PolicyMap » Top 10 Series

Top 10: Cities by Average Size of a Household

Bernie Langer — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:32:22 +0000

Sometimes our Top 10 lists come with a story. This one comes with an arrest. Between 2005 and 2009, Colorado City, Arizona, led the country in having the largest average household size among all cities. This is due to it being the site an enclave of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (known as FLDS). The community was founded by a breakaway sect from the mainstream Churst of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as the LDS or Mormon Church) in order to practice polygamy, which was banned by the LDS Church in 1890. The leader of the community, Warren Jeffs, was the president of the FLDS Church until his arrest and conviction in 2007 on charges of accomplice rape, sexual conduct with a minor, and incest.

Estimated average size of a household between 2005-2009

	City, State	Estimated average size of a household
Click here to interact with map.	Colorado City, AZ	9.18
	Sulphur Springs, AR	8.36
	Crow Agency, MT	7.35
	Hildale, UT	7.26
	Pinesdale, MT	7.06
	Tuluksak, AK	6.79
	Nightmute, AK	6.78
	Chefornak, AK	6.69
	Pagosa Springs, CO	6.61
	San Carlos, AZ	6.54

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Top 10: Counties by Percent Change in the Average Number of Vehicles Per Household between 2000 and the Period of 2005-2009

Bernie Langer — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:20:11 +0000

“I’ll drive a Buick through San Juan.”
“If there’s a road you can drive on!”
-West Side Story

It seems that automotively, life has improved since lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s 1950’s vision of Puerto Rico. Not only that, but it seems that things have significantly changed since 2000. Municipios there, which are the Puerto Rico equivilent to counties, lead the country in increases in automobiles per household over the past decade. Seven of the top ten counties in this category are in Puerto Rico, with increases at or above 30%.
County, State/Percent change in the average number of vehicles per household between 2000 and the period of 2005-2009

Percent change in the average number of vehicles per household between 2000 and the period of 2005-2009

	County, State	Percent change in the average number of vehicles per household
Click here to interact with map.	Jayuya Municipio, PR	40%
	Peñuelas Municipio, PR	40%
	Villalba Municipio, PR	40%
	Lincoln, NV	35.29%
	Arroyo Municipio, PR	33.33%
	Gurabo Municipio, PR	33.33%
	Loíza Municipio, PR	33.33%
	Clark, ID	31.58%
	Coamo Municipio, PR	30%
	Eureka, NV	30%

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Top 10: Counties with the Highest Percent of Foreign-Born Residents

Bernie Langer — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:40:45 +0000

When you think of places with concentrated immigrant populations, you generally think of cities. You wouldn’t go to a rural area to find a Little Italy or a Chinatown. And as you might expect, Miami, Los Angeles, and the counties in and around New York City all have among the highest foreign-born populations in the country. But what county has the highest concentration of foreign-born people? That would be Alaska’s Aleutians East Borough, at 63% of all people being born in another country. The neighboring Aleutians West Census Area isn’t far behind at 45%. What accounts for these foreign-born people flocking to a cold, remote island archipelago off the Alaskan coast? Salmon, pacific cod, and the workers who come to catch and process them. Besides English, the most spoken language in Aleutians East is Tagalog, a major language in the Philippines. And according to the Department of Homeland Security immigration data at PolicyMap, in 2009, 35% of all green-cards issued in Alaska went to Filipino-born people.

Counties with the Highest Percent of Foreign-Born Residents Between 2005-2009

	County, State	Estimated Percent of Foreign-Born
Click here to interact with map.	Aleutians East Borough, AK	63.13%
	Miami-Dade, FL	49.45%
	Queens, NY	47.09%
	Aleutians West Census Area, AK	44.60%
	Hudson, NJ	39.69%
	Kings, NY	36.63%
	Santa Clara, CA	36.05%
	Los Angeles, CA	35.45%
	Concho, TX	34.90%
	Garza, TX	34.68%

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Top 10: Least Populous Counties, During the Period of 2005-2009

Bernie Langer — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:39:45 +0000

PolicyMap has just loaded data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (known as ACS), which provides 5-year estimates on Census-type data, updated on a yearly basis. For the next few Top 10 posts, we’ll look at some of this new data from the ACS.

Every time the Census comes out with new data, everyone wants to know, what are the most populous areas in the country? But the most populous counties are always the same: the ones containing Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, New York, etc. Today, we’ll look at something different: the counties with the least residents.

Estimated Population Between 2005-2009

	County, State	Estimated Population
Click here to interact with map.	Kalawao, HI	78
	Loving, TX	81
	King, TX	233
	Kenedy, TX	336
	Arthur, NE	364
	Yakutat City and Borough, AK	418
	Blaine, NE	471
	McPherson, NE	498
	Petroleum, MT	512
	Loup, NE	550

You may recall seeing Kalawao County, Hawaii on this blog before. Until 1969, Kalawao was the site of the Kalaupapa Settlement, a leper colony. Now that leprosy is an easily treatable disease, lepers are no longer sent there, but the entire county is closed to new residents. The only people who live there are former lepers who decided not to leave. So it makes sense that they’re the least populous, and oldest age county in the nation.

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Top 10: Counties with the highest and lowest adult obesity rates as of 2007

Bernie Langer — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:07:24 +0000

It’s always interesting when a map shows clear differentiating trends across the country that reflect distinctive aspects of different regions. Our religion maps are a good example of this, where different regions reflect different religious characteristics. Another more pernicious example of this is the map of adult obesity rates. There’s a clear concentration of obese adults in the Deep South, where county rates are often above 30%. Of the top ten counties with the highest rates of adult obesity, five are in Alabama, and five are in Mississippi.

Conversely, there’s a dearth of obesity in the country’s Mountain West. Of the top ten counties with the lowest rates of adult obesity, seven are in Colorado, and the three others are in Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico.

A quick note about this data: PolicyMap has two sources of overweight and obesity data. The Center for Disease Control releases yearly data, but only at the state and MSA level. The USDA Food Environment Atlas’s data is less current, but available at the county level. Under the health tab, in the “Overweight & Obese” submenu, you can see that the data is separated between “By County” and “By State”. The “By County” data is from the USDA, and the “By State” data is from the CDC.

Top Ten:

Click here to interact with map.	County, State	Adult obesity rate as of 2007
	Greene, AL	43.5%
	Holmes, MS	42.3%
	Humphreys, MS	41.6%
	Jefferson, MS	41.6%
	Dallas, TX	41.2%
	Tunica, MS	41.1%
	Claiborne, MS	40.8%
	Lowndes, AL	40.3%
	Macon, AL	40.2%
	Perry, AL	40.2%

Lowest Ten:

Click here to interact with map.	County, State	Adult obesity rate as of 2007
	San Miguel, CO	14.9%
	La Plata, CO	14.2%
	Pitkin, CO	13.5%
	Teton, WY	13.4%
	Eagle, CO	13%
	Routt, CO	13%
	Summit, UT	12.9%
	Santa Fe, NM	12.7%
	Summit, CO	12.7%
	Bolder, CO	12.5%

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Top 10: Counties with highest number of Hispanic households living in poverty in 2000

Bernie Langer — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:37:28 +0000

Usually when we have these top-ten lists, we look at the percentages, since regardless of the indicator, raw numbers often just give us the most populous areas. The most populous counties, for instance, are Los Angeles, CA; Cook (Chicago), IL; Harris (Houston), TX; Maricopa (Phoenix), AZ; etc., and when these show up as the top ten, we don’t think it’s very interesting. With that said, when looking at Hispanic households living in poverty, some details in the raw count caught my eye.

The usual suspects are there. Unsurprisingly, Los Angeles County ranks first in this category, and Harris, TX; Bronx, NY; Miami-Dade, FL; Cook, IL; and Maricopa, AZ are large cities where large numbers of impoverished Hispanics are unfortunately expected. However, a few other counties at the top of the list were less expected. Hidalgo County, Texas, has 195,565 impoverished Hispanics (as of 2000). That’s only about 8,000 more than in Cook County, Illinois, but Cook County has over 4 million more residents. Hidalgo County sits in southern Texas, and has no major cities.

Also notably on this list is San Juan Municipio in Puerto Rico. Though it’s the capital and largest city in Puerto Rico, it’s less populous than any other county in this list, but has a comparable amount of poverty among Hispanics.

County/State/Number of Hispanic households living in poverty in 2000

Click here to interact with map.	County, State	Number of Hispanic Households
	Los Angeles, CA	1,012,455
	Harris, TX	252,278
	Bronx, NY	242,320
	Miami-Dade, FL	233,335
	Hildalgo, TX	195,565
	Cook, IL	187,290
	Maricopa, AZ	182,472
	San Juan, PR	171,135
	Orange, CA	164,478
	Bexar, TX	161,675

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Top 10: School Districts with highest percentage of students that are free and reduced price lunch recipients in 2009

Bernie Langer — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:41:36 +0000

With many states facing tough economic challenges, school programs are sometimes the first to be cut. To see where this might have the greatest effect, let’s see which school districts have the most students in need. This number is calculated by TRF using the 2009 recipients and the 2009 counts of students as reported in the Common Core of Data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The total number of Eligible Free and Reduced Price Lunch recipients participating in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program by school district in 2009 divided by the total number of students in each school district in 2009.

School District/State/Percent Receiving Free or Reduced Price Lunches in 2009

Click here to interact with map.	School District, State	Percentage Receiving Free/Reduce Lunch
	Forrest City SD, AR	99.59%
	Gadsen Elementary District, AZ	99.54%
	North Forest ISD, TX	99.54%
	Claiborne County SD, MS	99.49%
	Durant Public SD, MS	99.48%
	West Memphis SD, AR	99.40%
	Blytheville SD, AR	99.33%
	Helena-West Helena SD, AR	99.33%
	Woodville Elementary, CA	99.33%
	Quitman County SD, MS	11.9%

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Top 10: Percent of population that received Supplemental Security Income in 2009

Bernie Langer — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:55:40 +0000

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a federal program that provides cash for basic needs to aged, blind, and disabled people with little or no other income source. The Social Security Administration releases data on how many SSI recipients are in each county and state. This is useful in locating low-income disabled and aged populations. We recently updated our Supplemental Security Income data for 2009.

County/State/Percent of population that received Supplemental Security Income in 2009

Click here to interact with map.	County, State	Percentage of Population
	Owsley, KY	19.61%
	Wolfe, KY	17%
	Clay, KY	15.87%
	Breathitt, KY	14.86%
	McDowell, WV	14.28%
	Magoffin, KY	13.77%
	Wilcox, AL	13.16%
	Knox, KY	12.89%
	Lee, KY	12.73
	Perry, AL	11.9%

As you can see, Appalachia dominates the top 10 list. Kentucky is the number one state in this category. This may be explained by the fact that some states provide varying rates of additional supplementary income to those receiving federal SSI benefits, which may have an effect on the number of people who apply. Income levels also play a major role: Owsley County, Kentucky, which is the number one county in terms of percent of population receiving SSI, ranks in the bottom ten counties in the nation in median income, at $20,530 in 2009. A glance at the counties with the lowest rate of SSI recipients shows some of the wealthier places in the country, like Nantucket, MA; Teton, WY; Eagle, CO; and Pitkin, CO.

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Top 10: Falling Home Sales between 2008 to 2009

Bernie Langer — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:04:07 +0000

In a recent article, the New York Times reported this week that home sales have fallen to their lowest level in more than a decade. What places are being most affected by declining sales rates? PolicyMap has the answer, with our Boxwood Means home sale data, which is available down to the block group level .

Counties with the highest change in the number of residential homes sold between 2008 and 2009

Click here to interact with map.	County, State	Percentage Change
	Montgomery, IL	-96.76%
	Beaufort, NC	-95.12%
	Franklin, IA	-94.92%
	Seneca, OH	-94.55%
	Hardin, OH	-93.60%
	Columbia, AR	-89.84%
	Black Hawk, IA	-89.39%
	Van Buren, AR	-89.21%
	Izard, AR	-88.46%
	Iberia Parish, LA	-88.31%

The map and table above represents percent change in number of residential homes sold from 2008 to 2009. Data is from Boxwood Means, who does not account for inflation in this calculation. TRF has suppressed data in places with fewer than five sales in either year. Grey areas on the map show places where data is unavailable, incomplete, or suppressed. Data might be unavailable for several reasons, including the county not having a current data collection contract with the collection agency that supplies data to Boxwood Means, Inc., and there being no sales reported in a given place (in the instance of a non-residential tract, for example). For more on the accuracy of locating these sales on a map, and the extent of Boxwood Means, Inc.’s coverage, see Home Sale Data in the Data Directory.

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Top 10: Change in the turnout rate among eligible voters from 2004 to 2008

Bernie Langer — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:52:44 +0000

Now that PolicyMap has US election data, you can use it to see some of the voting patterns that were talked about after the last presidential election.

After the 2008 election, pundits noted that Barack Obama’s candidacy galvanized African Americans who had not previously voted to go to the polls. This trend can be clearly seen using PolicyMap. Below are two maps. The first is a map of the percent the population that is African American. The second is a map of the change in turnout rate among eligible voters from 2004 to 2008. The dark purple indicates a large increase in the voter turnout rate. As you can see, a clear pattern emerges.

Comparison of African American population to Change in Voter Turnout between 2004 and 2008

	County, State	Percentage Change
	Williamsburg, VA	21.70%
	Dillon, SC	18.07%
	Chowan, NC	17.69%
	Jefferson Davis, MS	16.99%
	Vance, NC	16.50%
	Carteret, NC	16.45%
	Jefferson, MS	16.03%
	Parmer, TX	15.58%
	Sumter, FL	15.41%
	Talbot, GA	15.29%

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