We are pleased to announce that Social Explorer won the 2013 Interactive Media Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Reference Category.

The Interactive Media Awards™ recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement.  Websites were judged five criteria: Design, Content, Feature Functionality, Usability and Standards Compliance.

Created by the Interactive Media Council, Inc. (IMC), a nonprofit organization of leading web designers, developers, programmers, advertisers and other web-related professionals, the competition is designed to elevate the standards of excellence on the Internet and offer winners a boost in marketing and exposure.

Congratulations to the whole Social Explorer team, and thank you to our users for your feedback and inspiration.  Be sure to try out our new website, now available in beta.

Decades after affirmative action began, the Supreme Court is now poised to rule in a case that could radically change these policies.  Advocates for and against affirmative action await the ruling by the Supreme Court on the potentially landmark case Fisher v. University of Texas, which alleges discrimination against white applicants in admission to the University of Texas.

The question of whether blacks have achieved equality in the professional world is probed by Nelson D. Schwartz and Michael Cooper, who examine the low numbers of African Americans in law and other spheres for the recent New York Times article “Racial Diversity Efforts Ebb for Elite Careers, Analysis Finds.”  In their investigation of the current state of professionals and race, the reporters cite data analysis from Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge:

While about 12 percent of the nation’s working-age population is black, about 5 percent of physicians and dentists in the United States are black — a share that has not grown since 1990, according to an analysis of census data that was prepared for The New York Times by sociologists at Queens College of the City University of New York. The analysis found that 3 percent of American architects are black, another field where the share has not increased in more than two decades.

After detailing other statistics of the lack of African Americans in the legal field and the end of affirmative action programs, the authors write, “Such numbers raise the question of whether the private sector’s commitment to affirmative action and diversity programs is eroding, even as the Supreme Court again considers a high-profile case involving a public university.”

Click here to read the full article.

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new book co-edited by Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge.

Please join us to celebrate the release of:

New York and Los Angeles: The Uncertain Future
Edited by David Halle and Andrew Beveridge
(Oxford University Press, May, 2013)

A Book Launch Celebration (panel discussion and reception)

Thursday, May 16, 5pm – 7pm

CUNY Graduate Center

365 5th Avenue at 34th St. (sixth floor), New York, NY

Free and open to the public.

**Featured in The New York Times**

Sam Roberts writes: One in eight Americans lives in metropolitan New York or Los Angeles, so exploring and comparing the regions is an instructive exercise in where the nation is heading. And in “New York and Los Angeles: The Uncertain Future” (Oxford University Press, $34.95), Andrew A. Beveridge and David Halle, sociology professors at Queens College and the University of California, Los Angeles, enlist experts from the social sciences to do just that.

Supplemented with comparative graphics, this comprehensive volume may be academic in tone but is informative and accessible to the lay reader…(Read the full article here.)

Read about:

• A provocative examination into the causes behind NY’s plummeting crime rate and a comparison with LA’s police department.
• An analysis of how race, more than class or income, is still the chief barrier to housing integration.
• An assessment of city politics leading up to the mayoral race.
• The latest Census and American Community Survey data.
• And much more.

(Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.)

Forum Participants to Include:

• Andrew Beveridge, Queens College/CUNY Graduate Center, and Sydney Beveridge, SocialExplorer.com, “The Big Picture: Demographic and Other Changes.”
• Susan Fainstein, Harvard University “The New York and Los Angeles Economies from Boom to Crisis.” (co-author David Gladstone)
• David Halle, UCLA, and Andrew Beveridge, “Financial and Economic Crisis and the Politics of Ongoing Dramas.” (co-author Andrew Beveridge)
• George Sweeting, New York Independent Budget Office, “New York City and Los Angeles: Taxes, Budgets, and Managing the Financial Crisis” (co-author Andrea Dineen)
• Jeffrey Fagan, Columbia Law School, “Policing, Crime and Legitimacy in New York and Los Angeles: The Social and Political Contexts of Two Historic Crime Declines.”  (co-author John MacDonald)
• Margaret Chin, Hunter College/CUNY Graduate Center, “The Transformation of Chinese American Communities: New York vs. Los Angeles” (co-authors Min Zhou and Rebecca Kim)
• Andrew Deener, University of Connecticut, “Planning Los Angeles: The Changing Politics of Neighborhood and Downtown Development”  (co-authors Steven P. Erie, Vladimir Kogan, and Forrest Stuart)
• Nancy Foner, Hunter College/CUNY Graduate Center, “New York and Los Angeles as Immigrant Destinations: Contrasts and Convergence.” (co-author Roger Waldinger)
• William Kornblum, CUNY Graduate Center, “A Land Ethic for the City of Water.” (co-authors Kristen Van Hooreweghe and Steve Lang)
• Rick Bell, New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, “Los Angeles, Where Architecture Is At.”

Other Book Topics and Contributors:

• International Trade Centers (Jameson W. Doig, Steven P. Erie, and Scott A. MacKenzie)
• Politics (John Mollenkopf and Raphael J. Sonenshein)
• Schools (Julia Wrigley)
• Housing (Ingrid Gould Ellen and Brendan O’Flaherty)
• Environmental Policy Change in Los Angeles (Martha Matsuoka and Robert Gottlieb)
• New York, LA, and Chicago as Depicted in Hit Movies (Eric Vanstrom, Jan Reiff, and Ted Nitschke)
• Nonprofit Organizations (Helmut K Anheier, David Howard, and Marcus Lam)

We look forward to seeing you at the event.

A Federal District Court settlement sets forth new rules for immigration raids in the U.S., changing the way that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct searches.  Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge did a report and testified as an expert for the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit.

Using data from immigration and custom enforcement, he analyzed whether those that ICE intended to arrest, as well as those ultimately arrested, were disproportionately Hispanic.  To do this, he assessed whether those arrested (but not among those ICE intended to arrest) were also disproportionately Hispanic, and whether the areas where ICE went on raids were more likely Hispanic.  About 93 percent of all those ICE intended to arrest were Hispanic, while over 96 percent of those actually arrested were Hispanic.  In addition, he assessed whether ICE had recorded permission to enter the homes of detainees.  They asked for permission in very few cases of the nearly 200 raids analysed.

He concluded that ICE disproportionately targeted Hispanics for arrest and then arrested even more Hispanics in the actual raids, even though it did not arrest that many of the people it claimed it was planning to arrest.  In short, its procedures, its choice of potential arrestees, and its actual arrests were disproportionately Hispanic.  Also, ICE appeared to have seldom recorded that it had obtained permission to enter the homes of arrestees.

The New York Times’ Kirk Semple lays out the details and impacts of the settlement (excerpts below):

Federal authorities have agreed to establish new policies governing the conduct of immigration officers during raids, including restrictions on how and when agents can enter private homes, the source of widespread ire and anxiety among immigrants.

The suit contended that in eight raids in 2006 and 2007, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, without court warrants or other legal justification, forced their way into the homes of Latino families on Long Island and in Westchester County.

The plaintiffs in the suit contended that during the raids, armed agents surrounded their homes in the predawn hours, pounded on windows and shouted orders to open up. When occupants opened the doors, the plaintiffs contended, the agents barged inside — in at least one instance with guns drawn — then swept through the homes, corralling occupants for interrogations.

According to the settlement, immigration agents needing consent to enter a private residence will now have to seek permission in a language spoken by the resident “whenever feasible.” Agents must also get consent from residents to enter the yards and other private outside areas adjoining their homes, the settlement said.

Under the settlement, agents are forbidden from conducting protective sweeps through the homes without “a reasonable, articulable suspicion of danger.”

Things move fast in New York, unless you’re trying to sign your kid up for something.  In the New York Times article “Born to Wait: For Parents, a Waiting List for Nearly Everything,” Soni Sangha explores the increase in over-filled classes and long waiting lists for children’s programs.  The story includes data and analysis from Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge.

If waiting in line in the predawn of a January morning for science camp registration sounds crazy, you do not have a New York City child born after 2004. For those children and their parents, especially in the neighborhoods of brownstone Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan and the Upper West Side, not getting into activities, classes, sports teams — and even local schools — has become a way of life. If every generation must have its own designation, call theirs Generation Waiting List…

Sangha goes on to cite Beveridge and include a map highlighting the growth of the youth population in different pockets of the city.

At first blush, the waiting lists are a little surprising, given that in the city there were 7 percent fewer children 9 and younger in 2011 than there were in 2000, according to census findings. Indeed, every borough has seen a decrease in children in that age range.

But the distribution of children is highly uneven, and some neighborhoods, especially those deemed “family friendly,” have seen population explosions that outpace the general population growth, according to an analysis of census data by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College.

In Battery Park City-Lower Manhattan, the 9 and younger population has grown by 129 percent over the last decade; uptown, the Lincoln Square neighborhood has seen a 56 percent growth.

In Brooklyn, Park Slope had a 2 percent increase, and its more affordable neighbor, Windsor Terrace, grew by 11 percent. The mostly Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood saw a 25 percent increase.

“The people having kids these days, they are a lot more well off,” Professor Beveridge said, “so those parents are much more likely to have kids who are clients” — of summer camps, music schools and the like.

Earlier this week, Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge appeared on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show to talk about the latest in the decennial New York City redistricting battle.  The city’s changing demographics, along with the many other political and legal forces at play, will determine the new districts and thus shape the future of New York City’s politics.  Beveridge and fellow guests discussed incumbency, particular neighborhoods, minority representation, proposed district lines and alternatives, reform efforts, and more.  Listen to the the full conversation in the segment below:

Since the most recent City Council redistricting proposal, negotiations have been taking place to further adjust the balance of power among New York City communities. In advance of Wednesday’s public hearing, several experts weigh in on NYC’s changing demographics and how redistricting will affect city council elections.

• Jerry Vattamala staff attorney, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
• Andrew Beveridge professor of sociology at Queens College, CUNY Graduate Center and the man behind Social Explorer
• Esmerelda Simmons founder and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Justice in Brooklyn

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.

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.

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)