Data link roundup (week of June 7, 2013)

The week's top data analysis links...
This week's themes: how jobs affect cities, how technology affects jobs, and how the economy changes everything.


THE CITY GROWS FROM 9-5

Transportation planners and emergency response teams know that daytime population and nighttime population are two very different things. But just how different are they?

New data from the American Community Survey, parsed and published by The Atlantic Cities, shows that Manhattan's population doubles during the typical work day - from commuters alone. (Figures do not include tourists and other travelers.)


FROM HORSE-DRAWN CARTS TO SMARTPHONES
(also BEST CHART OF THE WEEK)

New analysis from the Office for National Statistics summarizes 170 years of industrial change in England and Wales. Highlights:

• At every Census from 1841, the percentage of people working in agriculture and fishing has declined. In 1841, 22% of people worked in this industry and by 2011 this had fallen to less than 1%.
• The service workforce grew from 33% of workers in 1841 to 81% -- dwarfing all other sectors -- in 2011.
• Women outnumber men in service jobs. Men outnumber women in manufacturing and construction.

Source: Office for National Statistics

MIGRATION STORY OF THE RECESSION

The biggest population changes that happened from the Great Recession (aside from the birth dearth): big cities grew and more people stayed put.


IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

Headline writers think demographers shrank Germany.

Hurricane season started.

Data link roundup (week of December 7, 2012)

The week's top data analysis links...

METRO COMPARISONS

A new map tool from Brookings shows the relative economic strength and rate of recovery for metropolitan areas around the world, and includes data from 1993-2012.


20 YRS OF TXT

The Economist reminds us that this week text messaging turned 20. (Another year and drunk-texting is legal?)

Source: The Economist

CAN'T TEXT AND DRIVE

RCLCO delivers more evidence that Millennials are less auto-centric than other generations of Americans.

The study authors surveyed residents in the 20 largest metropolitan in the U.S. to "gauge current attitudes toward auto use and ownership." According to study authors:

The survey results show significant continued devotion to the auto—over 60% of all respondents answered affirmatively when asked whether they own and need a personal automobile and could not live without it—but a substantial minority expressed a willingness to consider alternatives to auto ownership, such as relocation to other locations with improved public transit and car sharing.  Not surprisingly, the Gen Ys (born since the early 1980s), with their now well-known urban preferences, show considerable interest in these ideas. From a real estate development perspective, the impact of less auto usage, and by extension less on-site parking, can have a dramatic impact on development costs. Results from the RCLCO survey indicate that significant generational differences exist in attitudes toward car ownership. For example, Gen Y respondents indicated that they prefer not to own a car at a much greater rate than their counterparts in other generations—32% of responding Gen Ys do not own a car and do not need one, because they use public transit and/or alternative transportation. This is approximately twice the rate for Gen X and over three times the rate for older generations.

(Author's note: I suspect texting is the driving force behind this shift.)



BEST CHART DATA OF THE WEEK

This week the U.S. Census Bureau released 5-year American Community Survey data for 2011. The FactFinder2 application offers online mapping capabilities, as illustrated by the Florida and New York teen birth rate maps shown below.

Source: Author's compilation of data from the FactFinder2 mapping tool

The maps represent the proportion of females age 15-19 who report having a birth in the past 12 months when questioned during the 2007-2011 ACS survey period.

Facts about the Thanksgiving feast

Facts and figures for the fourth Thursday in November...

AND AWAY WE GO!

43.6 million Americans (about 14 percent of the total US population) will travel at least 50 miles from home over Thanksgiving weekend. This represents just under a 1 percent increase in total holiday weekend trips, compared with 2011, and is the fourth consecutive year of increasing holiday travel, according to a report released by AAA.

Auto travel accounts for the lion's share (90 percent) of those trips. Despite notoriously long lines at the airport, only 8 percent of holiday travelers plan to fly, and the remaining 2 percent will travel via train, bus, or other mode.

About half of long-distance travelers (those going 50 miles or more) will make a day trip of it. The other half will spend an average of three nights away from home.

Despite increased travel, people plan to spend less, with estimated travel costs ringing in just under $500 per traveler in 2012 compared with just over $550 the prior year.

FACTS ABOUT THE FEAST:

The average American consumes 13.3 pounds of turkey each year, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

American farmers have raised about 250 million turkeys in 2012, with six top turkey-producing states accounting for nearly two thirds of the total.

With respect to traditional American Thanksgiving side dishes, U.S. growers produced more than 384,000 tons of cranberries, 550,000 tons of pumpkins, 672,000 tons of green beans, and a whopping 1,350,000 tons of sweet potatoes in the past year.

That said, even with a large domestic crop of sweet potatoes, the United States still imports $5.6 million dollars worth, or nearly half of all imported sweet potatoes, from the Dominican Republic.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Uses of the American Community Survey in transportation analysis

I participated in a National Academies workshop on the benefits (and burdens) of the American Community Survey (ACS). My talk focused on the ways in which ACS data are used in transportation modeling and analysis.

Brief summary:

• ACS summary tables and Public Use Microdata (PUMS) inform regional demographic forecasts through variables including headship, group quarters characteristics, school enrollment, housing structure type, and military and dependent demographic characteristics.
• PUMS data are also used in developing a synthetic population for use in agent-based transportation modeling.
• Census Transportation Planning Products are special tabulations of worker flow data used in calibrating a transportation model.

For more information about the workshop, or for a copy of the presentation, feel free to contact me.

Festive facts for the holidays

The winter holiday season often means travel, shopping, and eating...
Here are the numbers behind the holidays:

DECKING THE HALLS:

Types of Christmas trees
purchased in 2011, based on data
from the Christmas Tree Association
and author's calculations

Americans will purchase 34.5 million Christmas trees this year. More than one third of those trees will be artificial, according to a survey conducted by Nielsen for the American Christmas Tree Association.

The survey "also found 11 percent of U.S. households who will display a real tree will also display an artificial tree, recognizing a growing trend toward celebrating Christmas with more than one Christmas tree."

The U.S. also produces $1.5 billion worth of candles each year. Those candles come in handy for Hanukkan, Kwanzaa, and Christmas celebrations.

AND AWAY WE GO!

New Orleans Holiday Travel (author's photo)

91.9 million Americans (about one third of the total US population) will travel at least 50 miles from home over the winter holiday season (Dec 23 - Jan 2). This represents a 1.4 percent increase in total holiday travel, compared with 2010, according to an annual report released by AAA.

Auto travel accounts for the lion's share (90 percent) of those trips. Despite notoriously long lines at the airport, only 8 percent of holiday travelers plan to fly, and the remaining 2 percent will travel via train, bus, or other mode.

About half of long-distance travelers (those going 50 miles or more) will make a day trip of it. Travelers who plan to stay overnight at their destinations will spend an average of four nights away from home.

SHOP 'TIL YOU DROP:
Most retail stores do the bulk of their yearly business in December. For retail stores overall, 14 percent of annual sales occur in the last month of the year. For jewelry stores, December makes up 20 percent of annual sales.

Total retail sales for the holiday season are expected to reach nearly $470 billion. And for those who want to avoid the malls, $34 billion of December 2010 retail sales were online or mail-order.

SANTA NEEDS HELPERS...

Photo courtesy of State Library and Archives of Florida

$2.5 billion worth of toys (including stuffed toys, dolls, puzzles, and electric trains) were imported to the U.S. from China between January and September 2011. China also leads the pack in U.S. imports of ice skates ($17.7 million) and basketballs ($38.9 million).

Within the U.S. there are about 8,000 workers across 579 locations that primarily manufacture toys and games. Is it any surprise that Santa needs 8,000 helpers?

HOLIDAY TREATS:
If you're making latkes for Hanukkah, chances are the potatoes come from Idaho or Washington. 50 percent of the nation's 'taters were grown in those two states, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

U.S. farmers produced 2.01 billion bushels of wheat - crucial for making Christmas cookies - in 2011. Kansas, Montana and North Dakota accounted for about a third of the nation's wheat production.

But while Americans eat plenty of cookies, you might as well hold the eggnog. Nationwide consumption averages only half a cup per capita, according to figures from Indiana University.

Candy canes might be a holiday staple, but chocolate is a nearly universal gift. The winter holidays represent the biggest boxed chocolate selling season as 70 percent of adults in the U.S. give or receive a box of chocolates during the holidays.

Aging population and driving

This story in today's San Diego Union Tribune, about a fatal accident involving a 71-year-old driver, prompted me to post a piece I've been working on for a couple of weeks...

Six months ago the first wave of Baby Boomers turned 65, prompting questions about how the nation's transportation system will adapt to an aging population. There are some benefits that may arise from having an older population, and there will undoubtedly be challenges.

As the population ages we may care less about our cars. A Gallup poll in 1991 found that 20 percent of Americans found driving to be a chore. The same response in 2006 got a 40 percent boost to 28 percent. When you drill down into the details of the survey, likelihood of taking a ride “just because it’s fun” decreases substantially with age. In short, an older population is less likely to enjoy driving.

And, contrary to most road-rage induced stereotypes, older Americans also drive more safely. (However, there are some limitations to that trend, as described below.)

In their 2009 study of aggressive driving behavior, AAA found that at age 16 nearly 60 percent of drivers show aggressive behavior. By age 35 aggressive driving falls to 35 percent and by age 60 is below 27 percent.

With an already aging population, safer driving is beginning to show up in accident statistics. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation:

“in 2010 the number of traffic fatalities in America fell to the lowest levels since 1949...despite a sharp increase in the number of miles Americans drove last year - 21 billion additional miles. In addition, the rate of road fatalities in the U.S. has also dropped to its lowest level since 1949. Over the last five years, traffic deaths have declined by 25 percent…And the rate of fatalities per million miles traveled fell to 1.09 from 1.13 in 2009.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood credits this to “the combined efforts of DOT, states, law enforcement, safety organizations, and America's drivers who are taking personal responsibility for their driving habits.” But I also see a demographic shift at play, much as there was a demographic influence on falling crime rates, beginning in the mid-1990s.

However, as opening article implies, there are also substantial health issues that may impair the driving of older Americans.

For example, the likelihood of reporting some form of disability DOUBLES between the age groups 65-74 and 75 and older (from 25 percent at age 65 to fully half the population age 75+). Similarly, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 10 percent of older men and 15 percent of older women reported cutting back on driving due to a physical problem in the past year. And, for a combination of reasons, older drivers are likely to avoid driving in certain conditions. Older drivers tend to avoid driving at night, driving in bad weather, and (to a lesser extent) driving in heavy traffic.

All of this adds up to some very complicated issues facing the nation's transportation system. Fortunately, research is underway to better understand the implications of age-related health issues on transportation at institutes such as the Age Lab at MIT.

Crushing obesity

In the early 1990s, half of the U.S. population could proudly state that they were neither overweight nor obese. Today only one third can make that claim. The rate of obesity* has nearly doubled from about 15 percent of the population to more than 26 percent in less than two decades.

But numbers alone seem inadequate to describing the magnitude of the problem. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put together a series of maps showing obesity rates from 1985-present.

Obesity's rapid spread across America:
In the maps below the lightest blue represents obesity rates by state of less than 10 percent. The darkest red-orange represents obesity rates of 30 percent or higher. Note the rapid shift over 20 years from no states having reported obesity rates above 15 percent (in 1989) to no states having rates below 15 percent (in 2009).

So why are we getting fat?
There are a variety of factors at play in the rising obesity epidemic. An article in Slate this week, and on my blog last summer, describes the link between obesity and commuting. The Federal Reserve and the USDA suggest that increased food consumption, particularly fast food, is the primary driver expanding America's waistlines.

New research, from Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University, digs into another trend - our economy - to understand the obesity epidemic. Using data on occupational patterns since the 1960s, coupled with weight data, and energy expenditure (i.e. calories burned) per day per occupation, they come to a startling conclusion: modern jobs make us fat. Specifically "In the early 1960's almost half the jobs in private industry in the U.S. required at least moderate intensity physical activity whereas now less than 20% demand this level of energy expenditure. Since 1960 the estimated mean daily energy expenditure due to work related physical activity has dropped by more than 100 calories in both women and men."

Research from the Mayo Clinic, American Cancer Society, and have come to a similar conclusion - sedentary behavior leads to obesity. So the advent of desk jobs that require sitting for long periods of time may be a primary cause of rising rates of obesity.

One conclusion is certain, whatever the cause (or, more likely, causes) of obesity, the cost is too high to be ignored. Obesity increases a person's risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and certain types of cancer, among other ailments (source: CDC). In 2006 the increased rate of obesity resulted in an estimated $40 billion in healthcare costs.


*According to the CDC, obesity is “defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or greater.BMI is calculated from a person's weight and height and provides a reasonable indicator of body fatness and weight categories that may lead to health problems. Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, and type 2 diabetes.”

Map images courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Transportation by generation

Yesterday I participated in a demographics forum at the U.S. Department of Transportation to discuss the issues of an aging population on transportation infrastructure and generational differences in transportation use. The video and slides from the forum have been posted by the DOT.

To view the webcast and slides, click here:

URL: http://mediasite.yorkcast.com/webcast/Viewer/?peid=17f98d9e1a2743a1a9c24b3de09a936e1d