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.

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.”

As George Bush’s 2008 presidential proclamation stated, Tartan Day seeks to “celebrate the spirit and character of Scottish Americans and recognize their many contributions to our culture and our way of life.”

Though Census data do not go back as far as the 14th century Declaration of Arbroath, Social Explorer’s data resources offer a glimpse into the birth and development of the Scottish community in America.  Back in 1790, the very first Census tracked the nationality of the foreign born population.

While the English and Welsh made up over four fifths of the population (81.4 percent), followed by the Germans (6.5 percent), the Scottish were the next most populous group (5.9 percent), followed by the Dutch (3.0 percent).  (Calculations based on all available county data from the 1790 Census.)

Though small in number compared to other groups, they settled in particular communities of the early colonies, which you can explore in the following map.

Scottish Americans: Census 1790

Click the map to explore.

This detailed map of American Community Survey data shows where Americans with Scottish ancestry live today.

Scottish Ancestry: American Community Survey 2006-10

Click the map to explore.

The Scottish continue to immigrate to the US, and this detailed map data shows where residents originally born in Scotland live today.

Foreign-Born Scottish Residents: American Community Survey 2006-10

Click the map to explore.

Check out Social Explorer’s map and report tools for more Tartan Day data.

]]> http://www.socialexplorer.com/pub/blog/?feed=rss2&p=2228 0 http://www.socialexplorer.com/pub/blog/?p=2211 http://www.socialexplorer.com/pub/blog/?p=2211#comments Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:36:31 +0000 Sydney Beveridge http://www.socialexplorer.com/pub/blog/?p=2211 This week, the Supreme Court heard two cases that could change same-sex marriage laws nationwide.  If the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 are ruled illegal, same-sex couples around the nation could rush to the altar this summer.

To help measure the impact of this ruling on the population, Social Explorer took a look at data on same-sex couples.  The Census and American Community Survey collect data on unmarried partners living together.  These numbers offer some insight into how many co-habitating same-sex partners might consider marriage if it became a legal right.

According to the 2011 American Community Survey:

• There were 605,472 same-sex unmarried partners nationwide.
• Those couples accounted for 9 percent of all unmarried partner households.
• There were 87,078 unmarried same-sex partners in California.
• California accounts for 14.4 percent of same-sex partners living together.

The New York Times household comparison tool created with Social Explorer and IPUMS data and analysis shows that unmarried same-sex partners have higher incomes than both married couples and unmarried opposite-sex partners.

You can explore a more detailed view of same-sex unmarried partners in California, your neighborhood, and elsewhere using Social Explorer’s five-year American Community Survey map.

Interactive Map of Same-Sex Unmarried Partners (American Community Survey 2006-10)

Click to Explore

Check out Social Explorer’s map and report tools to find out more about same-sex couples and other groups.

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons.)

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.

Social Explorer look at an intersection of these two events with related data.

One of the cities most associated with Mardi Gras is New Orleans. The city also played a significant role in the life of a young Abraham Lincoln, and might have helped set him on the path towards the Emancipation Proclamation and ending slavery.

Back in 1828, a teenaged Lincoln got a job sailing a flatboat down the Mississippi River. This was the midwesterner’s first trip down south. Three years later, he and two friends were hired for another boat trip.

The contrast between living in Springfield, Illinois, and venturing into the South was striking. According to the 1830 census, in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield (Sangamon County) had just 13 slaves (nine women and four men) out of a population of 12,960 people (0.1 percent). Meanwhile, in New Orleans, one out of every three residents was a slave (33.4 percent of the 49,826 people).

Map of 1830 Slave Population in Sangamon County, Illinois (click to explore)

Map of 1830 Slave Population in New Orleans, Louisiana (click to explore)

Map of 1830 Slave Population in the United States (click to explore)

Various accounts state that the prominent southern slave trade that the young Lincoln saw on this trip heavily influenced him. On this journey, he witnessed the horrors of a slave auction—an experience said to have prompted him to proclaim an oath to combat slavery, which he fulfilled decades later as president.

For more about the places Lincoln lived, check out Social Explorer’s mapping and reporting tools.

(Photo of Charles Keck young Lincoln sculpture from wiki commons.)

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

For over 120 years, Punxsutawney Phil Soweby (Punxsutawney Phil for short), has offered his predictions, based on whether he sees his shadow (more winter) or not (an early spring).

The first official Groundhog Day celebration took place in 1887, and Phil has gone on to star in a blockbuster film, dominate the early February news cycle, and even appear on Oprah.  (He also has his own Beanie Baby and his own flower.)

In addition to weather predictions, Phil also loves data, and while people think he is hibernating, he is actually conducting demographic analysis.  As a Social Explorer subscriber, he used the site’s mapping and reporting tools to look at the composition of his hometown.

Click for Groundhog Day movie trailer

Punxsutawney, PA, located outside of Pittsburgh, is part of Jefferson County.  Examining Census data from 1890, Phil learned that the population was 44,405 around the time of his first predictions.  While the rest of the nation was becoming more urban, Jefferson County remained more rural with only one eighth of the population living in places with 2,500 people or more (compared to nearly half statewide and more than a third in the US).

Many Jefferson residents worked in the farming industry.  Back then, there were 3.2 families for every farm in Jefferson County–higher than the rest of the state with 5.0 families per farm.

Less than three decades after the Civil War, the county (located in a northern state) was 99.9 percent white, which was a little higher than statewide (97.9 percent) and also higher than nationwide 87.8 percent.  (The Census also noted that there was one Chinese resident of Jefferson County in 1890.)

Groundhog Day was originally called Candlemas, a day that Germans said the hibernating groundhog took  a break from slumbering to check the weather.  (According to the Oxford Companion to the Year.)  If the creature sees its shadow, and is frightened, winter will hold on and hibernating will continue, but if not, the groundhog will stay awake and spring will come early.  Back in 1890, there were 703 Germans living in Jefferson County (representing 1.6 percent of the county population and 11.3 percent of the foreign born), making Germany the fourth most common foreign born place of birth behind England, Scotland and Austria.  Groundhog Day is also said to be Celtic in its roots, so perhaps the 623 Irish residents (representing 1.4 percent of the county population and 10.1 percent of the foreign born) helped to establish the tradition in Pennsylvania.

Looking to today’s numbers, Phil was astonished to learn from the 2010 Census that Jefferson County has just 795 more people than it did 120 years ago.  While Jefferson grew by 1.8 percent, the state grew by 141.6 percent and the nation grew by 393.0 percent.

2010 Census Jefferson County, PA, Population Density (click to explore)

Phil dug deeper.  The 2008-10 American Community Survey data reveal that the once-prominent farming industry had shrunk considerably.  (Because it is a small group, “agriculture” is now grouped with other industries including forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining.)  While Jefferson residents are more likely to work in the industry than other Pennsylvanians, that share represents just 4.4 percent of the employed civilian workforce.

According to the Census, Jefferson is still predominately white (98.3 percent), while the rest of the state and nation have become somewhat more diverse (81.9 percent white in Pennsylvania and 72.4 percent nationwide).  Today there are 24 Chinese residents (out of a total of 92 Asian residents).

As Phil rises from his burrow this February second, he will survey the shadows with new insight into his community and audience.  To learn more about Punxsutawney Phil’s hometown burrow (and your own borough), please visit our mapping and reporting tools.

Social Explorer takes a look at the demographics of the legendary activist’s hometown then and now to see how it has (and has not) changed.  King was born in 1929, so we will examine Census data from 1930, 1940, and the latest Census and American Community Survey data.

His boyhood home is now a historic site, situated at 450 Auburn Avenue Northeast, in Fulton County (part of Atlanta).   In 1930, Fulton County had a population of 318,587 residents.  A little over two thirds of the population was white (68.1 percent) and almost one third of the population was African American (31.9 percent).  Today, the 920,581-member population split is nearly even at 44.5 percent white and 44.1 percent African American, according to 2010 Census data.  Fulton’s population is more African American than the United States as a whole (12.6 percent), but not as as much as Atlanta (54.0 percent).

A closer look at 1940s Census data of the Atlanta area offers more detail about where the black and white populations lived.  The following map shows the distribution of the black population in the Atlanta of King’s youth.  Plainly, African Americans lived together, largely apart from whites.

African American Population in Fulton County, GA, and Surroundings, 1940 (click map to explore)

For comparison, the following map shows where the black population lives today.  Now the black population has expanded in the metro area, but still seems to be quite segregated.

African American Population in Fulton County, GA, and Surroundings, 2010 (click map to explore)

Reflecting on a century after the end of slavery, King said in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963:

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

The quest for equal rights and freedoms made up part of a larger vision.  In 1967, he spoke of aspiring for full equality at a speech at the Victory Baptist Church in Los Angeles:

Our struggle in the first phase was a struggle for decency.  Now we are in the phase where there is a struggle for genuine equality.  This is much more difficult.  We aren’t merely struggling to integrate the lunch counter now. We’re struggling to get some money to be able to buy a hamburger or a steak when we get to the counter…

He went on to say that this would require a commitment of not only political initiative but also money,  “It didn’t cost the nation one penny to integrate lunch counters. It didn’t cost the nation one penny to guarantee the right to vote. The problems that we are facing today will cost the nation billions of dollars.”

In 1968, King and other activists launched the Poor People’s Campaign, advocating for economic justice to address these imbalances in opportunity and resources.  A few months later, he was assassinated.

We can look at different socioeconomic indicators to measure the country’s progress towards equality.  According to 1940 Census data, more than a third (36.5 percent) of housing units in Fulton County where whites lived were owner occupied, compared to less than a seventh (14.0 percent) of the housing units where African Americans lived.

Today, home ownership increased for both groups, but the gap remains.  Two thirds (66.6 percent) of white households are owner-occupied, compared to two fifths (41.7 percent) of all black households.

Home Ownership Comparison in Fulton, GA, by Race

We will now examine other measures of equality to see examples of additional gaps.

The unemployment rate is nearly twice as high among African Americans (17.9 percent) compared to among whites nationwide (9.5 percent).  That gap is even more pronounced in Fulton County, where the unemployment rate for whites is 7.7 percent, while the unemployment rate for African Americans is 20.4 percent.

The percent of those living below poverty is also higher in the black community (27.2 percent) than in the white community (12.5 percent).  While both groups are better off in Fulton County than the rest of the US, the poverty rate gap is even larger (8.2 percent among whites and 26.6 percent among African Americans in Fulton).

Similarly, while both groups are better educated in Fulton County compared to the rest of the US, nearly two thirds (62.4 percent) of white adults in the county have BA degrees or more, while just one quarter (25.3 percent) of the black population have the same level of education.  The college attainment gap is 11.6 percentage points nationwide, but 37.1 percentage points in Fulton County.

While much progress towards freedom and equality has been made since King’s time, chronic gaps persist, even in his own backyard.  The data show that 50 years after the “I Have a Dream Speech,”equal opportunity and socioeconomic status continue to lag behind equal rights.

You can use Social Explorer’s mapping and reporting tools to investigate dreams, freedoms, and equality further.

Using Social Explorer, you can explore data on Seneca County from 1940 (around the time Capra is said to have visited the town) and today, using the 2008-10 American Community Survey (ACS) data, unless otherwise noted.

Back in 1940, Seneca County had 25,732 residents, of whom 99.5 percent were white and 0.5 percent were black.  Nearly a third of the county’s foreign born population (32.0 percent) hailed from Italy, more than both statewide (one fifth) and nationwide (one seventh).  Many foreign born residents also came from Germany (10.2 percent) and England and Wales (9.1 percent).

Today, Seneca County has grown 37.1 percent to 35,285 residents, while the state grew 43.2 percent and the nation grew 133.0 percent.  Seneca County remains predominately white (92.9 percent) with a small but growing black population (4.3 percent).  According to 2006-10 ACS data, today 4.6 percent of the foreign born population comes from Italy.  Larger shares of newcomers come from other countries including Canada (17.4 percent), India (11.2 percent), Laos (6.1 percent), Ukraine (5.1 percent), and Poland (3.6 percent).

The top occupations in 1940 were:

• Proprietors/Managers/Official (20.9 percent)
• Craftmen/Foremen/Kindred Workers (16.4 percent)
• Operatives/Kindred Workers (15.0 percent)
• Laborers (13.9 percent)

Of the adult residents, 18.2 percent had completed high school (or more) and 3.0 percent had graduated from college, which were both smaller percentages than in the state (22.9 percent and 5.5 percent) and nation (24.1 percent and 4.6 percent).

Today, Seneca County outpaces the nation and state in high school graduates with 35.7 percent (compared to 27.6 percent for the state and 28.4 percent for the nation), but still lags behind in college graduates with 11.2 percent of adults having a college degree or more, compared to 18.4 percent for the state and 17.7 percent for the nation.

Map of Seneca County (1940 Census)

The unemployment rate was 6.5 percent, which was notably lower than for both the US 10.1 percent and the state 14.1 percent.  At 5.7 percent, unemployment in Seneca remains lower than elsewhere in the state (8.3 percent) and nation (9.0 percent).  So, by saving the bank, perhaps George Bailey really did save the town.

You can explore Seneca more using Social Explorer’s mapping and reporting tools, and every time you click a map, an angel gets its wings.

Happy Holidays from Social Explorer!