26 July 2008

Bill Rankin's population density graphs

Last week I wrote a post about population densities.

Take a look at the interesting graphs at Bill Rankin's Radical Cartography; they show how population density is related to:

  • racial and ethnic groups (American Indians and Alaska Natives, not surprisingly, live at the lowest population densities; what surprised me was the large amount of Hispanic population at between 1 and 10 per square mile, which Rankin says might correspond to ranchers);

  • age. Roughly speaking, people ages 18 to 39 or under 5 are overrepresented at "high" densities (above 4000 or so), and other ages are overrepresented at "low" densities (below that same cutoff). This is, I suspect, a reflection of people moving to the city when they leave their parents house, and then leaving the city when it's time for their kids to go to school.

  • income is highest at suburban and central-city densities, with a valley in between. Not surprising; in general the central part of a city is rich, it's surrounded by poorer neighborhoods, and then eventually income starts going up again. Rural places are poor as well.

  • gender -- there are more women at high density, which I can't explain.

  • population and area -- I tried to make a plot like this but had some trouble, because I was just playing around with output from another web site and didn't have the raw data.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

gender: more male hermits (or Keilloresque "Norwegian Bachlor Farmers")?

Kurt Osis said...

Richard Florida has some similar such things over at Who's Your City

I'm quite sure, the greater number of women in urban centers has to do with younger women who's cost of living is subsidized by older would be suitors... buying them food, drink and what not.

Anonymous said...

Regarding gender, the Green Acres theme song comes to mind. It must be true!

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