I just watched Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech, and I am struck by how he uses the Geography of our Nation to both identify us as separate individuals/areas, and to draw us all together as one - it stills gives me chills:
...
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Monday, January 17, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
1/10/2011 No new MSAs for 2011
Today marked the end of waiting for the Office of Management and Budget to release their annual list of Metropolitan Statistical Areas/Metropolitan Divisions. Previously, the "Update for Statistical Area Definitions" for
Year____was announced on
2010____December 1, 2009
2009____November 20, 2008
2008____November 20, 2007
2007____December 18, 2006
A phone call today to the office of the Chief Statistician, Office of Management and Budget, confirmed that there will be no changes to "Statistical Area Definitions" for 2011.
As a matter of fact, it was announced in the Federal Register on June 28, 2010, that the Office of Management and Budget will adopt the "2010 Standards for Delineating Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas", and OMB plans to announce delineations of areas based on the 2010 standards and 2010 Census data in 2013.
Today's phone call confirms that there will be no MSA/MD changes until 2013.
These are the same actions that were taken 10 years ago, when there was a "freeze" on MSA definitions for a few years while we were waiting for the results of the Census2000 "long form" (containing income and housing data, just to name two important categories). Unfortunately, we no longer have "long form" data in the decennial Census - that data now comes from the 5-year averages of the American Community Survey (from the US Census Bureau).
On Tuesday, December 14, 2010, the US Census Bureau announced the release of the first set of 5-Year American Community Survey Estimates:
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb10-cn90.html
One of the most boring aspects of my job is to read sections of the Federal Register, but it does have revealing information: the OMB is not only looking forward to the announcement of new/revised Metropolitan Statistical Areas in 2013, but they will be issuing a more comprehensive update of metropolitan and micropolitan and related statistical areas in 2018 using the 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-year commuting and employment estimates.
(sorry there are no pretty pictures this week)
Year____was announced on
2010____December 1, 2009
2009____November 20, 2008
2008____November 20, 2007
2007____December 18, 2006
A phone call today to the office of the Chief Statistician, Office of Management and Budget, confirmed that there will be no changes to "Statistical Area Definitions" for 2011.
As a matter of fact, it was announced in the Federal Register on June 28, 2010, that the Office of Management and Budget will adopt the "2010 Standards for Delineating Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas", and OMB plans to announce delineations of areas based on the 2010 standards and 2010 Census data in 2013.
Today's phone call confirms that there will be no MSA/MD changes until 2013.
These are the same actions that were taken 10 years ago, when there was a "freeze" on MSA definitions for a few years while we were waiting for the results of the Census2000 "long form" (containing income and housing data, just to name two important categories). Unfortunately, we no longer have "long form" data in the decennial Census - that data now comes from the 5-year averages of the American Community Survey (from the US Census Bureau).
On Tuesday, December 14, 2010, the US Census Bureau announced the release of the first set of 5-Year American Community Survey Estimates:
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb10-cn90.html
One of the most boring aspects of my job is to read sections of the Federal Register, but it does have revealing information: the OMB is not only looking forward to the announcement of new/revised Metropolitan Statistical Areas in 2013, but they will be issuing a more comprehensive update of metropolitan and micropolitan and related statistical areas in 2018 using the 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-year commuting and employment estimates.
(sorry there are no pretty pictures this week)
Sunday, January 2, 2011
1/2/2011 Motion Charts!!
Motion Charts
I discovered Gapminder, and its wonderful Gapminder World Motion Chart:
www.gapminder.org
It is a Flash animation, displaying a HUGE amount of data, and I thought it would be excellent for displaying FHFA House Price Indexes
A Motion Chart can display Price Index movement along the x-axis, MSA Median Family Income along the y-axis, Population (size of the circles), and the color of the circles can be unique (if displaying MSAs within a State) or thematic (a different color for each Region [Nationwide data] or State [Regional data]).
Google has purchased the technology from Gapminder, and has made it available only through Google Docs. I made a data set for the 22 MSAs in Florida, plus the non-MSA area. http://dixonspatialconsulting.com/HTMLflxx.htm
Before playing I recommend you, in the upper-right, change Color to Unique colors (click on totpers), and change Size to totpers (click on Same size). Then click the play button
You can see how the Housing Index jumped out to the far right, before crashing back to the (current) middle. For more-specific insight, check the boxes for Naples and non-msaFlorida, and click play again;
This a GREAT tool for Data Exploration, and a lot more fun than this spreadsheet:
I discovered Gapminder, and its wonderful Gapminder World Motion Chart:
www.gapminder.org
It is a Flash animation, displaying a HUGE amount of data, and I thought it would be excellent for displaying FHFA House Price Indexes
A Motion Chart can display Price Index movement along the x-axis, MSA Median Family Income along the y-axis, Population (size of the circles), and the color of the circles can be unique (if displaying MSAs within a State) or thematic (a different color for each Region [Nationwide data] or State [Regional data]).
Google has purchased the technology from Gapminder, and has made it available only through Google Docs. I made a data set for the 22 MSAs in Florida, plus the non-MSA area. http://dixonspatialconsulting.com/HTMLflxx.htm
Before playing I recommend you, in the upper-right, change Color to Unique colors (click on totpers), and change Size to totpers (click on Same size). Then click the play button
You can see how the Housing Index jumped out to the far right, before crashing back to the (current) middle. For more-specific insight, check the boxes for Naples and non-msaFlorida, and click play again;
This a GREAT tool for Data Exploration, and a lot more fun than this spreadsheet:
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