Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Census visualization

The NY Times has a quite good census 2010 visualization tool. Typing in my own area I see much of what I expected but also a few surprises. Census area 206 in Indiana was a bit of a shocker that 100% of the 900+ reporting households spend more than 30% of their income on housing. It's mostly a poor area but there are a few there that make over $100k according to the income graph.

This is the sort of stuff that good data tools really can help you understand your own surroundings, your own life. It enables you to swiftly digest an enormous amount of data and toss out the 95%+ that is what you expect so you can quickly focus on the margin, on the anomalies that make the exercise worth doing.

HT Clayton Cramer

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