Katrina Diaspora
Category: Society & Culture...
Posted Thursday, October 06, 2005 at 09:08 PM [GMT-6]

Here's an interesting map showing how Katrina evacuees were (are?) dispersed across the country.

Clicking on each dot that represents the destination city brings up a page with an odd set of demographic data, which seems to vary from city-to-city. For example, Midland's page contains its "Gay/Lesbian Index," which is 60, on a scale of 1-100. It's unclear what that means. Do our gay and lesbian citizens have an average age of 60? Are 60% of Midland residents gay, vs. 100% of the rest of the US? It's all quite confusing.

The demographic page also lists "well-known" residents of the city. Again, in Midland's case, the results are unusual. Actor Woody Harrelson and actress Kathy Baker (whoever she is) are listed ahead of such lesser luminaries like Presidents George and George W. Bush. Such is the fleeting nature of fame, I suppose.

The main page also has links to other American "mass migrations," which will equip you for some fascinating dinner table conversation.

I like ePodunk's title tag: "ePodunk - Profiling 46,000 cities, villages, towns, townships and podunks across America"

[Update: Apologies to Kathy Baker, who has appeared in at least 45 movies, some of which are quite well known. My bad.]

Oh, I almost forgot (my bad again): tip o'the hat to A Whole Lotta Nothing

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Comments

You'll notice how everyone rushed to North Dakota.

(But we do actually have a couple that moved up here.)

Posted by: Julie at October 6, 2005 10:27 PM

Well, on a proportional basis, North Dakota might then end up having the highest percentage of population increase due to Katrina evacuees.

Posted by: Eric at October 6, 2005 10:32 PM

"The gay index is a comparative score, based on the percentage of people reporting in the 2000 U.S. Census that they lived in a same-s e x partnership.

A score of 100 is the national norm. A number above 100 indicates that the local proportion of same-s e x unmarried households is higher than the national average. For example, 140 would mean that the proportion was 40 percent higher than the national norm. A score of 60 would be 40 percent lower."

So we have 40% fewer gays in Midland than the national average.

Odessa ranked 70.

Posted by: Bert at October 6, 2005 11:48 PM

I hate it when people take the fun out of making fun of obscure statistics. ;-)

Posted by: Eric at October 7, 2005 06:44 AM

E-Podunk is an interesting site! I noted that Loving Co. has gone from a population of 67 down to 62. A good reason to live in Loving Co.

Posted by: Wallace-Midland Texas at October 7, 2005 10:42 AM

Wallace, I suppose it really depends on why the population has suddenly decreased. ;-)

Posted by: Eric at October 7, 2005 10:47 AM

That was very interesting. The diaspora looks like some string art I did once. What I learned though is that there seems to be an indirect correlation between the gay population and where the trailers are in this country. Not sure what to do about this except surround KC with more trailers (our score is a whopping 145!). I also thought it was interesting that one of the first items of note for each region was its latitude and longitude. Who exactly cares about this?

Posted by: Gwynne at October 7, 2005 05:25 PM

Who exactly cares about this?

Spoken (well, written) like a person without a GPS.

Now, I am more than a bit curious as to why, exactly, you decided to study the correlation between the gay pop. and the trailer concentration. That seems to be the stuff that government research grants are made of. ;-)

Posted by: Eric at October 7, 2005 06:44 PM

What concerned me was the very high G/L index of my home town. The next step seemed obvious, no? I also discovered that while the G/L population appears to diminish in areas with high trailerpark concentrations, it appears to increase in areas with higher mo joe quotients. I always suspected Starbucks was responsible.

And you're right about the GPS...I am sadly without.

Posted by: Gwynne at October 7, 2005 07:39 PM
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