Thinking About Zipcars at the Beach on Irvine’s Hottest Day

Today, there was a record breaking heatwave across Southern California. Here in the OC, three cities (Santa Ana, Fullerton, and Yorba Linda) apparently cooked right past their old records by several degrees. They still manged to fall cold of Los Angeles however, whose 113 degree temperature apparently broke the thermometer at the National Weather Service downtown. My exposure to the heat wave was luckily very short before I was back in my thankfully air-conditioned apartment. Irvine, though still way up there, peaked only at 106.8 compared to our less fortunate neighbors. However, it’s easy to see why the claim that heat is one of the great killers holds so much weight. By the time I went from the student center back to my apartment, I was already feeling mild symptoms of heat exhaustion and dehydration. I wish I had some way to measure exactly how much water I was able to lose in that short period of time. Combined with only 17% humidity, the heat is oddly pleasant, until you realize that it is draining you of your precious bodily fluids at an alarming rate. Luckily, later in the day, I replenished myself with a large frozen yogurt waffle cone from Strickland’s.

Around 3 pm, despite the fact that my every waking moment should be spent trying to get ahead in statistics, I felt that this epic heat wave was quickly calling me to do something with the warm temperatures. Around Newport Beach, weather stations were only registering around  88-ish degrees, and the general trend was already starting to drop as the evening winds started to tepidly pick up again. I decided that I should go to the beach, because during a record setting heat wave that just what you’re suppose to do. I grabbed a Zipcar for 20 bucks and change and headed to my favorite spot at Newport Beach. It was beautiful. The water was the perfect temperature, the waves were filled with surfers catching perfect curls, and the low evening sun was was distant enough that is didn’t turn me into a sunburned mess. I swam in the cool waters for 40 minutes, felt the waves wash over me, and then headed homeward.

With that, this is the second time that I’ve used the Zipcar, and it certainly provides an entirely different way of thinking about transportation. You have to be extraordinarily conscious of how you’re managing the time that you’ve allowed for having a car, and yet at the same time it’s completely liberating in that the only time you need to concern yourself with anything having to do with a car is during those blocks you’ve specifically allocated.

I have no doubt at this point that my monthly automobile expenses will be lower (much lower) using the Zipcar than actually owning a vehicle. However, that’s not entirely a fair assessment. Much of the decrease in costs comes from the fact that I use the Zipcar substantially less than I would if I owned my own car. Here is the part where my inner economist begins to chime in. I think it would be fascinating to develop or see some kind of normative model of Zipcar usage. There would essentially be two models here. The first model would involve the choice of modes of transportation. It would be about how the consumer choses to either own their own car and use that, or to use a Zipcar in combination with other alternate modes of transportation such as the bus/train. The second model would then be the decision of when to actually use a Zipcar and for how long (I’m sure Zipcar probably has their own version of this model worked out, as it would help determine pricing, profitability, scheduling, etc).

I find the choice model to be the most interesting for a few reasons. First, we hardly ever consider the opportunity costs involved with what is essentially having our car sit in a parking lot. A car is a somewhat expensive piece of capital equipment, and yet we never think to ourselves, “Well, while I’m at work for 8 hours, I could be renting out my car rather than having it sit unused in a parking lot.” One of the correct ways to think about this problem in economics is to consider the value of the car and determine how much could be made off of the next best investment as the opportunity cost of ownership. That, however, would involve not owning the car at all, rather than simply having the car be used while you’re not using it. So, thinking about Zipcars might provide a deeper understanding of what the opportunity cost of having a car sit in a garage or parking lot is. In the case of a Zipcar user, the opportunity cost is $8 an hour. If you choose to have your Zipcar sit in a parking lot, you’re having to pay $8 an hour to maintain rights over that car while it sits there.

Which brings me to my second interest, Zipcars make the marginal cost of driving very apparent to the driver. As I mentioned above, the cost of having a Zipcar for an hour is $8. Most of the time, I think, drivers that own their own car think about driving as if the marginal cost of driving were close to zero. We all make estimates of gas millage, registration costs,  insurance costs, repairs, etc. but how many people could reasonably say how much their morning commute costs? Or, put better, how much does that detour down the scenic route cost compared to the regular grinding commute? How much does it cost to go through the Starbuck’s drive thru on the way to work? And, once again, how much is being paid to have your car sit in the parking lot waiting for you until the exact moment when you’re ready to leave? Being a part of a shared car program puts a real marginal cost on driving that the consumer has to confront every time he or she gets behind the wheel. These kinds of things change behavior and it would be worth some careful study to see just how much. Since I’m considering doing my undergrad research in urban transportation, it certainly would be worth my time to think about it more. I’m hoping it will involve more trips to the beach.

The Terrorists Won (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Halal)

Before I left for Irvine, there were essentially two things on my mind that I had pondered in this blog and elsewhere. The first thing I was considering was where I was going to shop for groceries, and how said grocery store might rip me off. The other thing I was considering was how ridiculous (and, though I rarely use the term, I believe Un-American) the Park51 Mosque Controversy was. After today, however, I am finally able to combine the two. It’s amazing how things come back around.

I arrived in Irvine a little over two weeks ago, and in that time have now tried about four grocery stores. I, of course, tried the Albertsons that was directly across the street from my apartment first. It’s certainly okay, and is a standard generic big box kind of grocery story (though not particularly big by most standards). The prices, after I have now had time to compare a bit, were not exactly perfect either, and the quality style there is certainly generic. I’ll likely continue to pick a few things up there from time to time, just because of the easy access, and occasional deals. I also walked into the Trader Joe’s in the University Center and then walked back out. I still don’t exactly see what the attraction to Trader Joe’s is, but it was crowded and just wasn’t for me.

Once I got my OCTA bus pass however, that opened up several new opportunities. OCTA 79 runs past my apartment, and essentially goes to Fashion Island in Newport (where it links to a lot of other coastal buses) and up Culver Drive eventually into Tustin. Along Culver, there were two stores that caught my eye. The first was 99 Ranch, the Asian supermarket. I liked 99 Ranch (especially the meat and seafood), but it wasn’t general enough and it was farther away than what is now, after today, my ultimate choice. I’d probably only go there again if I needed something very particular that only they would have (which isn’t as much as it might seem, unless I really have a desire to eat some chicken feet).

In a little (by OC standards) shopping area called University Park Shopping Center, there’s a market called Wholesome Choice. I initially thought it might by some kind of organic style Whole Foods spin off type place. So today, I wanted a kinder and gentler body soap because my skin is drying out, so I hopped on the bus after class and headed out to Wholesome Choice. When I got there, I was overwhelmed with how great this market was.

The produce section was full of diverse and fresh foods, at low prices by any standard. There was a variety of fresh cuts of meat, also at great prices, and each of the aisles contained a broad selection of foods. (I found the aisle dedicated to different spices to be something worth another trip in the future.) I walked up and down every aisle, and even though this was not the Whole Foods/Organic market experience I was looking for, they had an excellent soap that was in fact what I was seeking. It also had a gigantic hot deli section that puts Whole Foods to shame (and at such low prices!). As I was checking out, the clerk noticed the big UCI letters on my t-shirt, and in that sort of distant Persian way, asked if I was a student. When I said I was, he looked at my student ID and gave me 5% off while the bagger took care in loading the reusable bag that I brought with me. I was living my ultimate super market fantasy.

However, this particular market experience comes with a profound twist. The excellent meat section that I spoke about served halal meats. The labels on most of the products were written in both English and Arabic. Their specialty house bread is a Persian flat bread. The workers there were Asian, but they weren’t Chinese, Japanese, or Korean like at 99 Ranch. Instead, many seemed to be Pakistani, Indian, Iranian, and so on. On their website, Wholesome Choice claims to be an international specialty market, and it certainly is that with the wide range of foods and spices available. However, it was fairly clear that this was, though not advertised as such, an Islamic oriented super market. Certainly it was not wholly Islamic, and it may be unfair to characterize it as such as it was wonderful outside of whatever orientation it may have, but it was very clear that a very significant portion of its customer base and employees were Muslims.

So, the question remains, should I run terrified out of Wholesome Choice because of their audacity in presenting me with halal foods (at such good prices!)? Does the presence of a mosque near the not-to-far-away and densely used Spectrum center mean that I should be looking over my shoulder for men with bombs strapped to their chests? An organization such as the Islamic Center of Irvine must be evil, right? Especially with it giving presentations about such universally reviled things as “Parenting That Connects” and displaying such hateful Islamic quotes like “If someone does good for / to you, return the favor; if you can not recompense, then (at least) pray for the person. [Nasā‘ī]” How should I feel about all this as I shop for my delicious Persian flat bread? They put a super market and a mosque in my backyard!

In my short time thus far in Irvine, I’ve encountered more diverse cultures than I’ve ever managed to encounter in my entire life. In spite of the conservative, rich, white Orange County stereotype, Irvine is a middle class, cultural tower of babel. In Northern California, and especially back in rural Humboldt County, the people there liked to scream at the top of their lungs about diversity. There were seminars, and talks, and everyone would go marching in the streets to celebrate diversity or pride or whatever the buzz of the day was going to be. This has all covered for the fact that Northern California is vastly segmented, and despite all the talk of diversity is mostly monocultural and segregated. I had been exposed to the theory of living harmoniously with other peoples, but never the reality.

So what is the reality of living with Muslims? Well, first of all, the reality should have an adjective added immediately to it. The questions is then: what is the reality of living with American Muslims? The reality is not the scary, faceless group that we’ve come to despise. Here at UCI, there is a fairly decent sized group of Muslim women students on campus. You can tell that they are Muslims because they are wearing head coverings (though not always and many will occasionally go without). These are not the restrictive, anti-feminine burkas that we’ve been told by the media are being used to oppress the Muslim woman, but are instead beautifully designed coverings with simple patterns in them. It’s true that they are certainly not very flashy, but they do have a certain simple elegance to them that is often missed in the bright, sexualized American style of today. It is, however, a style that states loudly, with its choice of interesting color, that moderate Islam is alive in America today.

So, this is how I came to love Wholesome Choice so much. The faceless, bearded mobs of lurking, sleeper cell terrorists are quickly replaced with model images of good neighbors looking to hold to their values and traditions. Islamic tradition seems to suggest that there is a value in not being too loud or standing out too much. Perhaps this is why so many fail to see what I saw today in Wholesome Choice, a moderate group of people going about their daily lives quietly and in peaceful worship of their god. Here is a truly diverse community that doesn’t even seem to be aware of how lucky they are to be this diverse and benefiting from each other’s separate world views.  Strip all pieces of America away that separate us, and all we’re left with is just this market. A market where people from an almost uncountable number of value systems, backgrounds, and races come together and achieve massive mutual benefit.

And if you’re still not convinced that such a world exists in my new favorite grocery, then it is worth noticing that the other significantly sized group that came into the market that day wore yarmulkes. There in the market are two groups that are suppose to hate each other being united unknowingly by the common experience of seeking their daily bread.