You are where you live
December 12, 2004 12:03 AM   Subscribe

You are where you live. (Click "Zip Code Lookup" in lower right.)
posted by rafter (51 comments total)
 
Sorry about the double-deep link, but they referrer-block links directly to the look up page. Apparently, USA Today did a write-up on this, but it speaks for itself.
posted by rafter at 12:04 AM on December 12, 2004


Also, US-centric. Sorry guys. Try "90210" for fun.
posted by rafter at 12:05 AM on December 12, 2004


Satan has won.
posted by marxchivist at 12:14 AM on December 12, 2004


I'm apparently at ground zero for Bohemian Mix and Executive Suites. The culture war starts here, folks!
posted by neckro23 at 1:07 AM on December 12, 2004


My zipcode: Hmmm... Now I feel out of place...
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:48 AM on December 12, 2004


Scary how right some of these are.
posted by vodkadin at 2:13 AM on December 12, 2004


yeah
posted by Keyser Soze at 2:39 AM on December 12, 2004


I completely miss all the ones in my neighborhood:

- Bedrock America
- Family Thrifts
- Hometown Retired
- Mobility Blues
- Traditional Times

No motor home, no WWF, better than blue collar job, no children, still working, ethnically boring, and I drive a sports car.

Hits on most of the neighbors, especially the retired types.

Nothing in there for "Blue-Worshipping Mutant Freak Babies" though...
posted by Samizdata at 3:01 AM on December 12, 2004


95051:

American Dreams
Bohemian Mix
Money & Brains
The Cosmopolitans
Young Digerati

Boy, I feel special.
posted by Devils Slide at 4:15 AM on December 12, 2004


I just punched in the zipcode for East Palo Alto (94303) which is kind of a dump, and this is what I got:

American Dreams
Money & Brains
Upper Crust
Urban Achievers
Young Digerati

East Palo Alto is Upper Crust?! Claritas must be on crack.
posted by Devils Slide at 4:50 AM on December 12, 2004


double post sorry
posted by Grod at 5:18 AM on December 12, 2004


another previous dicussion
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:26 AM on December 12, 2004


It slipped under my radar the first couple of times.

Regarding the East Palo Alto thing...I think it's mixing up Palo Alto and East Palo Alto, because parts of Palo Alto share that zip with East Palo Alto. Oh well.
posted by Devils Slide at 5:35 AM on December 12, 2004


Pretty accurate.

Also: Hi everyone, Greenbelt Sports here. Nice to meet you.
posted by rusty at 5:37 AM on December 12, 2004


"I just punched in the zipcode for East Palo Alto (94303) which is kind of a dump, and this is what I got"

Devils Slide - are you the only legal citizen paying taxes in your neighborhood? 'Cos that profile is a fair match for just about any Mefite.

Just an observation...
posted by vhsiv at 5:46 AM on December 12, 2004


Brandt: These are Mr. Lebowski's children, so to speak--

Dude: Different mothers, huh?

Brandt: No, they--

Dude: I guess he's pretty, uh, racially pretty cool--

Brandt: They're not his, heh-heh, they're not literally his children; they're the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, inner-city children of promise but without the--

Dude: I see.

Brandt: --without the means for higher education, so Mr. Lebowski has committed to sending all of them to college.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, baby.
posted by breath at 6:32 AM on December 12, 2004


American Dreams
Bohemian Mix
Money & Brains
Urban Achievers
Young Digerati

Aren't I special?
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:55 AM on December 12, 2004


BTW, most of your links just go to whatever profile page was last displayed, not to the content y'all intend.
posted by Zurishaddai at 7:01 AM on December 12, 2004


It tells me that I'm surrounded by crotchety old people who demand that I get off their lawn.
posted by jmccorm at 7:04 AM on December 12, 2004


vhsiv, I live in Santa Clara (95051), and the profile for that zip code was pretty accurate. It's very ethnically diverse in my neighborhood and there are a lot of young professionals (after all, this is Silicon Valley). I suppose the typical Santa Clara resident does sound like the prototypical MeFite.

I was just surprised by the results for East Palo Alto, which was sort of a Compton lite in the 80's and has improved quite a bit over the past 10/15 years, but is still a long ways off from the utopia the website describes.
posted by Devils Slide at 7:25 AM on December 12, 2004


::Incinerates Devils Rancher's pod::
posted by Devils Slide at 7:26 AM on December 12, 2004


::Incinerates Devils Rancher's pod::

Yeah, but is your handle an anagram of your name?

Remember, and this is what the demographics folks want you to know; you're a unique individual-- just like everybody else. There's millions of pods lined up, waiting to take my BoHo/Digerati/UrbanCamper/Latte/QuarterAcre place.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:32 AM on December 12, 2004


I love the things listed under "Lifestyle Traits":

Under "Boomtown Singles", we see "Drive a Daewoo". I'm sorry, but NOBODY drives a Daewoo. Not even the archetypal "boomtown single", whatever the hell that is.

Under "Bright Lights, 'lil City", we see "Own Networking Software". WTF? Do they mean like "tribe.net"? Users don't 'own' that software. Do they mean the ability to connect to a LAN? That includes essesntially every computer user on the planet.

Under the same group, we also see "Eat at Bennigan's". If I made $67,788 a year and drove a BMW 5 Series, I sure as hell wouldn't be eating at Bennigan's.

And under "Up-and-Comers", we find "Use Internet to Search for a Job". Umm...maybe I'm confused. What other way is there?
posted by spincycle at 7:34 AM on December 12, 2004


For zip code 45308 (a small, poor, rural/blue collar village in a county which went 70% for Bush in the last election):

45 Blue Highways
25 Country Casuals
37 Mayberry-ville
51 Shotguns & Pickups
28 Traditional Times

None of which comes even remotely close to describing my mostly-liberal, college-educated, tech-oriented, Depeche Mode-lovin' white-collar ass. Mind you, I didn't need this little slicer-and-dicer to tell me that.
posted by jscalzi at 7:36 AM on December 12, 2004


This is great, I didn't know this was available.
posted by Krrrlson at 7:37 AM on December 12, 2004


Their web interface fucking sucks. Sorry about the broken links. It looked right when I was browsing it.
posted by breath at 7:52 AM on December 12, 2004


No, my handle isn't an anagram of my name. I was so shocked that registration was open that I didn't want to waste any time and picked the name of the song that was playing on my stereo at the time.

And don't be so cynical about demographics people. They've joined forces with advertising people to help us achieve our full potential as unique individuals. All it takes is the right car, cell phone, beer, zip code...
posted by Devils Slide at 8:01 AM on December 12, 2004


The web interface does suck.

Also, I have a lot of doubts about the information. I basically got the same profile for my New York East Village neighborhood as my Wrigleyville Chicago neighborhood. C'mon! Those are nothing alike.

However, this is a great tool for teaching others about psychograhics. Cool post. Thanks for double-posting.
posted by xammerboy at 8:05 AM on December 12, 2004


This is a double post, albeit from three years ago. Where the has everyone's institutional memory gone?
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:17 AM on December 12, 2004


Props to CunningLinguist.
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:17 AM on December 12, 2004


I can't get the damn thing to work right. What I could manage to see apparently said that people in my area visit Disney Theme Parks and listen to gospel radio. You wouldn't know it from looking at 'em.
posted by davy at 9:28 AM on December 12, 2004


This is a double post, albeit from three years ago.
I knew I remembered this from somewhere.

Unfortunately, the site seems to be blocking now. (Or we killed it.)
posted by me3dia at 9:36 AM on December 12, 2004


oh, go to hell, spincycle. i happen to love my daewoo. now if you'll excuse me, i have to get back to playing soccer and reading "muscle and fitness", or i won't have time to watch mtv later to discover more good alternative music.

dear god, what desperate attempts to pigeonhole people in the name of marketing. i mean, i know it's a necessary evil for anyone trying to sell anything, but do companies really sit around and talk at board meetings about how best to capture the elusive "young digerati" sector? what imbecile came up with these names?
posted by caution live frogs at 9:44 AM on December 12, 2004


West Village, New York City (10014) -

29 American Dreams
16 Bohemian Mix
07 Money & Brains
31 Urban Achievers
04 Young Digerati

Can't drill down to the descriptions, however. The site seems to have thrown an embolism or something.
posted by enrevanche at 9:45 AM on December 12, 2004


Thus far I have learned that my wonderful neighborhood in San Francisco, Cole Valley, has a high index of Asians, blacks, and Hispanics.

I wonder why they've all chosen to walk around the streets in whiteface.
posted by digaman at 9:49 AM on December 12, 2004


University City, Philadelphia (19143) -

53 Unwashed Pseudohippies
87 Washed Pseudohippies
99 Gretsky
42 Greedy Landlords
01 AlexReynolds
posted by AlexReynolds at 9:55 AM on December 12, 2004


Hehe... you forgot "Mean Cheesteak Eaters," Alex.
posted by ph00dz at 10:11 AM on December 12, 2004


"Incorrect" use of "quotes" for "emphasis" are one of my "favorite" features of "hack writing":

Think of MyBestSegments as a consumer "photo album." Each Claritas segment has its own pages displaying "snapshots" of the segment's demographic traits, lifestyle preferences and behaviors.
posted by Scoo at 10:12 AM on December 12, 2004


We used this DB at an interactive TV company I worked for long, long ago. We were using it to allow cable companies to insert different ads in different homes, based on demographics. It's far from perfect, but it's far better than I expected.
posted by mosch at 10:50 AM on December 12, 2004


This document contains no data.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:08 AM on December 12, 2004


I so love Hyde Park (60615):

16 Bohemian Mix
40 Close-In Couples
07 Money & Brains
31 Urban Achievers
59 Urban Elders
posted by felix betachat at 11:29 AM on December 12, 2004


As is probably mentioned in one or both of the previous posts, anyone who's interested in this kind of thing might enjoy the work of Michael Weiss, whose 'The Clustering of America' (1988) and 'The Clustered World' (2000) are excellent lay introductions to the topic.

Also, I am happy to note that I will soon be moving from

Big Fish, Small Pond
Country Squires
God's Country
Greenbelt Sports
New Homesteaders

to

American Dreams
Bohemian Mix
Money & Brains
Multi-Culti Mosaic
Urban Achievers

American Dreams, indeed.
posted by box at 12:01 PM on December 12, 2004


$95,000 household income makes you wealthy? Pfft.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 2:09 PM on December 12, 2004


This site seems to not work with Mozilla, and I'll bet Firefox has problems too. I am running the former and get nothing but the "document has not data" response, although it works with IE (well, badly, but it works). I for one welcome our new corporate overlords.
posted by intermod at 2:39 PM on December 12, 2004


Drat, I do so want to check this out, since my zip code includes Devil's Slide. Delicious irony, or Beelzebubian conspiracy? Since I can't get through, I can't say for certain.
posted by stevil at 2:40 PM on December 12, 2004


In my zip code, It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels passes for cutting-edge radical feminism.

Actually, that isn't true. I just really, really wanted to say so.
posted by Zurishaddai at 4:07 PM on December 12, 2004


37 Mayberry-ville
53 Mobility Blues
42 Red, White & Blues
52 Suburban Pioneers
41 Sunset City Blues

This is out of date - that's my neighborhood five years ago. Nowadays, it's border collie owning volvo driving kayaking goateed earnest young people starting families. . . or maybe that's suburban pioneers? Whatever, there has to be some reason why real estate has tripled since 2000 around here.
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:51 PM on December 12, 2004


Will someone who can get the link to work please post what it says about 40221? There could be humor in that.
posted by davy at 9:58 PM on December 12, 2004


Ok, I am kinda bummed out! See, I'm moving from a part of West LA to an area about 18 minutes south of San Francisco. I've been really enjoying it... the people seem so totally different up here. But according to this? I'm still surrounded by the EXACT SAME combination of people! How did that happen?
posted by miss lynnster at 1:22 AM on December 13, 2004


Beelzebubian conspiracy.
posted by Devils Slide at 6:52 AM on December 13, 2004


.
posted by wtfwjd? at 8:05 PM on December 14, 2004


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