Demographics

From Cyburbian MacheteJames: So who is currently working on the Census Bureau's local address update? We had to change our choice of option and as a result, I'm just now getting started on the process. I know there are a couple of ways to go about doing this (their proprietary MAF/TIGER GIS viewer, ArcGIS, and another one that I've found called CommunityViewer). The biggest hassle looks like it will be formating our address list to meet the Census Bureau's standards. Has anyone managed to actually finish the LUCA update yet?

(Cyburbia Forums original post)

The New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency Locator (http://sgl.state.nj.us), winner of the APA Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice in 2007, includes several tools: Smart Growth Locator, Smart Growth Municipality Locator, Census Tract Data Locator, Planning Area Locator, Program Eligibility Locator and aerial mapping.

Originally created for an article about migration from the Buffalo, New York area to Charlotte, North Carolina, Moving From County to County (http://tinyurl.com/2u4e8s)
provides an interactive map interface to detailed county-to-county migration data for the entire United States. Migration data, spanning the years between 2000 and 2005, is compiled by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

GayGhettos (http://www.gayghettos.com) is a community-based, community-built web site, providing users with real life comments about gay and lesbian-friendly neighborhoods in various North American cities.

Social Explorer (http://www.socialexplorer.com) offers an easy-to-use interactive interface to US Census data from 1940 to the present. Thematic maps are zoomable from the national level down to individual tracts. The site is evolving, with plans add data back to 1790 for counties, and to 1910 for tracts. If Cyburbia awarded a "Site of the Month" or "Site of the Year" award, Social Explorer would certainly be a candidate.

(Cyburbia Forums original post)

From Cyburbian ofos: Noted that the APA is pushing a book entitled "The Geography of Opportunity" this month that apparently addresses housing choices with this teaser:

"Equality begins at home—which is why the inequality of housing choices for racial minorities and low-income families is one of the most pressing issues facing American democracy today. This blockbuster book has analysts, advocates, and practitioners across the country talking about segregation: why it persists; how it undermines education, job prospects, health, and safety; and what can be done to end it."

gCensus (http://gecensus.stanford.edu) is a GIS mashup that combines data from the US Census Bureau and places into Google Earth. It is an effort to make geographic data freely and easily accessible to the public, without the need for expensive GIS software. Currently, only the US Census 2000 Summary File 1 (population characteristics such as race and age) is available for mapping; according to the site, Summary File 2 will be available soon.

(Cyburbia Forums original post)

From Cyburbian modonnell15: What are some incentives that cities use to try to attract or to retain families with children under 15 in the city?

(Photo by wockerjabby.)

The Impoverished Social Scientist's Guide to Free Statistical Software and Resources (http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu/micah_altman/socsci.shtml) is ... well, a guide to free statistical software and resources. It's just one 1995-style web page with a long 1995-style URL, but for those that do a lot of number-crunching, it's definitely worth a bookmark.

From Cyburbian Bear Up North: Even though the number-crunchers are indicating that the United States will have 300,000,000 people in October, 2006, the media types are already posting stories and articles about what that means. Of course, key words and phrases that have already been thrown about include planners, sprawl, population bomb, traffic congestion, immigration, increased life expectancy, etc.

I have a few questions...

Have you given any thoughts to what it means? Do you think these are topics that should have been talked-about years ago, as the related issues started to surface?

You Are Where You Live (yawyl.claritas.com) is a demographics tool created by Claritas, a company providing marketing information based on geography and associated demographics. YAWYL tells you, based on ZIP code, what the five major lifestyle "segments" or "clusters" in an area. The segmen

The School District Demographics site (nces.ed.gov/surveys/sdds) provides access to school district geographic and demographic data useful for describing and analyzing characteristics of school districts, children, and K-12 education.

Urban Cartography (urbancartography.com) is a long-established blog reporting on cartography (of course), GIS, remote imaging, demographics, transportation, ethnography, and the urban environment, all from a geographer's perspective.

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (gnocdc.org) ia a source for information about New Orleans' 73 neighborhoods and the 10 surrounding parishes. Since last September, it's also a great source for post-Katrina conditions in the area.

The interactive MLA Language Map (mla.org/resources/census_main) uses data from the 2000 United States census to display the locations and numbers of speakers of thirty languages and three groups of less commonly spoken languages in the US.