A new article on Remapping Debate examines persistent racial segregation in the US.  The story “Mapping and analysis of new data documents still-segregated America,” explores the realities of racial segregation in neighborhoods across the nation.  Working with tools provided by Social Explorer, Remapping Debate released interactive maps that can zoom down to the Census Block Group level anywhere in the US, showing the high concentration of segregated neighborhoods.

Social Explorer segregation map from Remapping Debate

(red areas are 0% African American and gray areas are more than 50% African American)

Social Explorer map showing segregation along Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn, NY

Remapping Debate analysis of 2005-09 American Community Survey data found that:

• In a country that is only 12.1 percent African-American, 30 percent of African-Americans live in Census Block Groups that are 75 percent African-American or more.
• 75 percent of African-Americans in the country live in only 16 percent of the Census Block Groups in the United States.
• 50 percent of African-Americans live in Census Block Groups that have a combined African-American and Latino population of 66.85 percent or more (nationally, the latino population is approximately 15.8 percent, so the combined African-American and Latino population is just shy of only 28 percent).

Explore the maps and feature by clicking here.

Social Explorer and the University of Illinois at Chicago have been awarded a $500,000 collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation for a project to try and improve undergraduates’ science skills using Social Explorer.

“We’re trying to train better social scientists — sociologists, historians, demographers, urban planners and criminologists,” said Josh Randinsky, assistant professor of the learning sciences in the UIC College of Education.

This project is called “Creating and Disseminating Tools to Teach with Demographic Data Maps and Materials.”  The grant will enable a research team to review and revise Social Explorer, develop new online curriculum modules for easier accessibility, train undergraduate faculty to teach new research techniques using the mapping technology, and integrate the tool into undergraduate social science classrooms.  Due to this and other funding we are able to keep Social Explorer
subscription prices for institutions relatively low.

Social Explorer is already in use in classrooms around the country and in conjunction with several social science textbooks published by Pearson Publishing.  To view Social Explorer’s example teaching modules, please visit the help page. We are interested in contacting those who use or would be willing to use Social Explorer in teaching to work with us on this project. Send a note to instructors@socialexplorer.com if you are interested.

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

Another important update! Map version 12.6 release displays missing values with cross hatched lines and features that are not populated enough to compute a statistically significant outcome (our rule is less than 100 population count) are colored light gray.

Fig. 1 – Census tracts 1950, % Black Population. Notice New Jersey has missing data so it is crossed out, and some tracts in NY are grayed out because not enough people live there.

Over the weekend we updated maps to version 12.6. A few minor tweaks and additions, but they will make your map viewing more pleasant. We updated the streets layer to blend into the map a bit more and we are now using a single color for all streets so it is easier to distinguish them from other map features. I won’t bore you with details but take a look at the difference between version 12.5 and 12.6.

ver. 12.5

ver. 12.6