The Averroës Nix Institute of Municipalities Described With ACS Data

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

Directions:

1. Find your town or city using the American Factfinder (http://factfinder2.census.gov/, search for your town or city's name under "Quick Start"). Use your village or CDP instead if you think it'll be more reflective of your community.

2. Characterize your hometown using data from the first three tables: DP-1 (Profile of General Population, based on data from the decennial census), DP02 (Selected Social Characteristics, based on data from ACS 5-year estimates), and DP03 (Selected Economic Characteristics, based on data from ACS 5-year estimates)

Home (Town)

Population: 1,400
Median age: 47
Median household income: $42,000
96% white, 3% two or more races
% of housing units for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use: 63%
% of population 25 years and older with bachelor's degree or higher: 25%

College (Village)

Population: 8,000
Median age: 21
Median household income: $34,000
89% White, 5% Asian, 2% Black, 2% multiple races
% of population 25 years and older with bachelor's degree or higher: 45%

[angus]

Cedar Falls, Iowa

(bunch of tables...)

Population: 39,260
Median age: 26.8
Median household income: $44,939
94.9% white, 2.8% Asian, 2.7% Black or African American, 0.5% American Indian or Alaska Native, 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, 0.7% Some Other Race, 2.9% Latino or Hispanic, 3% two or more races
% of housing units for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use: couldn't find it/didn't see it
% of population 25 years and older with bachelor's degree or higher: 27.0%

where did you get the percent of housing data?  I clicked on the first three or four tables and didn't see it and got bored looking after that.

By the way, I usually use city-data.com for this sort of thing.  Been using it for years to compare places when I move.  From that site I get these data:

pop:  same as census
Males: 18,116     (46.9%)
Females: 20,473     (53.1%)
median age:  26.0
    White alone - 35,165 (93.6%)
    Asian alone - 717 (1.9%)
    Black alone - 661 (1.8%)
    Hispanic - 595 (1.6%)
    Two or more races - 396 (1.1%)
    Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone - 24 (0.06%)
    Other race alone - 13 (0.03%)
    American Indian alone - 9 (0.02%)

Jan. 2011 cost of living index in Cedar Falls: 87.3 (less than average, U.S. average is 100)

    High school or higher: 92.6%
    Bachelor's degree or higher: 39.2%
    Graduate or professional degree: 16.2%
    Unemployed: 4.0%
    Mean travel time to work (commute): 13.9 minutes

    Never married: 43.3%
    Now married: 44.0%
    Separated: 0.6%
    Widowed: 5.3%
    Divorced: 6.7%

[So the Heroes Fall]

Population: 382,578
Median age: 31.4
Median household income: $46,508
67.3% white, 20.9% black, 10.5% Hispanic
49.2% owner occupied housing units, 50.8% renter occupied
% of population 25 years and older with bachelor's degree or higher: 44.6%
Never married 50.2%
Now married, except separated 30.2%
Separated 1.6%
Widowed 5.7%
Divorced 12.3%

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Population: 17,304
Median Age: 44.4
Median Household Income: $132,813
86.7% White, 8.9% Asian, 2.1% Black, 0.1% American Indian, 0.5% Some Other Race. 3.3% Hispanic of any race.
92.0% owner-occupied housing units, 8.0% renter-occupied housing units.
% of housing units for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use: 0.9%
Never married: 31.5%
Now married, except separated: 61.6%
Separated: 0.9%
Widowed: 1.2%
Divorced: 4.8%

Educational Attainment:
Less than 9th Grade: 1.1%
9th to 12th Grade, No Diploma: 4.7%
High School Graduate (Includes Equivalency): 16.6%
Some College, No Degree: 12.4%
Associate's Degree: 5.5%
Bachelor's Degree: 29.1%
Graduate or Professional Degree: 30.5%

Oh, and I'd just like to mention how much FactFinder sucks. My municipality didn't come up in a normal search. No, I had to sift through the categories and find it manually.

[memphis]

Population: 646,889
Black: 63.3%
Non-Hispanic White: 27.5%
Hispanic: 6.5%
Asian: 1.6%
Median Household Income: $36,473

[Smash255]

Population 14,486
Non-Hispanic White 83.0%
Hispanic 10%
Asian 5.2% (4.4% Asian Alone)
Black 1.5% (1.3% Black Alone)
Two or More race 1.0%  (1.7% including Hispanic)

Median Age 40.1
90.7% Owner Occupied
9.3% Rent
Bachelor or Higher 30.5%

Italian 39.3%
Irish 27.3%
German 19.9%
English 7.0%
Polish 5.3%
Russian 4.0%

Median Household Income $92,439

[bgwah]

Population: 45,780
Median age: 37.8
Median household income: $139,065
71.9% White, 19.3% Asian, 3.9% Hispanic, 3.4% Two or more races, 0.9% black, 0.2% Native American
% of population 25 years and older with bachelor's degree or higher: 69.7%

[memphis]

I think it's strange that some states designate communities as villages. A village is a pre-industrial thing. This is a village.

[So the Heroes Fall]

I think it's strange that some states designate communities as villages. A village is a pre-industrial thing. This is a village.

It's kind of antiquated, but some type of designation based on size is nice, in Minnesota all incorporated municipalities are "cities", which means that this is considered a city and falls under the same municipal category as Minneapolis and St. Paul. But some states go kind of overboard like New Jersey which has some weird categories and I still don't get what a "borough" is supposed to be (I assumed it was an incorporated municipality besides a township that was too small to qualify as a "city" but there are some pretty small "cities" in South Jersey too...)

[Redalgo]

Kalispell, MT



Total population: 19,927
Median age (yrs.): 34.5
Median household income: $39,023
Income per capita: $21,336
Population born in-state: 53.5%

Most common commutes to work: driving alone (77.3%), carpooling (9.0%), walking (3.4%)

Common ancestries: German (28.5%), Irish (14.4%), English (13.6%), Norwegian (12.0%)

Ethnicity/race: White (96.7%; 94.2% alone), Latino: (2.9%; 1.7% White), Native (2.8%; 1.3% alone), Asian: (1.6%; 1.0% alone), Black: (0.6%; 0.2% alone), other: (1.0%; 0.7% alone).

Education: less than HS (10%), high school or equivalent (31.4%), some college (24.9%), Associate's Degree (7.9%), Bachelor's Degree (18.8%), Graduate or Professional Degree (7.0%).

Household incomes: less than $15,000 (17.4%), $15,000-$34,999 (26.8%), $35,000-$74,999 (39.1%), $75,000-$149,999 (14.6%), more than $150,000 (2.0%).

Poverty rates: overall (15.3%), White (15.5%), Latino (3.7%), Native American (42.7%), Asian (10.9%), Black (0.0%), other (0.0%).

Welfare recipients: Social Security (26.4%), Supplemental Security Income (4.8%), Food Stamps (10.2% in the last twelve months), cash public assistance (1.7%).

Percent unemployed (5-yr. average): 8.4%

Highest-employing industry: educational services, health care & social assistance (20.5%)
Most common occupation: management, business, science, and arts occupations (28.1%)

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

where did you get the percent of housing data?  I clicked on the first three or four tables and didn't see it and got bored looking after that.

It's in the first table. Seasonal housing units are classified as a type of vacant housing. Probably not an interesting statistic for most communities, but as my hometown (Henderson, NY) has a significant seasonal population, it's an important part of it's story.

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

Oh, and I'd just like to mention how much FactFinder sucks. My municipality didn't come up in a normal search. No, I had to sift through the categories and find it manually.

Indeed. I've used Census data for several GIS-based research projects, and obtaining the information that I need is always far more time-consuming than it should be. Data accessibility needs to be a higher priority for the US Census Bureau.

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

It's kind of antiquated, but some type of designation based on size is nice, in Minnesota all incorporated municipalities are "cities", which means that this is considered a city and falls under the same municipal category as Minneapolis and St. Paul.

I've always been under the impression that a city is distinct from other kinds of incorporated units (villages, boroughs, etc.) in that it is chartered. Municipal divisions are confusing, particularly in the United States, where they seem to be organized differently in every state.

[Prez Duke]

Charleston, SC

Population 350, 209
Non-Hispanic White 64.2%
Hispanic 5.4%
Asian 1.3%
Black 30.5%


Median Age 35.9
60.3% Owner Occupied
39.7% Rent
Bachelor or Higher 40.3%

Median Household Income $48,433
OR where I grew up:
Kiawah Island, SC

Population: 1,626
Non-hispanic white 96.9%
Hispanic 0.9%
Asian 0.6%
Black 2.3%

Median Age 53.5 years old
95.1% Owner Occupied
4.9& Rent
Bachelors or higher 78.3%

Media Household Income $173,636

[angus]

where did you get the percent of housing data?  I clicked on the first three or four tables and didn't see it and got bored looking after that.

It's in the first table. Seasonal housing units are classified as a type of vacant housing. Probably not an interesting statistic for most communities, but as my hometown (Henderson, NY) has a significant seasonal population, it's an important part of it's story.

I understand.  I guess it's just as well that I didn't see it for Cedar Falls since Cedar Falls isn't a vacation-makers destination.  What is interesting about Cedar Falls is the very low median age.  It has a university of about 13 thousand students, which is one-third of the population of the city.  (I don't know whether that means that the city population is 39K in the summer and 52K in the fall/spring, or 26K in the summer and 39K in the fall/spring, but either way it's a big chunk of the population so the median age is very low.  Also, there's a high density of tattoo & piercing stores.  There's even an abortion clinic, which I don't small towns like this normally have.  Things have changed since the 80s:  I used to associate "college towns" with lots of bookstores and bars.  Now, all the books are sold on-line and the drinking age is much higher than when I was in college.  Also, fashions and mores have changed.  Nowadays I automatically associate "college towns" with tattoo parlors and abortion clinics.)

The other striking feature about Cedar Falls--and maybe this part of the midwest in general since I've noticed it in the county north of here as well--is the extremely high educational attainment and the prevalence of farming.  Agro and good schools, that's what how I always stereotyped Iowa before I moved here four years ago.  And the experience bears that out.  I've met so many farmers with PhDs.  Go to any local farmers market and you'll find a former English professor or a former government scientist in every stall.  It's a weird combination of agro and higher ed that makes the Hawkeye state what it is. 

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

Great stuff, angus. Iowa's a fantastic state, and, in my mind, at least, has supplanted Kansas and Nebraska as the true heartland of the Middle West. The farmer with a PhD is basically the modern yeoman.

And college towns are always fascinating places - though as you note, the higher drinking age has altered them significantly. In my current place of residence, for instance (Geneseo, NY), the village has six bars - during the seventies, it had over two dozen (including several on campus). And with fewer students! The decline of an important kind of third place has been highly disruptive to the community and local culture, a development often lamented by professors, alumni, and townies alike.

A note on population counts - the Census is supposed to count students where they attend school. But this doesn't always happen - they're notoriously bad at counting institutionalized populations, and many students are counted at home, counted both at home or at school, or fail to respond entirely.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

I think it's strange that some states designate communities as villages. A village is a pre-industrial thing. This is a village.

It's kind of antiquated, but some type of designation based on size is nice, in Minnesota all incorporated municipalities are "cities", which means that this is considered a city and falls under the same municipal category as Minneapolis and St. Paul. But some states go kind of overboard like New Jersey which has some weird categories and I still don't get what a "borough" is supposed to be (I assumed it was an incorporated municipality besides a township that was too small to qualify as a "city" but there are some pretty small "cities" in South Jersey too...)

There are five types of municipalities in New Jersey: Townships, Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and Villages. These designations have nothing to do with population, population density, or anything like that, but instead with the type of government the municipality has. This is a bit confusing, but it seems that there are eleven forms of government. The type of government determines which of the five traditional forms of government (listed above) the municipality gets by default. Alternatively, the municipality can choose one of six modern forms that have been passed by state legislation since 1911, or apply for a special charter from the state legislature for a form not covered by that legislation.

The five traditional forms of government (as they are currently defined) are outlined here:

Township: A three to five member township committee elected (usually) at large in partisan elections to staggered terms. The committee elects of its members to a one-year term as mayor, whose only additional power is to preside over committee meetings. Executive responsibilities can also be delegated to a municipal administrator.
City: A directly elected mayor who serves a four-year term and a council consisting of seven members; six elected from two wards for staggered three-year terms and one elected at large for a four-year term. The mayor can vote only to break a tie on the council, but has veto power subject to a two-thirds override. Executive responsibilities can also be delegated to a municipal administrator.
Borough: A directly elected mayor who serves a two-year term and a six-member council elected to staggered three-year terms. The council can be elected either in wards or at large. The mayor presides over council meetings as can vote to break ties, but has no veto power. Executive responsibilites can be delegated to an appointed administrator.
Town: An eight-member council elected to staggered two-year terms from four wards, and an mayor elected to a two-year term who also serves as a councilman at large. The mayor chairs the council and can vote on legislation and veto ordinances, subject to a two-thirds override. The council can delegate all or some executive responsibilites to an administrator. The term of the mayor can be extended to three years through referendum, and the terms of the mayor and the council can be permanently increased to four years through referendum.
Village: Same as township, except the township committee is called the board of trustees and the mayor is called the president of the board.

[Chareth Cutestory]

Philadelphia, PA
Population: 1,526,006
Black: 42.2%
Non-hispanic White: 36.9%
Hispanic: 12.3%
Asian: 6.3%
Owner-occupied: 54.1%
Bachelors or higher: 22.2%
Median household income: $36,251

Basking Ridge, NJ
Population: 26,652
Non-hispanic White: 78.6%
Asian: 13.8%
Hispanic: 4.0%
Black: 1.8%
Owner-occupied: 86.9%
Bachelors or higher: 69.1%
Median household income: $125,182