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...

U-Haul Growth States: A Deeper Look

Each year, U-Haul releases a list of states experiencing growth based on their own data for equipment demand for one-way trucks which they call the “U-Haul Growth Index” (U-Haul Growth States of 2022: Texas, Florida Top List Again | U-Haul (uhaul.com)). The 2022 list...

The Diversification of America

The population of the United States has more than doubled since 1950, and along with that growth has been a substantial shift in the demographic makeup of the population. In 1950, 97.5% of the population was either non-Hispanic White or Black. By 2020, the Hispanic...

Changing Regional Fortunes

A few weeks ago, we examined the changes to the patterns of manufacturing employment and a natural follow-up is to consider the impacts on regional income. Income is particularly difficult to study over time since the geographic study areas change over time as does...

The Decline of Manufacturing

It is common knowledge that over the past few decades, the American economy has shifted away from manufacturing as we move towards being a service and information economy.  At its peak in 1979, manufacturing employed over 19 million workers, which was over 22% of...