Although
much has been said about the demographic composition of the United States Congress, much less has been said about the thousands of staffers who work behind the scenes, drafting legislation, interacting with constituents, and advising their congressperson. The National Journal has created
two infographics that attempt to describe this silent, but influential workforce.
posted by schmod
on Jun 20, 2011 -
19 comments
"Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.... At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, about one-third will have had an abortion." Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures in the U.S., but it can be very difficult to get unbiased information about the procedure. From Jezebel:
The Girl's Guide to Having an Abortion.
posted by jokeefe
on Jan 16, 2011 -
104 comments
The Gray And The Brown - why the baby boom generation's concerns about race may mean that it's stabbing itself in the back as it moves into retirement.
posted by Artw
on Aug 19, 2010 -
66 comments
Make a Map is a website that lets you create your own maps of the US and areas thereof using various demographics data. It's still in beta stage but it's got all of the US (at least everywhere I've thought to look) and so far has datasets for median household income, population change 2000-9, population density, median home value, unemployment rate, average household size and median age. It's fun to use and taught me a great deal about my home city. The sitemaker, ESRI, also has a pretty good free globe map software,
ArcGIS Explorer, for which you download
map layers and
add-ins.
posted by Kattullus
on May 2, 2010 -
13 comments
19.20.21. is a planned five-year project to understand the effects of the rising global population of humanity becoming increasingly urbanized: 19 cities in the world with 20 million people in the 21st century. The Flash-based introduction includes historical trends and geographic factors.
posted by jjray
on Apr 13, 2010 -
10 comments
Due to population decline, Detroit
plans on bulldozing roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city into semi-rural farmland. It is a worst case scenario in America, but pales to the problem of Eastern Germany, where demographic collapse in some towns is so severe,
urban-
wolves and
neo-Nazis are the new order of the day. The mayor of one town says: "You can't go into the forest without a knife anymore."
[more inside]
posted by stbalbach
on Mar 19, 2010 -
114 comments
More than 15 years again Robert Kaplan wrote in his
occasionally prescient essay, "Though Islam is spreading in West Africa, it is being hobbled by syncretization with animism: this makes new converts less apt to become anti-Western extremists...." Glossing over the omission that Islam has been in West Africa for
centuries, the recent exploding underpants incident has cemented the idea that a form of violent
religious extremism has found root in West Africa, leaving many to wonder
why and
how. Some argue it's the inevitable result of
dangerous demographics.
posted by Panjandrum
on Jan 20, 2010 -
17 comments
Japan is facing a demographic crisis that will shrink the population dramatically. The Japanese aren't having babies, and the country won't accept immigrants to help bolster the population.
Japan: Robot Nation looks at a uniquely Japanese solution.
[more inside]
posted by Extopalopaketle
on Sep 21, 2009 -
55 comments
Billionaires have more grandchildren through their sons than through their daughters, because the status advantage is more reproductively valuable to the sons. Therefore, it would be adaptive for the mothers of their children to bear more sons than daughters. But surely that can't be; mothers can't control the sex of their children.
Oh but so it is: billionaires have 60% male children.
[more inside]
posted by grobstein
on Jan 17, 2009 -
69 comments
Are you a young middle-class creative type (probably white) who has chosen to live in an urban neighborhood that your parents would have shunned? Have the families that formerly lived in your neighborhood (probably not white) been pushed out by soaring rents and real-estate prices to the city fringes or suburbs? The
New Republic on
demographic inversion.
posted by digaman
on Aug 2, 2008 -
64 comments
Baby Bust! After 200 years of exponential population growth, and just four decades after overpopulation doomsaying began filling the bestseller lists, the First World is suddenly gripped with underpopulation hysteria. The governments of the developed world have always maintained an interest in birthrates and procreation, but the reasons why are changing, and the ensuing demographic debates about gender, race and culture are "ideologically fraught and scientifically questionable."
posted by amyms
on Jun 16, 2008 -
120 comments
Look up any Zip Code
here, get lots of cool demographic data by entering it
here (make sure you enter a zip code, not just a town and keep scrolling down, down, down).
[more inside]
posted by Rafaelloello
on May 10, 2008 -
27 comments
Zipskinny Enter your zip code and get US census info-plus compare with other zip codes.
posted by konolia
on Oct 17, 2007 -
48 comments
“With the number of human beings having increased more than six-fold in the past 200 years, the modern mind simply assumes that men and women . . . will always breed enough children to grow the population . . . Yet, for more than a generation now, well-fed, healthy, peaceful populations around the world have been producing too few children to avoid population decline. . . .
Throughout the broad sweep of human history, there are many examples of people, or classes of people, who chose to avoid the costs of parenthood. Indeed, falling fertility is a recurring tendency of human civilization. Why then did humans not become extinct long ago? The short answer is patriarchy.”
posted by jason's_planet
on Apr 26, 2007 -
79 comments
Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)
Some more up-to-date predictions:
science,
invention,
space travel,
colonisation,
immortality,
water
shortage,
flooding,
nanotech,
techno-apocalypse,
extinction,
mental health,
smart machines,
robots, mind uploading,
AI,
Asia,
economics,
demographics,
goverance,
cities.
What is your prediction?
posted by MetaMonkey
on Oct 5, 2006 -
54 comments
Emory University study describes the Millenial Generation An interesting comparison of Gen Xers and the so-called Millenial Generation, born since 1982, from Emory University. The M.Gen kids apparently want to do good, as long as there is a clear structure and leadership that tells them how and what to do . . . oh, and don't question the leaders. Really. Why would you?
posted by pt68
on Mar 2, 2006 -
67 comments
Adults are picking up instant messaging in record numbers, with 50% of those over 35 using various systems. This study was funded by AOL, which has a major stake in the instant messaging market through its popular AIM software. But most people who use IM in the workplace are still using free and unsecured systems, despite the availability of secure versions in enterprise software and products like
IM Secure.
posted by etoile
on Sep 2, 2004 -
8 comments
The Empty Cradle. Our everyday personal experiences with traffic, sprawl and other irritants of modern life tell us there are too many people in the world and the problem is getting worse. However in truth world population growth
peaked 40 years ago in 1963 and has been trending downward since. Demographers predict that absolute human population will peak at
9 billion by 2070 and then contract. Long before then, many
nations will shrink in absolute size and the
average age of the world's citizens will
shoot up dramatically, including the fastest aging part of the world:
developing countries, where for example Iraq is aging 2.5 times faster than the USA and Mexico 5 times as fast. Having averted the danger of overpopulation, the world now faces the opposite problem: an aging and declining population.
posted by stbalbach
on Jun 6, 2004 -
28 comments
Where do you live, among a bastion of geeks, or sea of academia-phobes? US Census released the smartest cities, states, and counties with Seattle and Raleigh topping the cities. Also for those who are
politically curious, of the top 15
states with Bachelor degrees 11 went to Gore, while 13 of the bottom 15 went to Bush.
posted by humbe
on May 14, 2004 -
27 comments
