working on a project. “You look through the board of Aon. These people were like the college of cardinals of Chicago boosters. So if you’ve got a good explanation that you can pick up (more money) by doing this, great. But if those college of cardinals of Chicago boosters don’t stay on it and make sure that you are a competitive business environment, then things do erode. … You’ve got to stay hungry.”…

“The thing you have to look out for is that you don’t slip (as a city in the world’s eyes),” O’Connor said. “That’s why everybody should be saying the rosary to make sure everything goes nicely at the NATO/G-8 (meetings set to bring international leaders and protesters to Chicago in May), so you don’t send bad messages. On the one hand, you have reality, which really matters. On the other, you have perception, which also matters, but I’d rather have reality over perception.”

The issue here seems to be perceptions, not the reality that Chicago still contains a number of headquarters. The reality is that Chicago truly is a world-class city – one 2010 ranking had Chicago at #6 in the world. The moves of highly visible companies might be problematic for politicians who have to create and defend a record on jobs but Aon moving to London will not knock down Chicago a notch unless multiple companies follow suit.

At the same time, perceptions are important. Maybe the better question to ask here is why Chicago needs to keep reaffirming its status as an important city. Perhaps it goes back to that “Second City” nickname that put Chicago behind New York but is also a reminder that Los Angeles has zoomed ahead in population (and status?) as well. Perhaps it is because Chicago knows it is part of the Rust Belt and has been a rare city that has been successful despite the loss of many manufacturing jobs. In the end, why doesn’t have Chicago have more confidence in its standing? The nervousness might motivate Chicago to pursue greater things but it also looks silly at times.

My verdict: Chicago will be fine. That doesn’t mean the city shouldn’t continue to try to woo new corporations or help encourage new start-ups. At the same time, Chicago should operate from a position of strength, selling the better aspects of Chicago, rather than a posture of weakness where any move might topple Chicago from the circle of great cities.

Is feminism over?

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A short piece in USA Today suggests many young women today don’t want to be labeled as feminists:

The feminist has been portrayed as a woman who was “unhappy, angry, humorless and didn’t shave any part of her body,” says Terry O’Neill, national president of the National Organization for Women, which this weekend marks its founding 45 years ago with an event at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.

The stereotype, she adds, “became very powerful.” And it’s hard to get past for many young women today…

Sociologist Michael Kimmel of Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, N.Y., finds that reaction widespread. “Most of my women students have said ‘Feminism was your generation’s issue and we won. We can now do anything we want,'” he says…

Wendy Brandon, an associate professor of education and women’s studies at Rollins, says the women’s movement has evolved to focus more on what’s termed the “intersectionality” of gender, race, class and sexual orientation.

Quick thoughts:

1. We need more data on this. This article has completely anecdotal evidence.At the same time, I’ve heard similar responses from my students.

1a. I easily found a 2002 report from Gallup on the issue. As of 2001, 25% of women considered themselves feminists. This was down from 31% in 1991. This suggests that the term has been on a decline for a while. Or perhaps many women were never willing to call themselves feminists?

1b. However, the data also suggests that when asked about specific issues (pay, etc.), more people say work still needs to be done. So the label is more of the issue, not the issues raised.

2. If the label itself is a problem (similar to the connotations with the descriptor “liberal”?), why not look for a new term? Or run advertising campaigns to change the image of the term?

3. How much have arguments within the feminist itself hampered their efforts?

It is the best of times for teaching sociology and the worst of times for America

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A minister and adjunct instructor of sociology raises an intriguing question: when times are good for teaching sociology, it may be bad times for society.

This is a great time for teaching sociology, which means it is a bad time.

The study of sociology was born of the Industrial Revolution when the gap between the rich and the poor became the greatest ever known. The two groups which I straddle; the religious community and the academic community, became interested and attempted to study social phenomenon with a scientific approach, replacing social myths with evidence and facts.

Somehow we have managed to return statistically to that time. In our country, the wealthiest one percent of the population own 33 percent of the wealth and the wealthiest 10 percent own 70 percent of “our” wealth. It seems we have returned to the ruling class mode of the 19th century in Russia and France—a time when America was awash with “robber barons.”

No wonder folks are taking to the streets.

I wonder if anyone has researched the relationship between the popularity and of sociology compared to the historical milieu. Sociology did emerge out of turbulent times in the mid 1800s but it also seemed to reach peaks in the United States in the prosperous 1920s (the Chicago School) and the 1960s and 1970s while there was both unrest and prosperity. Might this suggest that when academia thrives, i.e. student populations are increasing as well as budgets, sociology (and perhaps other disciplines) thrive? At the very least, we could look at how figures of undergraduate  majors and student enrolled in sociology graduate programs over the years. Perhaps there simply wouldn’t be many dips in the data as sociology programs expand over time and spread into more schools.

Probably the better argument to make here is that sociology appears more relevant in unsettled times. As society dips toward troubles and chaos, people want answers and explanations. Additionally, perceptions of social problems might be more important here than the scale of actual problems. However, I wonder if this tends to give sociology a bad name as people then equate it only with social problems rather than solutions and thriving societies.

Space for sociological factors when looking at scientific research

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I ran into this blog post discussing a recent study published in Hormones and Behavior titled “Maternal tendencies in women are associated with estrogen levels and facial femininity.” This particular blogger at Scientific American starts out by suggesting she doesn’t like the results:

Friend of the blog Cackle of Rad was the first person to send me this paper, and when I first tried to read it, I got…pretty angry. Being a rather obsessively logical person, I know why I felt angry about this paper, and I worked very hard to step back from it and approach it in a thoroughly scientific manner.

It didn’t work, I called in Kate. That helped a little.

In the end, it’s not a bad paper. The data are the data, as my graduate advisor always says. But data need to be interpreted, and interpretations require context. And I think what’s missing from this paper is not data or adequate methods. It’s context.

In the end, the blogger suggests the “context” needed really are a number of sociological factors that might influence perceptions:

So I wonder if the authors should make more effort to look into sociological factors. How does the intense pressure on women to become wives and mothers change as a function of how feminine the girl looks? I think you can’t separate any of this from this whole “women with higher estrogen want to be mothers” idea. This is why papers like this bug me, because they try to sell this as a evolutionary thing, without really acknowledging how much sociological pressure goes in to making women want to be mothers. And of course now I read them and I instantly get bristly, because what I see is people making assumptions about what I want, and what I must feel like, based on a few aspects of my physiology. It can be of value scientifically…but I don’t want it to apply to ME. I know it might be science, but I also find it more than a bit insulting.

I don’t know this area of research so I don’t have much room to dispute the results of the original study. However, how this blogger goes about this argument for adding sociological factors is interesting. Here are two possible options for making this argument:

1. Argument #1: the study actually could benefit from sociological factors. Definitions of femininity are wrapped up in cultural assumptions and patterns. There is a lot of research to back this up and perhaps we can point to specific parts of this study that would be altered if context was taken into account. But this doesn’t seem to be conclusion of this blog post.

2. Argument #2: there must be some sociological factors involved here because I don’t like these results. On one hand, perhaps it is admirable to admit one doesn’t like these research results. This can often be true about scientific results: it challenges our personal understandings of the world. So why end the post by again emphasizing that the blogger doesn’t like the results? Does this simply reduce sociology to the backup science that one only calls in to suggest that everything is cultural or relative or socially conditioned?

Perhaps I am simply reading too much into this. I don’t know how much natural science research could be improved by including sociological factors, whether it is often considered, or whether this is simply an unusual blog post. Argument #1 is the stronger scientific argument and is the one that should be emphasized more here.

Syllabus bloat: the ever-lengthening college syllabus

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A professor discusses the reasons why college syllabi keep getting bigger:

Nowadays my course syllabi tend to run to many pages and always include a punctilious day-by-day calendar of the semester stipulating, for example, precisely which pages in what book students need to have read for class.  My instructions to students concerning formal written work have also become replete with prescription in a way that I would not have thought necessary even ten years ago.  Colleagues concur that instructors at the state-college level can take little or nothing for granted about student preparedness and that everything, absolutely everything, must be spelled out in advance.  Without abundant guidance and prescription, students complain of being lost, as perhaps they are, or of “not understanding what the professor wants,” as is perhaps the case…

First-year college students have a drastically diminished vision of what higher education portends for them.  The idea of discipline that enabled my UCLA instructors to assume procedural competency in their students, and that enabled most students to acquit themselves during the term with only a minimal syllabus, no longer exists…

The enlargement of the syllabus also stems from the need to define, explain, and insofar as possible justify the course itself, something that no syllabus from my undergraduate career ever bothered to do.  The syllabus of my survey of ancient literature (“Western Heritage”) addresses the basic notion of historical indebtedness, the idea of continuity of insight, and of the dignity of knowledge as opposed to ignominy of ignorance.  The syllabus also addresses the difficulty of reading; it tells students that an epic poem by Homer or a philosophical dialogue by Plato is not like a TV drama or a movie, in which in the first few minutes, one can predict the remainder…

Some of this effort—and much of the hypertrophied syllabus—is precautionary. It is precautionary on behalf of students, who, from day one, will know in advance every requirement and assignment of the course. It is also precautionary on behalf of the syllabus-writer, who seeks protection from petulant students claiming they never knew the schedule or failed to receive procedural knowledge concerning the semester.  Syllabus in hand, no one can plead ignorance.

The general idea is this: today’s college students need college explained to them, point by point. This could quickly turn into a generational argument that is bigger than just college classes: the role of college has changed from a place of learning to four years of job training. Society, and consequentially, college students simply don’t know what college is about when they should and professors have to do the extra work to explain it. This could also be tied to the issue that a number of college students are not ready to do college-level work.

There may be some truth to this but, as the article hints at, there could be good reasons to have longer syllabi:

1. Expectations are made clear from the beginning. This could cut down student’s anxiety as there is less “guesswork” involved. If a relatively short document (compared to books/journal articles) can help eliminate ignorance, why not?

2. Why not have a short part of the syllabus that explains what the class is about? Certain subjects, like sociology, are relatively unknown and a one or two paragraph introduction can give students a engaging foundation.

3. I like having the day-to-day calendar for myself so why not provide it for the students as well? Perhaps this is just because I like to be organized.

4. I wonder if a detailed and longer syllabi just by its thoroughness conveys to students the importance of the task. Some students may groan at seeing how much there is to read but others will feel the gravity.

We could transfer these ideas to another context: would many employees find it acceptable if they came to work each day with little idea of what to expect? On one hand, we should promote internal motivation but some structure is helpful. We can rue the loss of “gravity” and “mystery” that students have or feel regarding college or we can try to convey these ideas in our syllabi and what we say and do in the classroom.

h/t Instapundit

American politicians push small town values in a suburban country

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America is a suburban nation: more than 50% live in the suburbs, roughly 30% live in cities, and about 20% live in small towns or rural communities. Despite these demographics, this article suggests that politicians still frequently draw on the idea of small town values:

American politics may live in the cities and suburbs — but it dreams in small towns.

More than a century after the American people migrated from the farms to the cities and then to the suburbs, the image of small-town America endures as the birthplace of solid character and sound values. In the gauzy image of politics, as in popular culture dating back more than a century, small-town America is a place where the people go to church, work hard and help one another in ways unknown in the cities and suburbs of America…

Still, politicians love to wrap themselves in the sentimental image.

“The people still have the same spirit in Waterloo that Iowans have always come to exemplify. We work hard. We don’t spend more money than what we take in,” Bachmann said in Waterloo, where she was born.

Perry wears his childhood in Paint Creek, Texas, as a badge of honor. “Doesn’t have a zip code. It’s too small to be called a town,” he said during a recent visit to Waterloo. “What I learned growing up on the farm was a way of life that was centered on hard work, and on faith and on thrift.”

Obama can’t claim a childhood in a small town — he was born in Honolulu. But he, too, reveled in small-town values during his recent Midwest bus tour.

So while Americans may no longer live in small towns, they want to hold on to particular characteristics such as hard work, community, and religious values. These are symbolic values, perhaps even more so than actual actions that people carry out. (There is often a disconnect between what people say they believe and what they actually do.) And, of course, people may want to hold on to these values but they don’t necessarily want to live in the places where these values arose.

This reminds me of a theory I have had about the popularity of American suburbs: they are a uniquely American adaptation that combines some of city and rural life. This is about perceptions. On the rural side, suburbs still offer lawns, single-family homes, good schools, safety, and community life. On the city side, suburbs have easier access to the city, more cultural amenities, more jobs, are more open-minded, and more opportunities over all. Suburbs don’t really offer the best of either of these worlds but offer some of both, allowing Americans to straddle these two worlds.

A question: how difficult is it for Americans to elect urban politicians to higher office (particularly compared to more rural candidates), candidates who would portray themselves solely as a city dweller and act like city dwellers? Perhaps Barack Obama is the closest we have come to this but because of political realities has primarily tried to appeal to working and middle-class suburbanites who may just swing the election.

Should you worry about your pacemaker, baby monitor, or garage door opener being hacked?

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I ran across a story about five common objects that can be hacked: a pacemaker, baby monitor, automobile, garage door opener, and brain.

Here is my problem with this story: it doesn’t give you any indication about how serious these problems are. Perhaps this is simply meant to be informational: certain common devices can be hacked. But the tone of the article goes beyond this and suggests that mischief can take place and people should replace older items that are easier to be hacked. Here is the question that really should be asked: how likely is it that any of these items will be hacked? Should people with pacemakers really be worried? What is the relative risk of paying less for an unencrypted baby monitor?

Without this information, this article fits a similar narrative of crime stories where readers assume or develop the idea that these are common occurrences when they really are not.