A2-Razvan Carbunescu
From CS294-10 Visualization Fa08
Contents |
Choosing The Data
The data that I used was population, racial and economical national data from the census bureau website. I downloaded the full available data set at the county level. I proceeded to create a table following the general idea presented on the website (I did not follow the exact steps presented on the website as this would have led to multiple wrong entries). I then extracted from the excel that I created all the counties(deleted the US cumulative data and the values for each state)
As I imported this data into Spotfire I found some interesting inconsistencies/errors on some views (one simple example of this was the percentage of the population that was white which exceeded 100% for more than 10 counties with the extreme being Bedford,VA which was 167% white). Because of these errors and the extreme size of the dataset (3000+ entries) I went back and reedited my excel file to have only the States and their respective values.
Quest for a Question / Intermediate Visualizations
First Question: What states have the biggest net influx of people? how about percentage?
A simple plot of the net change of people between 2000 and 2006 would seem to indicate that Texas, California and Florida are the biggest growing states as far as population is concerned but when we color code the bars with percentage change we can see that Nevada and Arizona also have huge growths for their population and that California's growth isn't as spectacular
Second Question: Out of all available data what variables is the change in people most linked to? (or opposed to?)
Not Related to:
- per capita income
This was the first variable I had in mind and surprisingly there is no correlation so people weren't leaving for better salaries
- state size
While there is a small correlation present between state size and percentage change it is also unnoticeable
- state population
There is no relation between the size of the state as for example larger states having larger inflow or outflow of people
Strongly correlated:
- increase in jobs
This I believe is the most important factor for the changes in population in different states since it seems to present a motivation and an opportunity for a family
- bigger percentage of people under 18 - younger generation
This correlation seems to suggest that the states with a younger, more active population seem to be better attractions for living then states with an older population
- increase in housing (near perfect correlation)
I find this to be more a probable effect of the people who are moving then a deciding factor in people moving to these states
Inversely correlated:
- percentage of people over 65years
This argument returns to the age of a population and the fact that it's unlikely for an older population to move to a new state (The exception point you see on the top right corner which would indicate a correlation is Florida)
- percentage of longtime (5+ years) homeowners
I interpret this correlation as being the following: the longer and the more a family owns a house the less likely they are to move and the tighter a community also becomes; being less likely to accept new people.
- percentage females in the state
At first this was the 2nd most confusing correlation I saw of the data (the first most confusing is by far the slight-to-medium direct correlation between businesses owned by women and population change). Once I thought more thoroughly about it I think this visualization shows that men are more likely to leave for other states (and not that the more females there are in a state, the more likely people are to leave)
Final Question / Visualization / Conclusions
Question
What are the reasons/consequences of the population growths in the United Stated?
Visualization
The visualization provides:
- 1 summary graph to show population growths both net and percentage wise
- 2 directly related quantities (green) 1 being a possible reason and 1 a consequence
- 1 inversely related quantity (red) representing a possible reason
Conclusions
The census data provided, the visualizations and the questions answered along the way seem to show that a younger predominantly male population is seeking employment and/or educational opportunities in other states for equal pay. It also shows that they are settling down in the states that they move to by building new houses which would imply a great success rate (especially because of the great correspondence between houses and population).
