As noted recently, we all love a good index, especially when the index aggregates a bunch of different data into "buckets" that make more intuitive sense. And it helps when indices have been "around for a while". In data geek parlance, "around for a while" translates to: 'serve as a longitudinal dataset to allow [...]
The unemployment story is getting better recently -- for all age groups. That's to say, the unemployment rates are lower across the board. But they aren't better equally for everyone. Rates are highest for the 16 to 24 age group, which were up to 20 percent nationally at the height of the recession and [...]
As of Monday, we're just one year out from Census 2020, and even if you're not a demographer or data wonk, we promise it's kind of a big deal. Here's why: It's critical for political representation. If you care about who represents you in Congress, and how much representation you get, then the census update matters [...]
Everybody loves to rank stuff. The NCAA just seeded teams 1-68 for March Madness, for instance (and, incidentally, may your bracket hopes live long and prosper). But oftentimes rankings neither are useful for comparing things nor predictive of results. Creating an index— AKA, building a composite ranking system — can give much better results, [...]
The Atlanta Regional Commission's Metro Atlanta Speaks (MAS) public opinion survey is in its sixth year. The first MAS survey—done in 2013 , asked 21 questions of 2,100 residents—and was statistically significant only at the 10-county region level. By 2018, the survey has grown to the largest of its type in the region, with [...]
The Census Bureau has released-- over the last few weeks--two great new datasets that are worth a look: American Community Survey (ACS), 1-year estimates, 2017 American Housing Survey (AHS), 2017 Available through American FactFinder, the ACS 1-year has 2017 estimates for geographic areas with 60,000 people or more. The next ACS [...]
The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program, operated by the U.S. Census Bureau's Center for Economic Studies, provides Residential Area Characteristics (RAC), Worker Area Characteristics (WAC), and Origin-Destination data for workers and jobs on an annual basis. Using LEHD data, the dashboard below (also here) enables the user to identify where people who live in [...]
This month's regional snapshot presents ARC's annual major jurisdiction population estimates. The 10-county Atlanta region added 75,800 new residents between April 2017 and April 2018, according to those estimates. Overall, the Atlanta region’s population increased by 1.7% and now stands at 4,555,900 – more than that of 25 states. Job growth fueled the region’s [...]
The story map below represents the capstone work of Matt Leonard, a recent graduate of the MS-Geographic Information Science & Technology (GIST) program at Georgia Tech and Research & Analytics Intern at the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). It provides an illuminating glimpse at how Atlanta's built environment and human landscape was shaped in large [...]
