As the United States celebrates the anniversary of its founding, using Social Explorer, I took a look at the nation’s first capital city of Philadelphia, then and now.  The first Census, conducted in 1790–the early years of the United States’s history–reveals some of the changes Philadelphia, along with the rest of the nation, has experienced.

Slideshow: Philadelphia from 1790 to 2007

If you want to find out more about your own area, back as far as 1790 or whenever it joined the union, and up through 2007, you can do so easily with Social Explorer.

While news channels broadcast from the front door of Michael Jackson’s childhood home and the gate to the Neverland Ranch, Social Explorer lets you look around the neighborhood, and see who was living near Michael.

Indiana to California:

Born in 1958, Jackson spent his early years in Gary, Indiana. Living at 2300 Jackson Street (named after the former president, not his own family), he was raised in a suburb of Chicago. His father worked in the steel industry, a more robust sector at the time. The Jackson household had 11 members, making it larger than 90 percent of neighboring families (and larger than Jon and Kate and Plus 8).

Slideshow: Gary, IN % Black 1960 — 2000 census tract:

(Click on the maps to interact.)

After building up a following in the Midwest, Jackson and his family first moved to Los Angeles in 1968 with Motown Records. That year, the Jackson Five performed at Jack Hanson’s elite Beverly Hills nightclub the Daisy. The concert helped launch them onto the national record industry scene, and in 1969, Motown released their debut album “Diana Ross Presents the Jackson Five.”

Race and Space:

It may not matter if you’re black or white, when looking at demographics, it might. It is worth noting that Jackson has lived in communities of both homogenous extremes. His hometown in Gary was 99.4 percent black in 1960, and remains highly segregated today (97.8 percent black according to the 2000 Census). In California, Jackson lived in communities with a radically different racial makeup.

The Jackson family compound at 4641 Havenhurst Ave., Encino, California, is in a neighborhood with a black population that has been at or below one percent from 1980 to the present. Meanwhile, the Neverland Ranch at 5225 Figueroa Mountain Rd., Los Olivos, CA, is in a community that has been less than 1 percent black since Jackson first bought the property in 1987. (You can check these and other indicators for yourself. Just go to Social Explorer and click on “maps,” and then try out the various addresses.)

In addition to a shift in racial diversity, the housing and density are completely different between Gary and Los Angeles. Public about his anxieties being surrounded by lots of people, Jackson moved from Gary where nearly 11,000 people shared one square mile of land, to Los Olivos, CA, where the population density remains less than 30 people per square mile.

(Click on the map to interact.)

Latest Home:

After courtroom controversies and years of living in Bahrain, Dubai and Ireland, Jackson moved to 100 North Carolwood Dr., in Holmby Hills, CA, earlier this year.

The $100,000 monthly rent of his mansion could have bought him three homes in Gary, Indiana, where the median home value is $37,100 (a figure that is low for both the county and the nation).

Back in the land of million-dollar-mansions (the median home value for the Holmby Hills area) and just miles away from his breakthrough Beverly Hills concert, Jackson was rehearsing for what could have been another pivotal concert in his career.

All data and demographic references are from Social Explorer maps and reports.

Additional Sources:

LA Times Obituary

NY Times Obituary

NY Times Article “Tricky Steps from Boy to Superstar”

Population Shifts and the Future of the New York State Senate:

Control of the Albany legislature may be in doubt today, but population shifts foreshadow a clear change after the 2010 Census. In Sam Roberts’ New York Times article “Democratic Lock Seen on 2013 Albany Senate,” Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge explains that the growing downstate population will greatly influence the next round of redistricting—the decennial redrawing of election district lines to account for changing demographics. The downstate increase in population traditionally favors Democratic Party candidates and control.

Given the Republicans’ slippery hold on the Senate seats they carved out in New York City (last November they lost one of four and almost lost another) and upstate’s declining share of the state’s population, Dr. Beveridge said, “it’s possible that after redistricting the Senate would have 38 Democrats and only 24 Republicans.”

Click here to read the full article.

In the current New York Magazine article ”Five-Year-Olds at the Gate,” Andrew Beveridge comments on the glut of kindergarteners in the New York City School System.

Writer Jeff Coplon examines the conflict between the increase in the number of New York City’s toddlers with the lack of kindergarten seats: “Why are Manhattan’s elementary schools turning away kindergartners? How the Bloomberg administration missed the baby boom it helped create.”  Beveridge reacted to the city’s handling of over-filled kindergartens, “They knew this was coming,” Beveridge said. “But they’re acting like, ‘Oh, Jesus, this is a surprise.’ ”

The article also highlights findings from Beveridge’s research:

In a 2007 study of 2005 census data, demographer Andrew Beveridge found three transformative facts:

First, Manhattan’s under-5 set had shot up by 32 percent in five years, compared to roughly 4 percent for the population overall.

Second, most of the growth came from white toddlers, up a stunning 40 percent. They outnumbered their black and Latino peers for the first time since Lyndon Johnson ruled the White House.

Third, those 35,000 white toddlers were exceedingly fortunate. Compared with New Yorkers in general, their parents were older (mostly thirtysomethings) and better educated and with a median income of $284,208—89 percent more than the next richest group of white-toddler households, in San Francisco.

Professor Beveridge’s analysis was previously reported on by Sam Robert for the New York Times, In Surge in Manhattan Toddlers, Rich White Families Lead Way.

Social Explorer held a booth and gave demonstrations at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference.  ACRL held its 14th National Conference at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center in downtown Seattle, March 12-15, 2009.



The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the largest division of the American Library Association, is a professional association of academic librarians and other interested individuals. It is dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improve learning, teaching, and research.

- ACRL website

Social Explorer was cited by the New York Times on a graphic piece that appeared on the front page of The New York Times website today.

To view Visit: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html?hp

Last week we put up the newly redesigned Social Explorer website. We have have improved the look and feel, navigation and added a new section called ‘Help’ which contains documents and examples on how to use Social Explorer. The help section was written and illustrated by Zanna Hendrey.

We hope you enjoy the new site!

Andrew Beveridge was recently interviewed by the New York Observer’s real estate editor.  Below is the start, and here is a link to the full interview.

http://www.observer.com/2008/real-estate/beveridge-fizzy-future

Location: The theme that unites the Mayor’s 2030 PlaNYC is that the city will grow by about one million people in the next 25 years. Do you agree?

Mr. Beveridge: It’s an interesting thing because the way they framed it was that it’s inevitable that the city’s going to grow that much. … If you take a look at it, that isn’t that much growth, percentage-wise, since they have it over 30 years.

So what happens in 20 years? How big is the city?

It will be bigger. Unless something bad happens! Then it will be smaller.

The School Divide Starts at Kindergarten

The recent baby boom in New York City led to an increasing squeeze in the search for the best school for the budding kindergartner or first grader. Unlike other recent spurts in enrollment, the latest surge has had the great effect in Manhattan, especially among highly affluent non-Hispanic white families

The number of white toddlers (ages 0 to 4) in the city has increased greatly. In decades past, white families and more affluent families would often leave New York City for the suburbs, where the schools were small and elite (at least according to who lived there) and open to all residents. Now more of these families prefer to stay in New York City.

The impacts of the new trend are reverberating throughout New York City’s elementary schools — public and private, elite and neighborhood. One of the city’s top elementary schools, Hunter, saw 1,550 children apply for 48 slots. The large increase in students sitting for the private school exams document that this is indeed the year of the crunch.

Many affluent parents have seen public school Gifted and Talented programs as a viable - and free — alternative to private schools, but critics have long maintained the system unfairly favored these children, shortchanging those in poorer black and Hispanic areas. This year the city adopted a standardized test with uniform standards to select those eligible. However, we now know that this method resulted in a much less diverse program according to the New York Times.

Finally, just getting ones child into a neighborhood school seems to have turned into a difficult process for some. Confusion, competition for limited slots and changes in the selection methods for the relatively few desirable elementary programs seem to be the order of the day.

Read More http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/demographics/20080626/5/2566

We have started a mailing list for Social Explorer!

Our plan is to send out a simple news-letter email to our mailing list subscribers four to six times a year. This way we can keep you informed about new developments and data releases at Social Explorer, but not overwhelm your inbox. We hope you join.

Sign up here!