Voters in 10 Atlanta-area counties recently rejected a proposed 10-year, 1 percent sales tax that would have raised $7.2 billion for transportation projects. Well, I say “recently,” but the T-SPLOST vote was actually more than two weeks ago. On the other hand, suck it.
My wife and I were particularly enthusiastic about the Clifton Corridor proposal, one of the bigger projects that would have been funded by the tax, and voted yes. A whopping 63 percent of voters across the region didn’t quite share our enthusiasm, however, and the measure went down in flames despite a multi-million dollar campaign by supporters.
It should be noted that both the funding mechanism itself and the list of proposed projects (more…)
As mapping and cat enthusiast who just moved to a new area, I thought it only natural to make a series of maps tracking the movements and moods of local domestic cats. However, it turns out that the domestic cat movement and mood data collected by both state and local government agencies in Georgia is not quite up to the standard of that available in Florida.
The first map shows the black population. The shading represents, from light blue on the low end to dark blue on the high end, the percentage of each block’s population that is non-Hispanic black. The height of each block shows the number of people in each block who are non-Hispanic black.
As longtime readers are no doubt aware, mid-October is traditionally when I write my first non-cat, non-newspaper building, non-hurricane damaged building demolition video post of the year. As you can see, this year is no different. Except for the 47 consecutive days of unending, merciless, around-the-clock locust swarms that we suffered through here in South Florida from early May to mid-June, of course. Did anyone else notice that?
To see the full-size version of the charts below, simply click on the image. To avoid seeing the full-size charts, simply do nothing and continue looking (with your eyes) at the small versions currently before you. You’ll probably want to then contact me via fax or letter, and I will arrive at your house in no less than seven (10) business days to further assist you.
The first chart shows the monthly median sale price by housing type. The single-family home median sale price peaked in Palm Beach County in December 2005 at $418,310. By December 2009 it was down to $249,000, and continued declining through the first six months of 2010.
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And what about this handsome devil? Oh, it just shows the total number of qualified or arms-length residential transactions by price group. And looks good doing it.
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Similar to the one above, but this one shows each price group’s share of residential sales.
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Behold, the year-over-year change in the total number of residential transactions. Got that? January 1996 compared to January 1995, February 1996 compared to February 1995, etc. Listen, this isn’t rocket science. Looks like some good news the past 18 months or so, right? Sales finally picking up again?
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Similar to the one above, but this one shows the year-over-year change in median sale price for all housing types. So, maybe not such good news, then. Fact alert: Median prices increased 90 consecutive months from April 1999 to September 2006, then decreased 45 consecutive months from October 2006 though the end of the period covered by my charts, June 2010.
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So there you have it. Want the raw data on which these charts are based? Or the even rawer data on which the data on which these data these charts are based are based? TOUGH LUCK HIPPIE, with your dangerous Web 3.0 ideas and your Arctic Monkeys and fancy PlayStation 2 consoles. But really, if you want it, get in touch and I’ll think about it, then maybe we can go to the movies together a few times to get to know each other a little better, then maybe I’ll send it to you.
Here’s how Barack Obama did. The four color ranges represent, from light to dark and in simple quartiles, the percentage of total votes Obama received in each county. Height shows the number of votes Obama received.
(Click the map for the full-size image.)
Here’s how John McCain did. Again, four color ranges representing share of votes, and height showing the number of McCain votes. (more…)
“The ideal candidate will have at least five years of reporting experience, with an emphasis on government reporting; significant experience in reporting and writing data-driven investigative reports; and an advanced understanding of Microsoft Excel and Access. Proficiency with SQL, ArcGIS, SPSS and Caspio are preferred.”
Click on over to the listing at JournalismJobs.com for more info. It should be noted, as I’ve mentioned before, that the Sentinel newsroom maintains a well-known and long-standing mandatory Disney-oriented dress code. That’s a fact. OK, that’s not really true, but I like to imagine everyone in the newsroom dressed as Disney characters.
I had a good chat about the digital future of local newspapers with Ryan Pitts of The Spokesman Review of Spokane yesterday after teaching a mapping class he attended. They’re looking for a developer to, among other things, help rebuild their site from the ground up with Ellington/Django. It sounds like an exciting opportunity to chart a new course for local journalism at a locally owned paper in a beautiful part of the country, to do some original, innovative work. Forget Google’s 20 percent time, these sort of development jobs at newspapers often afford the right sort of candidate something approaching 100 percent time. Give Ryan a shout today.
I’m in Houston at the CAR Conference and, as usual at these conferences (recent sites: Cleveland, Newark, etc.), I’m loving the view from my room. Consider this admittedly low-quality shot from my phone:
Two more pictures for my amusement, and possibly yours. Both were ads in the sports section of today’s Houston Chronicle, and both convey a certain attitude, guns ‘n boots, that you don’t really see that much of ’round my way in South Florida. Which is not to say that we Floridians are not just as enthusiastic as anyone about firearms, merely that you usually don’t see them in our sports pages. My favorite from the gun store ad: the Snake Charmer II. I have a feeling the snake will not, in fact, be charmed.
Top notch stuff, really top notch. Those eight days will give you an outstanding foundation in spreadsheets, databases and GIS. And the awesome doesn’t stop there: Attending the mapping boot camp qualifies you for a pretty good discount on an ArcView single-use license. So beg, borrow or pad your mileage reimbursements, just find a way to attend these classes.
I gave a presentation Thursday to the Palm Beach Countywide GIS Forum on how we use GIS editorially at The Palm Beach Post. If you work with GIS in a newsroom and there is an organization of government GIS users in your area, find out more about it, ask if they’ll let you join and, if possible, try to give a little talk about what you do. There wouldn’t be much mapping in the media without the public-record data those folks produce, after all. Parcel maps, street centerlines, school locations … too much cool stuff to list.
It’s easy when you work with 1s and 0s all day to never get out of the office and meet the people receiving your mailed, faxed, phoned or e-mailed records requests. But data is a beat like any other, and it pays to spend time cultivating your sources.
It seems like there is an uncommonly high number of computer-assisted job openings at newspapers these days. (And by “uncommonly high” I mean “more than one.” It is a relatively small field, after all.)
Gannett’s The Journal News of White Plains, New York, is looking for a full-time CAR specialist to “work as part of a Data Desk team to acquire data, provide analysis, create maps and assist in posting data to the Web.” They’re looking for the usual skills: Excel, Access, SQL and mapping, plus knowledge of PHP or other language and at least two years of CAR experience. I couldn’t find this one posted on any of the usual sites, but the note sent to NICAR-L today said resume and clips should be sent by August 3 to Frank Brill, Deputy Managing Editor/Data Desk, whose contact information I trust you can unearth on your own if you’d like to work in whatever the heck the “LoHud” is. (Sorry, ignorant native Floridian talking here.)
