Rethinking Poverty and Income Inequality

In recent years, we have been consistently told that income inequality is on the rise and that the war on poverty declared in the 1960’s has been a failure. The Economist magazine stated bluntly that “it is a truth universally acknowledged that inequality in the rich...

Geospatial Deep Diving with Census Blocks

For many years, the standard detail geography which AGS has provided to users has been the census block group. Only those who read through our methodology statements knew that you could order your In-n-Out double-double ‘animal style’, since it certainly wasn’t posted...

Throwing Spaghetti at the Wall

In the traditional realm of parametric statistics, we were taught that the correct approach to building a statistical model of any sort was to follow the scientific method. You know, formulate a set of hypotheses about what independent factors might contribute to the...

The Perils of Projections

One of the great economists of the last century, John Kenneth Galbraith, once quipped that “the only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” The same can be said for pretty much anything that we foolishly insist on forecasting –...

Between County and Block Group

Between the county and block group levels – one too general, the other often too detailed. For many analytical tasks, an in-between layer is just what the doctor ordered. So, is there a goldilocks solution? There are four primary choices of standard geographies...