Welcome to Daylight Savings time. In the old days, you had to manually adjust all time-keeping devices to the new time. As clocks became more ubiquitous (in new devices like VCRs and microwave ovens, and added to existing items like stoves and cars), this became more of a chore. Then, the devices started getting smarter, … Continue reading Time to Make a Change

Today I'll cover the final three racial categories, starting with American Indian and Alaska Native. This category is different than the others: the other heritages represent people who immigrated to the US from other countries, whereas American Indians were already here when the other immigrants arrived. It's also different because of the system of tribal … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 5

This time I'll look at census respondents who specified Black when asked about their race and origin. There are two categories of responses here: those who listed "African American" as their origin, and those who indicated something more specific (a country, typically sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean). The former group makes up about 90% of … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 4

Let's jump right into Asian heritage neighborhoods. As before, I’ll list the census tract that had the highest concentration of each heritage; the list is sorted by this concentration. HeritageTractCountyStatePctNationalChinese except Taiwanese611.02San FranciscoCalifornia88.8%1.57% The highest density Chinese neighborhood is Chinatown in San Francisco. Close behind are the three Chinatowns in New York: at the tip … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 3

In my last post I started investigating heritage enclaves; that is, the census tracts with the highest percentage of each heritage (or 'origin', as the census defines it). Last time it was for White heritages; today let's look at the Hispanic side of things. The top of the list: HeritageTractCountyStatePctNationalMexican114.05YumaArizona96.9%10.82%Cuban6.1Miami-DadeFlorida84.4%0.68%Puerto Rican8115HampdenMassachusetts80.6%1.69%Dominican2509EssexMassachusetts65.8%0.66% The first two are … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 2

Last post we looked at the heritage (i.e., race/ethnicity/origin) of US Census respondents, at the state and county level. This time we'll look at things at a much more granular level: Census Tracts. A tract is a small, relatively permanent subdivision of a city or county, averaging around 4,000 people. Sort of an extended neighborhood. … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves

The 2020 US Census asked questions about the race and ethnic composition of every American. Based on current guidelines, each person was asked which race they identify as. In a separate question, they were asked if they were of Hispanic or Latino origin. Both of those questions had a write-in field for "origin", enabling respondents … Continue reading Our Heritages

One last look at the graying of America, this time at the county level. Let's start with the extremes. The county that aged the most dramatically over the past 50 years is Sumter County in Florida. In 1970, its median age was 30. By 2020, it jumped to 67.3. The explanation is pretty straightforward: the … Continue reading Where We Are Getting Older

Let's look at other ways to visualize how America has aged in the past fifty years. At the end of the previous post, I introduced histograms based on ten-year age ranges. Here's a different view of the same data, comparing 1970 with 2020 In 1970, the red and yellow layers (ages 5-24) were the baby … Continue reading Visualizing the Graying of America

The US is getting older. No surprise there; they've been talking about it for years now. Here's how the median age of US residents has changed over the past 50 years: In less than a lifetime the median age of Americans has increased by ten years - pretty remarkable (it's even more dramatic in some … Continue reading The Graying of America