Census Data Trends
By: Drew Meyers, Zillow Business Development Specialist | September 13, 2006
Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual snapshot of economic health of the U.S., so we decided to have some fun by digging into the newly released Community Sourcebook Data that also contains U.S. Census information, plus much more. It was easy to get lost in the data for hours at a time, but I had to stop somewhere. Below are some of the more interesting indicators that I observed. To help tell the stories, I created some heat maps to accompany the findings.
2000-2006 Population Growth by County
It’s no real surprise that the counties hit hard by last season’s hurricanes — mainly, Katrina — are at the bottom of the list in terms of population growth. It’s very interesting to look at the regions that have experienced high growth rates. Southern California — along with parts of Florida and Georgia — appear to be the fastest-growing regions of the country (map below).
Top 5
- Flagler, FL - 9.4%
- Loudoun, VA - 8.3%
- Henry, GA - 7.8%
- Paulding, GA - 7.3%
- Newton, GA - 7.2%
Bottom 5
- St. Bernard Parish, LA - -47.8%
- Orleans Parish, LA - -18.9%
- Hancock, MS - -11.7%
- Plaquemines Parish, LA - -8%
- Cameron Parish, LA - -7.9%
2006 Median Age by County
This indicator shows where the majority of people retire and it’s no surprise that Florida, Hawaii, and Texas are the big three. Other hot spots include Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas. On the map below (click on it for a bigger version), that large swath of green through the Southwest and Rocky Mountain regions means a heavy population of younger adults.
Top 5 (oldest)
- Kalawao, HI - 61.9 years
- Charlotte, FL - 56.7 years
- Llano, TX - 55.8 years
- Citrus, FL - 55.1 years
- Sumter, FL - 53.7 years
Bottom 5 (youngest)
- Wade Hampton Census Area, AK - 21.4 years
- Madison, ID - 21.5 years
- Shannon, SD - 22 years
- Todd, SD - 22.6 years
- Chattahoochee, GA - 23.7 years
2011 Estimated Median Household Income by County
Douglas County, Colorado, which is located midway between Denver and Colorado Springs, tops the list with an estimated household income slightly over $130,000. Rounding out the top 5 are three counties in the Northeast and Los Alamos, NM. On the low end of the income scale is Kalawao County in Hawaii, which appears to be a retirement community given that it has the lowest estimated median household income and the highest median age in the United States. The entire South looks to be on the low end while the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and West Coast have relatively high median estimated household incomes.
Top 5
- Douglas, CO - $130,146
- Loudon, VA - $127,118
- Fairfax, VA - $121,044
- Hunterdon, NJ - $119,787
- Los Alamos, NM - $117,563
Bottom 5
- Kalawao, HI - $8,852
- Buffalo, SD - $17,609
- Wilcox, AL - $20,885
- Holmes, MS - $21,275
- McDowell, WV - $21,617
There is all sorts of data available such as average household size and household income rank by county or ZIP code. In addition, counties are compared to each other via indexes in a variety of topics. Among the spending indices compared are Travel, Vehicle Loans, Retirement Plans, Cable TV, and Apparel. Are there other maps you’d like to see? Let us know in the comments section.
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- Categories: Real Estate Analytics, Real Estate Industry, Zillow
Comments
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Dorkydad on September 13, 2006 7:25 pm
Hopefully the missing links from most of the counties shown is a wake-up call to Zillow that your product isn’t relevant to the majority of us online users, though I’m looking forward to the day it will be.
Kevin on September 18, 2006 11:34 pm
I’m surprised none of the upper California counties (e.g. Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma) made the top 5 list for 2011 estimated median household income! I suspect the same list by city would have included at least one of our towns here, Atherton.
Ravi on September 22, 2006 1:26 am
Can you (somebody) tell me how do you create these heat maps?
Drew M from Zillow.com on September 22, 2006 1:34 pm
Ravi-
The heatmaps are created with ESRI’s ArcView software.
http://www.esri.com/software/arcview/
Hope this helps.
Ravi on September 22, 2006 1:54 pm
Thanks Drew. That does help. I have a need to create a website where I can color code it with (to say) cars per household. If they zoom in, the colors should become per county, or per block group (depending on zoom). Arcview seems for the desktop. What would be the best option for such a thing? I looked at google maps, http://www.globexplorer.com/ and a few others but not sure where should I focus my research. Any ideas?
Drew M from Zillow.com on September 22, 2006 2:04 pm
I’m not a web designer, so I’m not sure the best way to create this sort of functionality in a web application. What you are describing sounds like a pretty significant piece of development regardless of what technology there is out there. Sorry I can’t help you out further. Good luck with the project- please let us know when you get done as it sounds like it will be a great use of mapping technology.
Sean Gorman on October 16, 2006 6:58 am
We’ve developed an API that will allow you to do heat maps like what you see in ESRI with polygons, polylines, or points. Also you can do spatial based raster analysis with multiple data sets to make heat maps. We have a one varible example with highway traffic congestion data up on our blog - http://blog.fortiusone.com. We’ll have the API out at the end of the month.
Andrew Zahn on February 9, 2007 3:14 pm
Any idea when Hunterdon County data will become available?
Drew M from Zillow on February 9, 2007 3:20 pm
Andrew-
While I can’t give you any firm estimates or specifics — I can say there are several initiatives we are working on to increase data coverage in 2007.
Vancouver Washington Real Estate Guy on December 18, 2007 12:39 am
Portland area looks hot. Great map I can reference this to my relocating clients. Thanks.