This morning, a gunman killed at least 20 children and six adults before shooting himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.  Speculation about the crime swirls as details about this tragedy continue to emerge.

Using detailed American Community Survey data from 2006-10, Social Explorer takes a look at who lives in Newtown. We also compared the area with Columbine, Colorado, the site of a tragic high school shooting in 1999, and Aurora, Colorado, where a movie theater shooting took place earlier this year.

Map of Newtown, CT (click to explore)

Newtown, is a small borough 65 miles northeast of New York City. Of the 1,998 residents, there were 246 children under the age of 10.

Residents are well off, with median household incomes of $106,141 (over twice the national median income), and median owner-occupied home values of $459,800 (compared to $188,400 for the nation, and $296,500 for Connecticut).

The top industries include:

• Educational services, and health care and social assistance (20.2 percent)
• Retail trade (12.9 percent)
• Manufacturing (12.8 percent)
• Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (11.6 percent)

And top occupations include:

• Professional and related occupations (25.0 percent)
• Management, business, and financial operations occupations (21.9 percent)
• Sales and related occupations (15.3 percent)
• Transportation and material moving occupations (9.5 percent)

The following charts compare a few demographic traits of Newtown, Aurora (population 314,092), Columbine (population 23,972), and the entire US, based on 2006-10 ACS data.  For more on the data and to create your own reports, visit Social Explorer’s reports tool.

After Hurricane Sandy has passed, assessments of the damage continue.  In the New York Times article “A Survey of Destruction by Hurricane Sandy in New York City,“ Archie Tse and collaborators investigated the impact of the storm.  The New York Times team also created interactive maps and graphics to illustrate it, in consultation with Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge.

In the days before the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, few people in New York City anticipated the scale of destruction of the storm. Its surge, the wave of water driven by the storm’s winds, topped 17 feet in some parts, according to surveys and weather data collected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some neighborhoods in all five boroughs experienced floodwaters that were more than six feet high.

About 200 homes were washed away, burned down or otherwise destroyed by the storm, the city estimated, and at least another 200 will have to be bulldozed in the coming months. An analysis by The New York Times and Andrew A. Beveridge, a professor of sociology at Queens College, estimated that an additional 42,022 homes and buildings were in areas that had at least three feet of water at ground level — enough to destroy furniture and require the replacement of walls, boilers, electrical panels and other costly equipment.

Nearly 1 in 10 New Yorkers lived in a building that saw some flooding. And about 1 in 20 lived where the flooding exceeded six feet.

Click to explore the city’s destruction borough-by-borough and neighborhood-by-neighborhood.

Following up on his initial analysis of the New York City Council’s proposed redistricting plans, Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge wrote an update for Gotham Gazette now that the plans have been released to the public.

In “What the Next City Council Will Likely Look Like,” he gives a district-level analysis of the changes, an assessment of minority representation and Voting Rights Act clearance, and a discussion of incumbency and partisan protection:

The next City Council will likely be demographically similar to the current one, though there may be an increase in both Asian and Latino membership.

That is one of the main takeaways from a review of the new Council lines approved by the city’s Districting Commission on Thursday but not released to the public until the following day.

A further look at the plan shows that it continues to protect incumbents, but was adjusted to accommodate some of the preferences of community and minority group advocates and others who complained loudly about the preliminary plan.

In addition, Lisa Hadley, a noted analyst of voting patterns in the context of redistricting, assessed the plan for any vulnerability to challenge by the Department of Justice and by Minority Voting Rights advocates and found that it unlikely to raise any issues…

Click here to read the full article.

As the New York City Council redistricting process rolls along, WNYC’s Morning Edition interviewed Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge about the details of the new plans, the impact on the city and elected officials, and redistricting issues around the country.

Click here to listen to the WNYC radio segment, and explore the proposed map.

For more background on city redistricting, check out Beveridge’s recent Gotham Gazette article on the subject.

Tonight a critical vote will decide New York City’s future council districts.  Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge writes about city redistricting in his latest Gotham Gazette column “Proposed City Council Districts Protect Incumbents.”

The once-a-decade drama of redistricting the New York City Council is almost complete, with a key vote on proposed maps by a commission appointed by the mayor and Council party leaders expected tonight.

Much is at stake, not for party control, but over who will represent many of the city’s increasingly diverse neighborhoods for the next decade beginning with the 2013 election. Redistricting must be undertaken after each federal decennial Census.

The current Council has 46 Democrats and five Republicans. In 2013, an additional 18 seats will be open due to the impact of the change in the city’s charter regarding term limits. How those districts are drawn will have a lot to do with recruiting new political leadership in New York City for the next decade.

Read the full article for more on for what’s at stake, an explanation of the city’s redistricting process and the players involved, and the demographic impact.

Today, Tuesday, November 6th, voters will determine political contests around the nation.  In honor of Election Day,  Social Explorer takes a closer look at one of the key swing states in the presidential race–Ohio. 

With 11,536,504 residents, Ohio represents 3.7 percent of the U.S. population.

You can create an Ohio map to explore the state’s population (from 2010 census data).  Click around to explore more.

Using the 2010 Census and the 2010 American Community Survey,  you can learn more about this pivotal state.   Here are a few quick facts.

Visit Social Explorer to create your own maps and reports for places in and out of Ohio.

As hurricane Sandy stormed through New York, a crane dangled from atop a luxury condo construction site at 157 West 57th Street in midtown Manhattan.  The storm has passed, but the crane still hangs as plans to secure it are put in place before construction on the 90-story $90 million per unit building can resume.

Social Explorer takes a look at who lives in the shadow of the crane using data from the 2006-10 American Community Survey.

• Over 6,200 people live in census tract 137, many of whom are barricaded out of their apartments to prevent injury.
• The area is dense (72,200.7 people per square mile), even for Manhattan (69,357.7 people per square mile), and especially when compared to the state and country (408 and 86.1 people per square mile, respectively).
• The area is predominately non-Hispanic white (78.9 percent).  The next most populous group is non-Hispanic Asian (9.8 percent), whilenon-Hispanic African Americans represent less than one percent of residents (0.9 percent).
• With a median age of 42.9, residents tend to be older than other Manhattanites (median age 36.3).
• A large share of residents are employed in finance and insurance, and real estate and rental  and leasing (25.3 percent), as well as professional, scientific, and management, and  administrative and waste management services (20.6%)
• The median household income ($117,242) is nearly twice that for other Manhattanites ($64,971), and the poverty rate is less than half for the rest of Manhattan (7.0 percent compared to 14.5 percent).
• Home values and rents are high as well ($879,400 for owner-occupied units, and $2,001 for median gross rent).

In the Shadow of the Crane: Census Tract 137 Population Map

Find out more about the area by clicking on the map or creating your own Social Explorer report.

This week, Hurricane Sandy tore through the Atlantic and landed on the East Coast.  After high winds and flooding, dozens of people died in the storm, millions remain without power, and property all along the coast suffered damage.

Using American Community Survey data from 2006-10, Social Explorer takes a look at a few of the New York-area communities hit hardest by the storm.

In New York City, the storm left behind flooded transit tunnels and a power station exploded, shutting off for over 25 percent of customers, including everyone south of 39^th Street.

Map of Downtown Manhattan 2006-10 American Community Survey (click to explore)

The storm caused a great amount of damage in New Jersey, especially along the iconic boardwalk areas such as Seaside Heights and Atlantic City, as well as Hoboken.

Map of Atlantic City, NJ, 2006-10 American Community Survey (click to explore)

The barrier island along Queens and Long Island suffered greatly as well.  The storm devastated the community of Breezy Point, known as the “Irish Riviera,” on the tip of Rockaway, Queens.  In addition to water damage throughout the area, over 100 houses burnt down.

Map of Breezy Point, Queens, American Community Survey 2006-10 (click to explore)

To learn a little more about who lives in these communities, the table below summarizes a few demographic facts about each of these areas.  Visit Social Explorer’s map and report tools to learn more about these and other places.

Table features American Community Survey 2006-10 data on the following geographic areas:

Downtown Manhattan (PUMA 03809 and 03810)

Atlantic City (census tracts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 24, and 25, Atlantic County, NJ)

Breezy Point (Census Tract 916.01, Queens County, NY)

This week is Unmarried and Single Americans Week.  Initially dubbed National Singles Week, the occasion was expanded to accommodate other un-partnered populations as well.  For over three decades, single Americans have been recognized with their own week.  The rise of living alone is also much-discussed topic, and  some notable singles have also earned recognition on this blog.

In 1980 when the week was first instituted, unmarried and single Americans made up 42.7 percent of the adult population (all single, separated, widowed and divorced Americans over the age of 15 counted by the Census Bureau).  By 2010, the unmarried and single population had become the majority, with 51.2 percent of Americans (according to the 2010 American Community Survey).  So, unmarried and single Americans should celebrate the week alone together.

Using Social Explorer, you can learn more about where single Americans live and how the population has shifted over the decades through maps.  (Click around the maps to explore more.)

Map of Never Married Americans (2010 American Community Survey)

And compare it with the population in 1980.

Map of Never Married Americans (1980 Census)

And, you can zoom in on any area, such as Ohio, where the celebratory week originated.

Map of Never Married Ohioans (2010 American Community Survey)

Map of Never Married Americans (1980 Census)

To get the full picture of the unmarried population, you can also explore where the divorced, widowed, and separated populations live using the mapping tools.

Social Explorer won the Web Marketing Association Publishing Standard of Excellence Award.  Our distributor Oxford University Press entered us in this competition.

The Web Marketing Association was founded in 1997 to help set a high standard for Internet marketing and development of the best websites on the World Wide Web.  The Web Marketing Association is the producer of the WebAward Competition.  Now in its 16th year, the WebAward program is the longest running annual website award competition dedicated to naming the best Web sites in 96 industries while setting the standard of excellence for all website development.

The websites are judged using seven criteria – design, ease of use, copywriting, interactivity, use of technology, innovation and content.