Urban Income Inequality

Cities attract a diverse population. Really, it’s this diversity that allows cities to be the engines of innovations and cultural progress. However, one stark effect of housing different populations in the same area is the gap between those with means and those without. A recent report by the Brookings Institution, summarized in a New York Times article, expands on how this income inequality comes about and where it is trending. The conclusion is that cities with high per-capita income—what the New York Times’ author calls “thriving”—are also the ones with the most pronounced income inequality. Midwestern and Southern cities with less booming economies show lower income inequality.

Why is that?

My first reaction is: Obviously! Income inequality is the gap between the poorest and the richest. (In fact, the Brookings study notes they use a common—but not the only—measure, which is the income ratio of the 95^th percentile to the 20^th percentile of earners). Big cities, attracting both high-wage industries like finance and technology, and with high costs of living, are far more likely to have big earners than smaller Midwestern cities. And that, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. The economy is not zero-sum game.

However, the Brookings study points out the issues that will plague cities with a large gap: a narrow tax base, and issues making housing affordable for all residents. Perhaps one of the most important for a city’s future, a city with high income inequality will “struggle to maintain mixed-income school environments,” limiting the opportunity of lower-income students. And its these cycles of poverty and limited opportunities that exacerbate inequality issues generation after generation.

In fact, those issues bring up an entirely different consideration. A city with lower income inequality may simply be excluding the poorest families who cannot even afford to reside in the city limits. Without adequate housing options, and decent schools, cities will push many people out to suburbs or exurbs. This will leave only those willing to pay premium rents and private school tuition and obscure the measure of income inequality.

So, is income inequality being driven by the rich getting richer or the poor getting poorer? Like everything in life, it's both.

Compared with the U.S. average, the 50 biggest cities have the bottom 20^th percentile of households earning 10% less. That drops their income from $20,968 to $18,137. And cities are typically more expensive to live in than outlying areas, so that reduced income may in fact represent even less purchasing power. The 95^th percentile of households earns about $5,000 more in big cities than the U.S. average. However, that’s an increase of only about 2.5%. So both upward trends by the rich and downward trends by the poor contribute to income inequality in big cities. But that 10% drop is much more significant when you start off at only $20k.

For your reference: the three cities with the lowest 20^th percentile incomes: Miami at $10,438, Cleveland at $9,432 and Detroit at $9,083. The three cities with the highest 95^th percentile incomes: Atlanta at $279,827, D.C. at $290,637 and San Francisco at $353,576. I’m very happy for those doing well, wherever they live. But I am distraught and taken aback that we host cities where one in five households make $10k or less.

So what do we do about income inequality? Can the mayors who have signed on to tackle it accomplish their goals through smart urban planning? The optimist in me certainly hopes so.

Educational opportunities can go a long way toward breaking cycles of poverty. But even if smart, effective and radical policies are pushed through immediately, we’re talking about 15 or 20 years before we see long-term effects.

Housing takes up a much larger share of income than it used to, and in many cities is a force driving people out of city limits. Although I have a lot left to learn about truly effective urban planning—an amateur interest I have—housing would seem like a good place to begin. Although policies like rent control and public housing rarely work as intended, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are new innovations in developing housing that works for both mixed- and low-income populations. Now is a good time to push forward with those ideas. 

Labeling GMOs

Labeling of GMOs is a contentious topic that has no doubt crossed your radar. It’s certainly beyond the scope of a single blog post. But I wanted to respond briefly to an article I saw recently in NPR’s food blog, The Salt. The article describes how food manufacturers, led by the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association, are proposing a voluntary labeling standard to the FDA. The catch? In addition to having labeling of GMOs be voluntary (as it currently is in the United States), it proposes to prevent states from issuing their own regulations.

I do not think that labeling GMOs is a useful exercise. Generally, we want to put labels on foods that provide useful information to consumers about the health and contents of the food. I am of the opinion that labeling something as containing GMOs is not providing information about the health of the food nor meaningful information to separate it from non-GMO food. There are no substantial health concerns over genetically modified foods simply because they have been modified by genetic engineering. This is a stance supported by the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the European Commission and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

This is all besides the fact that there is effectively a labeling standard in the United States already. It’s called Organic. Foods labeled Organic cannot contain ingredients from genetically modified foods. If you are buying Organic food, it is GMO free. If you are buying any other processed food in the United States made with corn, soy or canola oil—in addition to animals fed these products—you are buying GM food. As of 2010, 85% of corn and 91% of soybeans planted in the U.S. were genetically modified. These are the major ingredients both in animal feed and processed foods that line the middle aisles of grocery stores. It includes the corn syrup that’s in everything, soy oil, and a bunch of those seemingly random ingredients like xanthan gum and dextrose. (Organic meat must come from animals fed Organic feed).

This does not include sweet corn. The corn and soy discussed here are “commodity” crops and not typically meant for direct food consumption.

All that said, I don’t really believe the food manufacturers when they complain about the costs of labeling. There is something to be said for the costs of keeping up with the sources of ingredients. But as I mentioned above, it’s pretty clear that if a major food company (think Kraft) is sourcing corn or soy from the United States, it is GMO.

I have two main concerns with the voluntary standards. First, they’re voluntary. Even coming from the position that GMO labeling does not provide particularly useful information, having an industry regulate itself is just a silly exercise. We all know they won’t. Conflict of interest and all that. 

Second, the idea of imposing a ban against state-specific labeling standards seems premature. Yes, the FDA requires nutritional labeling and states cannot override that. And yes, it would actually be costly to coordinate fifty different labeling standards. But one of the great things about the United States is the federalist system that gives states a significant amount of autonomy. That means states can choose to test new ideas and new regulations. It means that marriage rights are extended to gay citizens much sooner than if the House and Senate had to decide on it. And it means that sometimes states go too far and over-regulate. Or list every damn thing as known-to-the-State-of-California-to-cause-cancer. That’s the price we pay for governmental innovation and trial-and-error.

If people decide they want to label GMOs, do it right. Voluntary standards won’t get you anywhere. Most of the time, I think that labeling GMOs would push the debate in a different direction. I wish it wouldn't come as such a big surprise, but I think a lot of people would be shocked to know they've been eating GMOs for a while now. In the United States, GMOs are just food. And the cotton in your shirts. Almost every Hawaiian papaya. The chicken and beef and bacon you eat. The oil you splash in your pan. Maybe people would see that it’s not as fundamental a shift as it is often portrayed. 

FDA labeling standards

FDA on genetically modified food

The Importance of Narrative

Reading the outstanding Atlantic magazine recently, I came across an article by James Fallows that focused on the revival efforts of small cities. Although Fallows had a number of take-home points and examples, I honed in on one that rang true to me: the stories we tell ourselves matter. These stories matter for our own lives. New psychological approaches highlight how important autobiographical narratives are for shaping our personalities—even that these narratives are our personality.

Well take that to the community level, then. The narratives that we form as neighbors, neighborhoods, as cities, they all come together to actually define the personality of an urban area. And that means that a good story, a powerful narrative of progress and potential, can be self-fulfilling.

I think these are good lessons to keep in mind for any urban area. But perhaps it’s most important for those struggling to redefine their place in the new century and to cope with legacy challenges.

Fallows was visiting Eastport, Maine, a town of only 1500. He describes the people as “telling their own success story, as part of willing it to come true.” The residents were engaged throughout the town—the newspaper editor pulls tickets at the play—and defined largely by their optimism and the drive to achieve their goals.

Importantly, the town is moving forward, not longing for the good ol’ days. Although they are continuing to use their natural strengths and resources, like a deep harbor, the residents are moving with the economic tide as well. Farmed salmon are replacing overfished stocks. The European demand for low-carbon fuels is driving a huge export in natural charcoal. New technologies allow Eastport to capture energy from the daily tides in and out of the harbor. They are a port town, and that will never change. But the residents have found ways to capitalize on those resources in innovative ways.

Fallows returns to this point about narrative. The cynic could ask: Can it possibly matter? With ever-increasing globalization, even local economies are largely defined by supply and demand around the world. Cities rise and fall and that cannot be stopped by a cheerful smile. Of course, that’s all true.

However, Fallows writes, “the story [Eastport] is telling itself, that it is poised for success, makes that success more likely.” The narrative shapes the character of the town even before the ending is known. “This faith also improves life today, no matter where it leads, or doesn’t, tomorrow.” Would you rather live in a dreary city that is hopelessly losing itself to uncontrollable economic forces? Or a scrappy town, pushing innovative ways to move forward in the 21^st century. I know I’d chose the latter.

Even the cynic would have a hard time arguing with Fallows: “In practical terms, a belief that you can shape your fate is more useful than a belief that you cannot.” Let’s tell ourselves the good story. Let’s expound our optimistic, but grounded, narrative of improvement. Let’s make today better, and tomorrow’s improvement more likely. Stories matter. They matter to us, and to our cities. Might as well choose the one with a happy ending.

The Apotheosis of St. Louis

I spent the last few days proselytizing for St. Louis to the prospective graduate students interviewing at Washington University. Our program in plant biology is top notch, but sometimes our location in the Midwest, and in St. Louis in particular, weakens our offer to recruits. Not surprisingly, I’m an advocate for the character of St. Louis that I feel shines through after just a modicum of time spent looking. The old French parts of town. The separate neighborhoods that together make a community. The brick. The beer. Oh the beer! St. Louis turns 250 this year and in honor of that milestone and to solidify my arguments for STL I want to discuss the city’s strong qualities, its faults, and where I hope to see it go in the future.

Like any city, St. Louis is really comprised of a series of sometimes-distinct, sometimes-overlapping neighborhoods. And, like any city, this provides strength through diversity, but also a sense of isolation for particular neighborhoods that are trapped by blight. St. Louis is a relatively old city in the American interior, and the French roots that define our founding anchor the city in traditions and culture that enrich it. The farther east you go toward the Mississippi, the more apparent these French roots are in the architecture and culture.

Traveling west moves you forward in time. Through the Louisiana Purchase to Victorian era architecture and the 1904 World’s Fair that formed Forest Park and the final neighborhoods within the city limits. This geography-time link provides ample history to explore; all you have to do is point yourself in a direction and bring a sense of curiosity.

I feel that the neighborhood divisions make it easy to explore the richness and diversity of St. Louis. When you move to a new city, grappling with the new culture and finding the best places is a daunting task. But once you have a feel for the layout of the neighborhoods, the prospect of exploration becomes manageable. Feel like Italian food? Hit up The Hill. Bar hopping on brick-paved streets? Head to Soulard. St. Louis is a surprisingly bike-friendly city as well. If you make it to the middle of the city, you’ll find yourself about a 15 minute bike ride from everywhere.

What else sets St. Louis apart? Excellent public transportation. A surprising abundance of urban community gardens. A craft beer culture that rivals larger beer cities. A Midwestern sense of friendliness that builds communities. And the Cardinals.

St. Louis has to grapple with enormous challenges too. The population of the city declined again from 2000 to 2010, even though the Downtown population continued to grow at a strong clip. There is pervasive racial and socioeconomic segregation. Barely-accredited public schools limit the city population’s opportunities and push those with means out to the suburbs. The relationship between the City of St. Louis and its suburbs is another obstacle facing the region.

In 1876, the city of St. Louis voted to emancipate itself from the surrounding county and form an independent city. The city residents wanted to keep the county from siphoning tax revenue away from the urban core. 

The legacy of that decision remains today. The county is comprised of dozens of small “cities” each with their own municipal services, while the city suffers for lack of funds. Proposals to reunite the communities have been put forward for years, but have gone nowhere. This leaves the county municipalities needlessly duplicating services and keeps major sources of tax revenue potentially out of city coffers. Perhaps more importantly, it divides the region into city-versus-county debates that fragment the population.

To move forward and prosper in the 21^st century, St. Louis has to address—at least—three major challenges: reunification of city and county, attracting young people, and reducing segregation.

Reunification will produce a region united in recruiting new businesses (instead of a competing with neighbors through tax incentives). City and county residents will have the incentive to plan for the future of the region rather than just focusing on their neighborhood. Although I am a proud resident of the City and a proponent for the benefits of an urban experience, I support reunification to unite these communities in moving forward.

Just like our graduate program, St. Louis needs to attract and hold on to the young people who will move into—and stay in—the city and boost the economy. St. Louis hosts a burgeoning technology hub that is poised to attract the kind of talent looking for alternatives to Silicon Valley. Our cost of living is very modest. We claim a number of top universities and companies that already attract bright and talented people who are starting their education and careers.

St. Louis can hold on to this population by developing communities that support a work-life balance. That means being able to commute without a car and walk to find daily necessities. It means developing communities around common spaces and common interests. Perhaps most importantly, it means having good school options so that the brightest people who come to live and work in St. Louis don’t bolt for the county as soon as kindergarten rolls around.

Finally, the segregation that divides North and South City (and other areas as well) really limits the potential of St. Louis. Unfortunately, this is a topic about which I need to learn a lot more. I am not an economist, nor a sociologist, nor an urban planner. But I know that the Delmar Divide has been profiled on a British news show, and that’s not a good claim to fame. Improving schools, improving economic opportunities, and distributing the growth of the region evenly will move the region forward as a whole. This challenge is perhaps the greatest one, and undoubtedly will require creative solutions addressing many problems from multiple angles.

St. Louis probably won’t be my home forever. I want to see so many other places in this country (and maybe even a few outside of it) that I doubt I will remain in STL for more than a handful of years. However, I have adopted St. Louis very quickly as my home. We fit together. I always tell my friends that I thought I liked Cleveland (and I did!) until I came to St. Louis. I want to see the city grow and thrive. And I want to see people—especially my generation—give St. Louis a chance to make them feel at home as well. 

The Apotheosis of St. Louis

The Changing and Static Nature of GMO Coverage

Over the last couple of years, I have noticed two simultaneous trends about media coverage of GMOs. First, a larger proportion of GMO stories highlight and dispute popular myths surrounding GMOs. Second, the comments on these articles and reasons given to be skeptical or wary of GMOs have not appreciably changed.

A recent New York Times article covered a Hawaiian County Councilman’s decision over a vote to ban GMOs on the big island of Hawaii. Although it was oddly somewhat child-like in its presentation of the process (Claim A is brought up. Claim A is disputed. Claim B is considered. Claim B is disregarded…) the tone of the piece was clearly intended to highlight the value of scientific skepticism. That the councilman, Greggor Ilagan, voted against the ban because it was founded on specious arguments portrayed him as a free thinker among a populism-driven council. Naturally, his side lost and the ban was put into effect.

Many of the comments on the NYTimes article mirrored those of the supporters who attended the council hearings in Hawaii. A minority defend GMOs as safe and useful tools. The majority, however, assert their beliefs that GMOs harm their health or their environment.  Anti-GMO positions usually fall into a few categories: Concerns over the health and safety of eating GMOs. Skepticism of biotech companies (read: Monsanto). Ecological concerns. The benefits of alternative agricultural practices. I hope to spend time with each of these topics over the coming weeks and months. Most are blown out of proportion; many are unfounded. Some, however, do come down to personal stance and belief.

The recent changes in GMO coverage appear to stem from a desire by news organizations to avoid false balance. The standard journalistic practice of neutrally informing the public of both sides of an argument is only valid when there are two even sides. When consensus has yet to be reached. When opinions, morals, or ethics are at stake more than facts. The difficult part of covering GMOs as a topic is that this technology encompasses both broad scientific consensus about its safety and opinions about the proper use of GMOs in agriculture. (And that’s all before we get into misconceptions of the facts that influence people’s opinions.) It is difficult to adequately address these different aspects of the public debate surrounding GMOs because they really lie on different planes.

Plant scientists won’t rest easy until wishy-washy opinions stop influencing scientific policy. GMO skeptics won’t be satisfied as long as their opinions are tossed out even once the facts are agreed upon (which, by the way, rarely happens).

New technologies are messy. My view is that a technological advance is neutral. Our applications of a new technology can be positive or negative. We can split the atom and incinerate cities or fuel them. GMOs have been used fairly conservatively thus far and yet through a combination of pretty terrible PR from biotech companies, an anti-corporate mood throughout the country, and public skepticism driven partly by a false dichotomy between natural and artificial, they remain a pariah in the public eye. Hell, at the end of the day, some would-be opponents say it doesn't even matter. (But ssshhh, don’t tell the commenters that).

The debate surrounding GMOs has lately been described as the left’s own version of climate science denial. Sometimes I use that analogy when trying to drive home how one cannot rely on intuition when assessing a new technology. One has to seek out the facts. Certainly no political party is immune to anti-scientific bias and the progressive left has taken up anti-GMO stances for years now. There is no need to equate GMOs and climate change. But there are similarities in the process by which both global warming and agricultural GMOs are attacked. And process matters.

My own anecdotal contribution to this layman’s media coverage comes from Reddit. Reddit, popularly understood to be largely made up of young, white progressives from North America, has taken a rabid anti-GMO stance for years. (The voting system of Reddit allows one to determine which opinions are most popular, reddiquette be damned.) I've often joined these comment threads to defend the benefits of GMOs or point our popular misconceptions about the technology. Usually I am called out a shill for Monsanto. Lovely.

But over the last couple of years, the top comments have increasingly pointed out misconceptions, biases and untruths in the primary article. More reasonable discussions about the benefits and dangers of GMOs have, slowly, beaten out the vitriol. Perhaps the broader shifts in media coverage of GMOs are in fact slowly trickling through the internet and end up as slightly-more-nuanced discussions rather than ad hominem attacks. If only we could get On The Media to be as interested in this particular topic as they are in asserting that NPR isn't biased!

P.S. If Nathanael Johnson at Grist hadn't beaten me to it, a six month adventure of teasing apart the incredibly intricate issues surrounding GMOs would be right up my alley. I’m still catching up with the coverage, but what I've seen so far suggests it is well worth a read. Check it out.   

  

Urban, Part One: Urban Humanism

I am a city dweller. I am a proud resident of the City of St. Louis, and a defender of the promise and potential of American cities. There’s a complex story being told in magazines and blogs about the future of the City in this century. The story involves demographics, loosely defined generations, the aftermath of the Great Recession and much more besides. This is a story I hope to contribute to one piece at a time. So, in Part One, I’ll begin with a healthy dose of optimism—perhaps a touch of naivety—and apparently not-quite-coining a phrase that appears most popularly associated with an Italian artist. Without spelling it out until this article, I’ve lately been calling myself an Urban Humanist (mostly in my head to avoid difficult questions and funny looks). Here’s my first attempt at defining what Urban Humanism means to me. Okay, to avoid too much pretension, we’ll skip the capital letters.

Let’s start simple. “Urban” refers to cities, obviously. Here we run up against a difficult question already. What is a city? When I think and speak of cities I refer primarily to urban cores, although in the vernacular it could refer to the core plus inner- and maybe even outer-ring suburbs. City limits sometimes extend too far, and other times not far enough. The urban core is an interconnected commercial and residential mix, with a significant increase in population density over outlying suburbs. To me, the central identifier of a city is that it pushes a large mass of diverse people into a small space. Naturally, this defies strict definitions, but fortunately it’s a concept most people can intuit.

“Humanism” is a broad term that can refer to many different approaches to life, and has complex philosophical definitions. I am borrowing what I consider the ‘spirit’ of humanism, which, as Wikipedia so eloquently puts it, “emphasizes the value and agency of human beings.” ‘Agency’ is such a beautiful word. It conjures up free will, moral action and motivation, all wonderfully human qualities.

There is often an explicitly secular component to humanism that rejects religious doctrine and the supernatural. I mostly want to borrow from this secularism the general belief that, as humans, we have to rely on ourselves to fix the problems we make and improve our own condition. To me, humanism extols the virtue of community and individuality. It celebrates the human spirit, ingenuity and drive, while promoting honest and emotional connections between peers.

My urban humanism is focused on the ability of cities to bring diverse groups of people together in order to create a sense of purpose, community and individual opportunity. Urban humanism to me is the product of, among other things, the superlinear scaling of cities. That is, the sum of an urban core is greater than its parts. Literally. The innovation, ideas, productivity (and crime) all scale faster than population itself would predict. Double the population of an urban core, and GDP will more than double.

The proposed cause of urban superlinearity is the ability to form more social ties with a diverse group of people. The Brownian motion of urban life bumps you into individuals you would never have met otherwise. You can exchange ideas, business plans, information or just pleasantries with a wide range of people. And this is the fuel that drives innovation. These interactions—fleeting and long-lasting—are the raw material of humanity. Of progress.

Urban humanism is the doctrine that these interactions promote the value and agency of human beings. Urban humanism posits that urban living will improve our ability to solve problems facing city-dwellers and farmers alike. Denser populations lead to an exchange of ideas that will move humanity forward faster than isolated, sprawled-out communities will. Simultaneously, urban humanism defends the benefits of diverse experiences for personal fulfillment.

As of 2010, a majority of the world’s population lives incities. For the first time ever, humanity is, on average, urban. And this trend will continue. Barring catastrophe, human beings have now progressed beyond a largely rural existence. That means that our future is inextricably tied to how our cities evolve, how we shape them, and how we respond to urban life. I find that prospect absolutely thrilling! I will continue to explore the realities, opportunities and challenges of city living among other topics on this blog and I hope you join me for that trip.

Sanity in Science

Well in standard blogging style I’ve taken a break and intend to end that now.

In addition to the expected guilt, my motivation today comes from an article that caught my attention. It is written by a recently-tenured computer scientist at Harvard who writes about how she survived her tenure-track position by pretending it was a seven-year postdoc. Now, she writes this article as an associate professor with tenure. This is a different perspective than a faculty member who failed that test. However, she presents a compelling case for dealing professionally and psychologically with the rigors of a tenure-track life.

But her story also brings up larger questions, largely unaddressed in her own article, about the scientific profession. While I will comment on parts of her article, and I encourage you to read it, I want to focus on the items she left unsaid.

The essay begins by describing the challenges of the job. Talented scientists—the author’s friends—become miserable or opt out for fear of becoming miserable. After proving oneself for years getting a Ph.D. and then years more for a postdoctoral fellowship, a five to seven year tenure-track position seems masochistic. A researcher is likely to be in their mid-thirties by the time the position begins, perhaps with young children. (After all, while academic scientists are good at delayed gratification if anyone is, children can only come so late). In an unfortunate turn of phrase, this is what many researchers consider their first job. And it comes with a firm deadline that is easy to portray as an up-or-down vote: Are you a professional scientist worthy of tenure and a job, or a bum?

The author spells out several coping strategies she used. My favorite is the title: she considered this a seven-year postdoc position. On the bright side, few other jobs will guarantee you a seven year position at the end of which you either renew your contract, so to speak, or move on. I am sympathetic to this manner of thinking. When I was deciding to apply to graduate school, I considered instead becoming a laboratory technician for a year or two to really mull over the big question. Do I want to get a Ph.D.? But since I was not able to consider non-science jobs (verboten in the long science career) I thought I would get a job and a degree at the same time. Graduate school pays pretty well these days. And as long as I’m not a complete screw up, I have a job for five years right out of college in a tepid economy. Not bad.

So her redefining of the position helps dull the anxiety about the final decision. However, here is where I want to move beyond the article. She neglects to mention how failing to secure tenure is not merely a hit to the ego and being fired. It may well end one’s chances of managing one’s own lab in academia. The alternatives are: Try to get a tenure-track position at a lower tier school. Apply for teaching-only positions, which are notoriously low-paid, insecure and usually only a small part of what a talented researcher wants to do. Go to industry, where authority-adverse academics may not exactly thrive. Choose a new career in your early forties. Of course that’s an incomplete list. But failing to secure tenure is definitely a black mark on a scientist’s resume and complicates future high-powered job searches.

There are a couple other strategies worthy of noting. She worked “fixed hours and in fixed amounts.” The breakdown is there for you to read but it adds up to about fifty hours a week of work. Then of course her childcare and household duties, shared equally with her husband. Additionally, instead of cultivating influential friends who would help her win tenure, her work friends were those with whom she could talk openly and share ideas and feel comfortable.

I believe the author had a reasonable approach to her tenure-track position. She became a little Zen about the whole thing and made her research quality the product of a happy life and hard work. More successful researchers need to advocate for this approach. But at the same time, the fact that her strategies seem so novel is a comment on the unfortunate state of the scientific profession.

Despite reduced funding opportunities, graduate programs recruit and train far more graduate students than there are academic research positions. Yet most people earn a Ph.D. to remain in the field they love, academia. It’s not a perfect job, but there are serious perks to being an academic scientist. Yet while many other careers would naturally limit the training pipeline according to the demand for labor, academia seems a little stuck. The upshot is that there is fierce competition for the research jobs that are available. And competition is good. It drives innovation, which leads to novel discoveries and improvements for society. But it also drives good scientists away. It drives them toward industry (a fine choice, but a second choice for many academics), or away from research altogether. After all, being a workaholic does not necessarily correlate with being a good scientific thinker. But it is a necessary qualification for remaining in academic research.

I will end by saying: I am not entirely bearish on the future of science. Far from it, in fact. I believe that scientific funding can be increased again through the work of effective policy makers and scientist-lobbyists. The mismatch between the supply and demand of trained scientists will likely even out at some point. Academia moves slowly. I believe that by communicating with the society that supports our research, we can successfully advocate for putting a higher priority on basic science. That last part is key, in my opinion. Science does not operate in a vacuum and as long as we are supported by taxpayers it is both our duty and in our best interests to open up channels of communication with them. Doing so will likely bring additional support for the work that scientists do and that will lead to a healthier profession in the long run.

This article has inspired a slightly ranty day-in-the-life career track for scientists. I don’t feel in the mood to publish a more negative stance at the moment but I think I will return to the idea for a future post. Non-scientists are usually only presented with successful professors as their image of the profession. And usually the more photogenic, genial souls who put on a good face. But as with most careers, there is a lot of hard work involved and the peculiarities of the career path may be of interest to some. Look for that soon.