Posts written by Rebecca Tippett
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“Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the…
This is an update of the 2013 data discussed in this post. The interactive map below shows data from the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness (NCCEH) January 2014 Point-in-Time (PIT) count data. The PIT count is a statewide, unduplicated count of homeless people that is held on one night during the last week of January each year. These individuals are literally homeless, meaning that, on the night of the count, they are either living in an…
The Census Bureau released the 2011-2013 American Community Survey (ACS) estimates today. These estimates cover detailed socioeconomic characteristics of the population and are available for all counties with populations of 20,000. This release provides data on 84 counties in North Carolina. The final 2013 ACS release—the 2009-2013 data—covering all areas, including the census tract and block group levels, is scheduled for December 4. With the release of this data set, users can compare the time…
“When someone says the word “immigrant,” many people likely picture Europeans moving through Ellis Island during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Others think of a more recent time — especially after 1980 — when most immigrants arrived from countries in Latin America, such as Mexico, and, to a lesser extent, Asia. However, it may be surprising to learn that recent data show that the African foreign-born population is one of the fastest growing…
Over the summer I read “10 Things Millennials Won’t Spend Money On.” What do some of these trends look like in North Carolina? While many of these 10 things are difficult to examine in the data I normally work with, a few are readily available. Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses and the 2012 American Community Survey, I examined home ownership, marital status, and childlessness among North Carolina young adults (ages 20-30) in…
Monday, September 15th, through Wednesday, October 15th, marks National Hispanic Heritage Month. In 2012, the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project published a look at the Hispanic electorate in every state. They noted that, in North Carolina: The number of Latinos registered to vote has increased tenfold since 2004. It rose from 10,000 during the 2004 presidential election to 68,000 during the 2008 presidential election and now stands at 113,000. The share of Latino registered voters…
Monday, September 15th, through Wednesday, October 15th, marks National Hispanic Heritage Month. In 2012, there were 845,420 Hispanics living in the state, nearly 9% of the state’s total population. In yesterday’s post, I looked at some of the components of this population’s growth. Today, I’ll look at some social characteristics. Place of Birth Just over half (53%) of North Carolina Hispanics were born in the United States or a U.S. territory; 47% were foreign-born. Examining the…
Monday, September 15th, through Wednesday, October 15th, marks National Hispanic Heritage Month. In 1990, 76,726 North Carolina residents identified as Hispanic, 1.2% of the state’s population. Twenty-two years later, the state’s Hispanic population had increased eleven-fold. According to the American Community Survey, there were 845,420 Hispanic individuals living in North Carolina in 2012, representing 8.7% of the state’s population. Both components of population growth—net migration and natural increase, or more births than deaths—drove the rapid…
Nationally, college enrollment declined by nearly half a million (463,000) between 2012 and 2013, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. This was the second year in a row that saw a drop of this size. The Census Bureau noted that much of the decline took place among 2-year colleges or community colleges. Across the nation, enrollment at community colleges declined by 10% between 2012 and 2013, while 4-year colleges…
In the mid- to late-twentieth century, suburbanization shifted population growth from urban areas to suburbs. In response, revitalization of the downtown core became the primary focus of many cities’ economic development plans. This is what Aaron Renn of the Urbanophile terms the “Old Donut” model: cities across the nation spent the past few decades trying to fill their downtown economic “holes” through billions of dollars in revitalization efforts, “ranging from stadiums to convention centers to…
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