Sunday, June 29, 2014

4th Anniversary of Urban Demographics !



Today marks the fourth anniversary of Urban Demographics Blog! And blogging still makes up for an important part of my procrastination learning !



Here are some stats that show a summary of the blog and its readers over the past year:

  • 190 posts
  • 306 subscribers  
  • 31,898 visitors 
  • 51,249 visits
  • 1,085 likes on Facebook 
  • 1,572 followers on Twitter

    The most popular posts:
    1. Making 3D Maps in Excel
    2. Subway systems of Rio and Shanghai 1993-2013
    3. The most cited authors in Sociology
    4. Urban Density Patterns in 9 Global Cities 
    5. Population Density Maps

    and 5 of my preferred posts:
    1. 200 years of Urban Expansion
    2. IPUMS-International and Brazilian census microdata
    3. Accessibility Observatory + GTFS data
    4. Global Innovation and Diffusion in Public Transport
    5. If Christaller had Google Earth

    Where do readers come from (Top 5)? (175 Countries, 4,665 Cities)
    1. United States (29%)
    2. Brazil (16%)
    3. United Kingdom (8%)
    4. Germany (4%)
    5. Canada (3%)


    And the Top 5 sites that sent visitors here:
    1. Google (24%)
    2. Direct traffic to the blog (24%)
    3. Facebook (20%)
    4. Twitter (9%)
    5. Feedburner (3%)

    Thanks everyone for the support and suggestions via comments and emails !

    Saturday, June 28, 2014

    Urban Picture

    New York City at sundown, 1930s


    [image credit:? via @HistoryInPics]


    Soundtrack: 



    Thursday, June 26, 2014

    Looking for Human Mobility Patterns through Internet services

    Here is an interesting approach to estimate the number of international visitors going to Brazil during World Cup: Check-Ins on Facebook! I couldn't find who is the author of this video.

    But when it comes to using the Internet to identify human mobility patterns though, I think Emilio Zagheni is a great academic reference. In this blog, we have already mentioned one of Zagheni's work, where he uses e-mail data to estimate global migration rates. He has also developed similar studies using Twitter Data and IP Geolocation.

    There is also a whole different group of studies using Internet services to identify mobility patterns at the city scale. If you're more interested in this scale of analysis, this post might work as a starting point `A day in the life of a city`, but you should not forget the research of Cesar Hidalgo and colleagues using mobile phone data to study human mobility (and this one).

    Abstract Art

    This is a great paper abstract! Not the most informative abstract tough, but I liked the idea of using word clouds as 'visual abstract'.

    This is from the paper "Eigenvalue Fractal Geometry: An Alternative Approach to Fractal Generation", recently published  by Sandra Arlinghaus and Daniel Griffith on Solstice: An Electronic Journal of Geography and Mathematics. Thanks Sandra for the tip.



    [image credit: Arlinghaus and Griffith, tagxedo]

    Related Link:

    Tuesday, June 24, 2014

    Chart of the Day

    Comparing the UK Department for Transport forecasts of road traffic with actual road traffic (via George Monbiot). Interestingly, it repeats the same systematic error the US Department of Transportation has been making for years.

    The full story is here
    Since the 1980s, the Department for Transport has consistently forecast traffic growth along a steep trajectory. But the distance covered by car drivers in England is now 7% lower than it was in 1997. The total volume of traffic has flatlined since 2002, nixing every prediction the department has made. Last year, 32 transport professors wrote to the secretary of state pointing out that, in the absence of traffic growth, "the basis for major infrastructure spending decisions appears to be changing".
    The only thing likely to induce more traffic growth, they argued, is building more trunk roads, and that would put intolerable pressure on the city streets into which they feed. The facts might have changed, but the policy remains the same. The department continues to make the same failed forecasts, using the same failed model. The desire to build – and to appease the construction industry and motoring lobby – comes first, and the forecasts are made to fit.

    [image credit: Better Transport]

    Monday, June 23, 2014

    7 Misconceptions about Urbanization

    George Martine (former president of the Brazilian Association for Population Studies ABEP) was the lead author of the UN Population Fund's (UNFPA) report State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth.

    In this seminarMartine discussed seven common misconceptions about urbanization (ht Eduardo Marandola).

    1. Urbanization is inherently bad
    2. Most urban growth occurs in mega cities
    3. Urban growth comes mainly from migration to cities
    4. Rural-Urban migration can and should be stopped
    5. The poor are a marginal minority in cities
    6. Cities occupy a huge amount of land area
    7. As a whole, urbanization inevitably harms the environment


    Assorted links

    Sunday, June 15, 2014

    Message of the Day

    A universal law of physics recently discovered:

    [Image Credit: Captain Crom via Leo Monasterio]

    Monday, June 9, 2014

    Saturday, June 7, 2014

    Music for the weekend






    ps. No animal was hurt during this post.

    Thursday, June 5, 2014

    New 'workplace zone' Census stats for the UK

    Robin Edwards calls attention to a new set of statistical areas developed by the Uk Office of National Statistics to report workplace data from the 2011 Census, called Workplace Zones. He has made some nice maps that give a glimpse of the potential these areas can have to urban and transport studies. If only we had these data when we were writing this paper. :(

    Related Link: The U.S Census Bureau has made available an online mapping tool that displays demographic info of states, counties, and census tracts. It`s called Census Explorer and it also presents some data on retail and a commuting edition for 1990-2000-2012.



    [image credit: Robin Edwards]

    Monday, June 2, 2014

    Visualizing Disabled Freedom Pass trips on the London Underground

    Gareth Simons has done an amazing work visualizing Disabled Freedom Pass trips on the London Underground. More details on his website.

    obs. @transportforall has also produce nice map showing how the Tube network looks like if you can’t use stairs. Simple map with strong message.