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.

Social Explorer is at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in DC this weekend.  We’re glad to be back at the sociology booth, organized and hosted by the American Sociological Association.

With help from the Obamas, Justin Bieber, Nemo and Harry Potter, we investigate how American Families have changed over the past fifty years.  Come on down to our booth (#734) to explore sociology to try our activity:

Science of the Modern Family: Using Sociology to explore how kids and their families live today

Librarians love Social Explorer, and now we have 12 more reasons to love them back.

As census data show, men make up a small proportion of the population of librarians, but a number of them have brought this minority into the spotlight with the publication of the Men of the Stacks calendar.   (See Zack as Mr. January at left, and Brett as Mr. March below.)

This summer,  Social Explorer conducted an analysis of data on librarians, offering a picture of the profession today and outlining trends over decades.

“Librarians in the U.S. from 1880-2009: An analysis using 120 years of census data”

Among the findings:

• Today, 83 percent of librarians are women, but in the 1880s men had the edge, making up 52 percent of the 636 librarians enumerated.
• In 1930, male librarians were truly rare, making up just 8 percent of the librarian population.
• Male librarians out-earned female librarians in 1950 and 1990, but by 2009, median wages for the two sexes were within $100 of each other

Now you can take a look at a few librarians while taking a look at librarian data.

Here’s a description of the making of the calendar highlighting this small subset of librarians (proceeds going to the It Gets Better Project):

The Men of the Stacks project was first conceived a couple of years ago after learning of the publication of another library-themed calendar.  Our first reaction to that calendar?  “Well, cool but…where are all the men?”  There was another, earlier calendar that featured only male librarians, but we felt it didn’t quite capture the way we saw ourselves.  In both cases, either the stereotype was reinforced or it didn’t go far enough in breaking free of it.

There is an entire population of professional librarians out there who disagree with the way the library profession is perceived in contemporary media outlets and in the historical consciousness of the American mind.  Different people and different associations will use different means to try to change those perceptions.  This is ours.

Earlier this week, Prof. Andrew Beveridge ventured to Las Vegas, Nevada, with Social Explorer in tow for the annual American Sociological Association conference.  Instead of gambling, he doubled down on demographics.

Beveridge presented the paper “Regional Spotlight Session (Las Vegas). Sustainable Las Vegas? Environment, Quality of Life, and Urban Living in the 21st Century,” co-written with Elena Vesselinov.

Beveridge and longtime collaborator David Halle co-organized the Section on Community and Urban Sociology Invited Session. New York and Los Angeles: The Uncertain Future.  Beveridge presented “The Demographics of Boom and Bust: New York and LA Metros, 1990 to 2011.”

Also, Social Explorer was also on display at the poster presentations for “Research Funding Opportunities and Data Resources.”

Thanks to all who came out to the conference and the panels, and remember to always bet on data.

Since January, 2008, Social Explorer users have created over 10,000,000 maps!

Everyone from students to researchers to government agencies to businesses to librarians to media professionals to data enthusiasts to famous athletes to television stars to performers to holiday legends to founding fathers have helped us reach this benchmark.  And demand is on the rise!

Add to the next ten million by visiting our easy-to-use mapping tool.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Social Explorer can be be your patron saint of demography.  Social Explorer has data on Irish residents back to the nation’s founding.  With Social Explorer, users can see where Irish immigrants have settled and moved over the years.

According to the first census in 1790, there were 11,139 Irish residents in the young nation, representing just 1.5% of the total population, which was mostly British.  During the peak immigration years in the early part of the 20th century, Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian and German were the largest groups of new immigrants with over a million foreign born residents for each residing in the US in 1920.

Map of Irish Foreign Born in the US (1920 Census)

You can see concentrations of Irish immigrants in the Northeast and the West

In 1980, the Census Bureau started tracking detailed ancestry information.  Today, the 22,479,693 residents of Irish ancestry make up 7.5% of the population, and an additional 14 million identify as part Irish, bringing that up to over one tenth of the population.  But on St. Patrick’s Day, perhaps everyone is a little Irish.

Map of Irish Ancestry in the US (American Community Survey 2005-09)

Click the maps to explore more.  In honor of the holiday, you can also color your maps in a festive green with our custom color sets.

This past decade, Arizona was the second fastest growing state in the nation (after Nevada), according to newly released census numbers.  In the New York Times article, “Hispanics Are Surging in Arizona,” Marc Lacey reports on the boom.  Along with trends in California and Texas, the Hispanic population is driving much of the state’s growth.  Yet, in Arizona that rise in the Hispanic population, though prominent, has slowed somewhat.  Graphics featuring Census and Social Explorer data accompany the article.

In Arizona, fervor against illegal immigration is so intense that politicians have pushed some of the nation’s toughest laws and citizen activists have patrolled the border themselves. But census data released Thursday show another side of the population story: Arizonans are increasingly becoming Hispanic.

Still, the increase in Hispanics, to just under 30 percent of the population last year from 25 percent in 2000, has been slower than some studies predicted. Tough economic times coupled with restrictions on illegal immigrant workers are probably responsible for driving many Hispanics away, analysts say.

Additionally, the demographics of the Hispanic population help to inform public policy dynamics:

Despite the size of the Hispanic population, nearly 40 percent of it is under age 18 and an untold number of others are not legally able to vote, meaning the numbers do not translate into political clout.

Click here to read the full story.

According to the latest census numbers, things really are bigger in Texas.  Specifically, the state experienced the nation’s greatest population growth over the past decade.

In the New York Times article, “Population ‘Tipping Point’ in Texas, as Hispanics Get Closer to Parity with Whites,” James McKinley Jr. explores the increase, the demographics behind it and the implications for redistricting.  Graphics featuring Census and Social Explorer data accompany the article.

A phenomenal surge in Hispanics has fueled the population growth in Texas, which gained more people over the last decade than any other state, according to United States Census Bureau figures released on Thursday.

People who identify themselves as Hispanic accounted for two-thirds of the state’s growth in the last decade. Hispanics now make up 38 percent of the state’s 25.1 million people, up from 32 percent a decade ago.

Click here to read the full story.

As the Academy Awards judges total up the votes for tonight’s awards ceremony, Social Explorer is tallying up Oscar night demographics.

True Grit brought movie viewers into the Coen brothers’ adaptation of Charles Portis’ tale from the American countryside.  With Social Explorer, you can venture deeper into 1870s Arkansas data.

Arkansas Map 1870

In True Grit, the story’s central Ross family hail from Yell County, AK a county west of Little Rock.  In 1870, the county had 8,048 residents and 595 farms–more than one farm for every 14 people.  Over 99% of the population were raised by parents born in the US.

In the movie, young Mattie Ross heads towards Fort Smith, AK, (in Sebastian County) where her father was recently shot and killed.  Both counties were about 90% white, and about one in four people couldn’t write.  In 1870, the Census Bureau counted the number of religious congregations in the US.  Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian congregations were the most numerous in Sebastian and Yell counties.

Deck yourself out with red carpet data using Social Explorer.

New Yorkers and Knicks fans are celebrating the arrival of basketball phenom Carmelo Anthony.  For Anthony, it’s also a Brooklyn homecoming.  While some look at his debut game stats, Social Explorer is looking to score some data points.

Since Anthony was born in 1984, we’ll focus on the 1980 census data.  Locating his Brooklyn block using the find tool, we can create reports to learn more about his neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Anthony grew up in the Red Hook housing projects—one of the largest public housing complexes in the US.  In 1990, LIFE Magazine named the neighborhood one of the worst in the US and dubbed it the “crack capital of America.”  Today, it is also home to an IKEA furniture store and a Fairway grocery.

Much like the Knicks franchise, the neighborhood has changed substantially in many respects, but not in others.  The data show that the once 71.9% African American neighborhood is now 47.8%.  (Anthony, who is African American and Puerto Rican, would have been part of the 8.5% Hispanic/black category, which has since decreased to 3.2%.)

The median income (adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars) decreased from $18,117 to $14,321 between 1980 and now, with the poverty rate for the area increasing from 38.2% to 62.6%.  Meanwhile, the nationwide median income increased from $49,879 to $51,425.

In 1980, single female-headed households made up 39.4% of the neighborhood. This was nearly twice the borough average and four times the national average. (When Anthony’s father passed away, his home would have been in this category.)  Now, nearly half of family households are headed by a single female (49.8%).

The unemployment rate for men was 12.4% in 1980–nearly twice the national rate of 6.5%.  Today, it has increased to 32.2%–over four times the national rate of 7.3%.

Whether playing in the NCAA or not, residents who attended at least one year of college in the neighborhood increased from 9.4% of the neighborhood population in 1980 to 23.2% today.  Though still lagging behind the national rate (55.2%), the local increase outpaced the national rise.

To learn more about change in Red Hook or other neighborhoods, check out Social Explorer’s maps and reports.