Archive: Jan 2019

CityLab has posted a new article with several maps about how Americans commute to work. There is sociological variation in the data. For instance, “(e)ducation is [a] piece in the picture of how Americans get to work. People are less likely to drive to work alone and to use alternate modes in metros where more adults are college graduates…. The same basic pattern holds for class. Across metros, the share of workers who are members of the knowledge-based creative class is positively associated with using transit (0.56), biking (0.62), or walking (0.56) to get to work, as well as working from home (0.50), and it is negatively associated with driving alone to work (-0.44), and the same holds for the local concentration of high-tech industry jobs. But the reverse is true for the working class. Across metros, a higher concentration of working-class jobs is positively associated with driving alone to work (0.36) and negatively associated with using transit (-0.48), biking (-0.39), and walking to work (0.32).”

The article concludes with “[w]e are cleaving into two nations—one where people’s daily lives revolve around the car, and the other where the car is receding in favor of alternative modes like walking, biking, and transit. Little wonder that bike lanes have emerged as a symbol of gentrification and ‘the war on cars’ has become a way to call out the so-called urban elite.”

Last year I posted a note about efforts by the social networking site Nextdoor.com to combat racial profiling. The site also tries to deal with other instances of incivility. For example, I recently came across a newspaper article about Nextdoor’s role in the San Francisco Bay Area housing debate: neighbors use the site to attack each other. I’ll have to search for social science research on this topic.

 

In early January Lake Superior State University provides a list of words and phrases to banish in the new year. Wayne State University also releases a list about word usage, but its “word warriors” project encourages the increased use of words that better convey meaning and promote good communication. 2019 lists of words/phrases to banish and words to use more frequently have been released. The most intriguing on the increased usage list is “anechdoche,” a conversation in which everyone is talking, but no one is listening. Sadly, that is too common these days.

CityLab is one of my favorite websites. It is “dedicated to the people who are creating the cities of the future—and those who want to live there. Through sharp analysis, original reporting, and visual storytelling, [CityLab] focuses on the biggest ideas and most pressing issues facing the world’s metro areas and neighborhoods.” They recently published their 2018 year in review. Contents: