rural/urban

I am always suspicious of invocations of the phrase “human nature.”  It is not necessarily because I think there is no such thing, it’s simply that it is typically invoked with little consideration of the vastly diverse physical, cultural, and physical-cultural contexts in which human beings find themselves, and have found themselves.  This 3 1/2 minute introduction to a BBC special, Human Planet, sent in by (my mom) Kay West, illustrates some of this diversity.  While I’m a little anxious about the exotification that the clip might include (especially of “the primitive”), I still think it does a wonderful job of hinting at the wildly different contexts in which humans live:

Also, this (Gwen, do not watch!):

Found at Blame it on the Voices.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Today marks what would have been César Chávez’s 84th birthday.  Chávez was born in 1927 to Mexican American farmers in Arizona.   Here he is, right, at age six with his sister:

When he was about 11, his family lost their farm in the Great Depression and they turned to migrant farm work.   In 1962 he and Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the United Farm Workers).  His success in organizing farm workers, raising awareness of the conditions of their work, and raising support for their cause is one of the most inspiring stories of collective action in American history.  Read more about Chávez here.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The blog-o-sphere is abuzz with praise for Vivian Maier’s mid-century photographs of public New York and Chicago life.   The photos were taken by a live-in nanny working for wealthy families in Chicago’s north shore.  Her photos, over 100,000 of them, were discovered after her death two years ago.  To my untrained eye, they are gorgeous, interesting, and well-composed.  A fascinating look at another time.  More sociologically, they gracefully depict differences in socioeconomic class. I wonder if Maier, working-class herself, had a special sensitivity to these divides. In any case, I appreciate the texture that the photographs add to an understanding of how people of different classes lived.

Visit the website devoted to Maier here.  Photos borrowed from there and Chicago Magazine.  Via Crooked Timber.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The term “food desert” was coined to draw attention to the fact that some people live far from a source of healthy, affordable food.  For these people, compared to those with easier access, consistently eating fresh fruit and vegetables and avoiding convenience store and restaurant food is more difficult.  Food deserts are more often found in poor neighborhoods, which is part of why the poor are more likely than people of other socioeconomic classes to be overweight and obese.

Over 2 percent of U.S. households, 2.3 million, live at least one mile from a grocery store and do not have a car (USDA).  The map below depicts the percent of such households by county.  In the darkest counties, over 10 percent of the households are isolated in a food desert:

See also Satter’s Hierarchy of Food Needs and the Last Sideshow Fat Man.

Via Slate.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Well, it’s 2011. Sometime this year, the global population will pass the 7 billion mark. Jessica B. sent in this video, from National Geographic, that puts that into some perspective, showing the rapid increase in the pace of population growth over time:

In this six-minute video from the New York Times, past residents and developers describe how Times Square was transformed from “the sleaziest block in America” to the corporate palace that it is today.  Thanks to Dmitriy T.M. for the submission!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

After Gwen posted her fascinating discussion of the way that people who are reliant on public transportation are inconvenienced or isolated (based on photos sent in by Lynne Shapiro), David F. sent a link to an article in The Columbus Dispatch about the public transportation in downtown Columbus.   Downtown developers, it reports, oppose a plan by the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) to build a transfer station.  The reporter writes:

Downtown developers have complained that COTA passengers waiting for transfers near Broad and High streets, and buses lining the curbs make the area less attractive for retail stores and their customers.

Translation: no one wants to see buses and the people who ride them.

Because, you see, when the buses stop there, those kind of people are there waiting for the bus:

(Image at Google)

One of these developers, Cleve Ricksecker, explains:

Transit-dependent riders who are going through Downtown, for whatever reason, don’t shop… Large numbers of people waiting for a transfer can be intimidating for someone walking down the sidewalk.

Translation: People who buy things want to be protected from knowing about and interacting with people who are too poor to buy things.

Much better to make life more difficult for people who ride the bus.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Dmitriy T.M. and Jeff H. sent in a link to Mapping the Measure of America, a website by the Social Science Research Council that provides an amazing amount of information about various measures of economic/human development in the U.S. Here’s a map showing median personal (not household) earnings in 2009:

The District of Columbia has the highest, at $40,342; the lowest is Arkansas, at $23,470 (if you go to their website, you can scroll over the bars on the left and it will list each state and its median income, or you can hover over a state).

You can break the data down by race and sex as well. Here’s median personal income for Native American women, specifically (apparently there is only sufficient data to report for a few states):

Native American women’s highest median income, in Washington ($22,181), is  lower than the overall median income in Arkansas, which is the lowest in the U.S. as we saw above.

Here is the percent of children under age 6 who live below the poverty line (for all races):

Life expectancy at birth differs by nearly 7 years between the lowest — 74.81 years in Mississippi — to the highest — 81.48 years in Hawaii:

It’s significantly lower for African American men, however, with a life expectancy of only 66.22 years in D.C. (again, several states had insufficient data):

The site has more information than I could ever fully discuss here (including crime rates, various health indicators, all types of educational attainment measures, commuting time, political participation, sex of elected officials, environmental pollutants, and on and on), and it’s fairly addictive searching different topics, looking data up by zip code to get an overview of a particular area, and so on. Have fun!