statistics

Looking for lessons about 2017?

December 28, 2017 - The Washington Post

President Trump has made no secret of his disdain for many of the traditional data points used to represent the health and prosperity of the country. The budgetary process offers an opportunity to match words with action.

March 9, 2017 - Pacific Standard

Taking the bus might not feel as comfortable as going by car, but according to this research from Montreal, it's safer.

February 2, 2017 - CityLab

In the election's wake, Richard Florida compiles some telling statistics on the nation's threatened middle class. It's on the decline, yes, but it's also becoming more segregated into certain cities, often in the Sunbelt and Rust Belt.

November 29, 2016 - CityLab

This map tool hows gentrification-related statistics by Bay Area neighborhood, helping communities guess where the heaviest gentrification will occur.

September 13, 2015 - Next City

Joe Cortright criticizes reports linking high median new home sizes to a renewed demand for McMansions. The market for single-family homes, he argues, locks out buyers of modest means. Only the well-off are buying.

August 21, 2015 - City Observatory City Commentary

Central districts have been surging back since the 1980s. But in most cities, the upper third of earners still favor outlying areas and are underrepresented closer to downtown.

July 30, 2015 - City Observatory City Commentary

A minor word of caution on statistical inference and the stories it can tell

February 3, 2014 - Norman Wright

A quick look at some of Brooklyn's demographic data illustrates a dramatic divide between the Borough's most wealthy and most poor - economic segregation at its extreme in America.

August 25, 2012 - New York Daily News

As new research data on cities pours in daily, interesting patterns emerge regarding income, green space and urban growth. Like people in their genetic make-up, are cities fundamentally all the same?

June 28, 2012 - The Economist

People love statistics. They let us understanding the world beyond our own senses. USA Today publishes a daily Snapshot which presents a graph of random statistics. Sports talk and business analysis are dominated by statistics. We measure our progress, or lack thereof, and compare ourselves with others, based on statistics about our size, activities and accomplishments.

May 11, 2012 - Todd Litman

Ben Hecht contemplates the currency of the digital age and how it will transform the cities we live in.

March 14, 2012 - Living Cities

The New York City Department of Transportation's yearly statistical smorgasbord adds a new tool: neighborhood travel profiles showing how people arrived in eight neighborhoods. In many of them, the number of drivers was in the single digits.

May 3, 2011 - Streetsblog

When it comes to economics, statistics, demographics, development, and our daily actions, city lines don't count for much - neighborhoods and regions are where things happen, says Kaid Benfield.

November 2, 2010 - Sustainable Cities Collective

The Census is going to be wrong, according to this column from The Washington Post. Statistical adjustments help get undercounts closer to reality, but many opponents prevent their use.

May 5, 2010 - The Washington Post

This post from The New Republic explains how the federal budget includes plans to upgrade some of the varied parts that track statistics in the country.

April 24, 2010 - The New Republic

  A few days ago, I was looking at a regional planning document and saw something startling: an assertion that transit ridership in my region has been going down. Since transit ridership has been going up nationwide, I smelled a rat. After digging around through a big pile of statistics, I realized that there are so many different ways of measuring transit ridership that one can easily prove either that ridership is going up or that ridership is going down. Some possible measurements include:

November 11, 2008 - Michael Lewyn