Background

The Brice-Tussing area of Columbus was once a vibrant and viable retail district on the far east side of the city.  Over the years, retail activity shifted even further east and suddenly the area found itself out of favor with retailers of all sizes.  The preponderance of big box retail made the decline even more noticeable when preferences began to shift.

The Task

Tired of watching the Brice-Tussing area languish, the City engaged an enterprising team of consultants to study the area and identify opportunities for redevelopment.  During the study process, the team met with a variety of stakeholders including several local area commissions, residents, commercial realtors, local business leaders and potential investors.  Data was poured over and parcels were scrutinized for highest and best use as well as optimal land use and zoning.

Info

The plan is currently in the final stages of development.  In the interim, here is a page dedicated to the project and maintained by the City of Columbus.  Here you can read a midterm draft of the plan as well as view several display boards that were generated for the various open houses.

One of the ways the project team has kept in touch with the community is through the West Franklinton MindMixer page at www.westfranklinton.com.  The beauty of this website is two-way communication: the project team can start a general conversation and the members of the West Franklinton community can fill in the details.  The site launched on January 2, 2014 with six core topic areas requiring community input:

1. Community Identity + Image
2. Driving, Walking + Biking
3. Housing + Neighborhood
4. Retail
5. Parking Strategies
6. Parks + Open Space

Collectively, these core topics generated 177 individual ideas with 193 comments over a period of two months.  We were thrilled with the feedback and the active participation of community members, and we are currently working on incorporating this wealth of local knowledge and energy into recommendations and strategies that will be presented at the second public meeting on April 30th, 2014 at Gladden Community House from 5 – 7pm.

There’s obviously a lot to read through in these discussions, but there are many tricks to getting a quick idea of the general concerns and even mood of a discussion.  Among them is a simple and easy visualizing technique that was all the rage in planning circles circa 2011: the word cloud.  A word cloud is merely a visualization of text data, where words from a given source are sized according to their use.  That is to say, the more a word appears in a given text, the larger it will appear in a world cloud.

Word clouds are by no means a substitute for carefully reading through text or other analysis exercises, but they can reveal some pretty interesting patterns and are a handy visualization regardless.  We decided it would be fun to throw the discussions from the original six MindMixer topic areas into wordle to see what these community discussions look like.  We’ll probably continue to play with these visualizations over the next few weeks (I would particularly like to edit out the words “West” and “Franklinton” to see what else will stand out), but the results are below.  What do you think?

Community Identity + Image

Idea Titles Text

Discussion Text

Driving, Biking, Walking

Discussion Text

Idea Titles

Housing + Neighborhood

Idea Titles

Discussion Text

Retail

Idea Titles

Discussion Text

Parking Strategies

Idea Titles

Discussion Text

Parks + Open Space

Idea Titles

Discussion Text

As the plan develops, this blog will provide information related to the project.  You can also follow and participate in the planning process by visiting the following sites.

Important Links & Related Sites

www.westfranklinton.com – This site is serving as the primary information collection & dissemination portal for the duration of the project.  The software that is powering the site is provided by MindMixer.  The topics and information that is disseminated through this site, will evolve as the actual planning project evolves.

West Franklinton Facebook Page – West Franklinton has a Facebook page that will also provide a place to keep folks informed on the planning process.  Links to project documents and project photos can be found on this site.

@WFplan (Twitter) - this is the Twitter account for the West Franklinton Plan.  Follow it and you will never be out of the loop!

Project Timeline

October 2013 – The consultant team begins meeting with the Staff Working group (planners from the City of Columbus, recreation & parks, housing, mayor’s office, and others).  Later that month, the team conducts their first meeting with the Community Working Group, a group of leaders from Franklinton comprised of members of the Franklinton Development Association (FDA), Gladden Community House, Mount Carmel, to name a few.

November 2013 – The consultant team begins conducting stakeholder interviews and collecting “existing conditions” data.  Each parcel within the neighborhood is surveyed and vacancies are documented.  The commercial (retail) market analysis begins.

December 2013 – Stakeholder interviews continue as does the data collection and analysis for the existing conditions.  The housing market analysis begins.

January 2014 – The project’s website (www.westfranklinton.com) goes live.  The public information gathering begins in earnest.  Existing conditions data gathering concludes.  The market analyses (housing, commercial, office, and industrial) concludes.  The planning team meets with the Staff Working Group and the Community Working Group.  Both groups are briefed on the results of the existing conditions report and the market analyses.  Later that month, the first public workshop is held.

Public Workshop #1

On January 28, 2014, the first West Franklinton planning Public Workshop was held at the Gladden Community House.  Even though it was the coldest night in decades, almost 100 hearty souls turned out to provide their input and mingle with others that were interested in participating in the planning of Franklinton’s future.  NBC 4 in Columbus even came out to document the event with a nice video piece with an accompanying web article.

One of the exercises that the public was encouraged to partake in was a mapping exercise where four location-specific questions were posed to participants.  The results of that exercise were as follows:

1. Question:  What one place would make the neighborhood better if it was dramatically different from how it is today?  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map
2. Question:  What do you consider to be the “heart” of West Franklinton?  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map
3. Question:  What is the one place that a visitor to Franklinton should see?  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map
4. Question:  If you could create a new neighborhood park in West Franklinton, where would you build it  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map

February 2014 – The “plan development” phase begins.  This is when the rubber meets the road.  New topics are added to the westfranklinton.com site.  The new topics reflect the progression of the planning process.  The team begins working with the City and the Community Working Group to craft a comprehensive vacant housing & housing development strategy.  Late in the month, the team meets with the Community Working Group to initiate the plan development phase.  Discussion topics include improving community outreach for the next public workshop (scheduled for the end of April).

April 2014 – The 2nd community workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, April 30 from 5-7 PM.  The official press release can be found on westfranklinton.com (in the “about” section) OR you can link to it here.

October 2014 – The West Franklinton Plan has been completed.  You can download the plan here.  The plan is very progressive in its approach; emphasizing connectivity and public open space (parks) enhancements as property becomes available.  The flexibility built into the plan allows for the development of these features in a variety of places throughout West Franklinton.

November 2014 – The West Franklinton Plan has been adopted by Columbus City Council.  You can learn more about the Plan by checking out the City of Columbus’ website.

“Creating successful urban retail districts is a goal of planners and community leaders alike. But as Robert J. Gibbs points out in Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development(2012; Wiley; 272 pp.; $80), planners may be hampered in that task by an overly romantic view of an ideal shopping area. Even in the best planned new urbanist developments, he points out, retail components often fail to live up to expectations.

….(Gibbs) explodes various myths about what makes a successful retail district and lists some of the common mistakes made by planners, business owners, and community leaders — failing to begin a project with a professional market analysis, for instance. He shies away from easy answers. While clearly in favor of the walkable retail districts that planners typically espouse, for instance, he concedes that they don’t always succeed financially.

Gibbs includes plenty of useful information on specifics such as parking. His book will be most useful to private-sector planners and those who work with public-private partnerships. But the material it contains will also be helpful to public planners dealing with zoning issues. — Ryan Smith”

Several of us here at UDG, have at one point in our lives, worked for real estate market analysts (in fact, we have several current clients that are in this line of business).  This is where we learned the value of conducting a market analysis for planning and development purposes.  Our backgrounds in GIS and Urban Planning provide us with a unique perspective on the concept of the market analysis.  We have seen more than our fair share of good and bad examples of market analysis.  If you are a city conducting a land use or comprehensive plan, it is in your best interest to include market analysis as part of the planning process.  In addition, you should thoroughly vet the analyst to make sure they understand what the goals and objectives of the plan are.  Traditional, boilerplate market analysis is not going to suffice.  Cities, and the spaces within a city, are unique.   The market analyst must be willing to approach their task as part of the entire planning team, which means they must be engaged in the process from start to finish.

Traditional market analysis does not address the goals of a land use or comprehensive plan.  There are two basic questions planners need to answer with respect to the market analysis:  1.  Is there a market and 2. how “much” should we plan for? Further, planners (and the public in general) may ask questions regarding “what it takes” to achieve the critical mass required to achieve the desired results.  For example, “how many households do we need to add, at varying income levels, to achieve the critical mass required to support a medium-sized grocery store?”

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are the perfect tool for conducting this type of analysis and far too few analysts invest the time and money to employ a robust GIS to help them answer these spatial questions.  A GIS makes it much easier to visualize the current conditions as well as visualize future conditions – which is at the heart of the concept of planning.

Urban Decision Group has been fine tuning this very type of analysis into a service we call “Planning Market Analytics“.  Planning Market Analytics is specifically designed for informing  comprehensive or land-use plans.  Like a traditional market analysis, field observations are required but the observations must be targeted and focused on the goals at hand.  Our service focuses on a data-driven GIS model to produce predictive analytics via established methods such as Huff Modeling.

The Planning Market Analytics service is usually expensive because of its intended audience.  The audience for a traditional market analysis generally consists of developers and  financiers.  That group is looking for very specific price points, rents, and lease rates for defined product types like town homes or 2 bedroom apartments.  The planning audience, on the other hand, is focused on the larger picture.  They need to  know if a project has a  chance at being successful (is there a market?), how much space should be allocated, what infrastructure improvements will be necessary, etc.  Two different audiences require two difference approaches.

So if you’re a city, county, region or state that is engaging in city or regional planning, I agree with the letter writer above.  Do you your homework first.  It’s a nominal portion of the project cost that can literally save you millions on the back end.

If you would like more information on Planning Market Analytics and you live in North America, contact Urban Decision Group at 614-383-8447 or email Rick Stein at rstein at urbandecisiongroup.com.

Concentric Circles
DO NOT use simple concentric circles. Concentric circles (sometimes referred to as radials) ignore all the important information about any given area such as physical and psychological barriers, real travel time, and the area’s socioeconomic character. This method may be appropriate as a guide or a starting point, but it should never be used as the final market area for a project.

example of concentric circles

Drive Time Polygons
Drive Times are best expressed as polygons rather than concentric circles because polygons calculate the real travel time required to move from one point to another using actual road infrastructure. Drive Time polygons are a great starting point for a project’s market area delineation. It should be noted, however, that Drive Times ignore walking and users of public transportation, which could be problematic depending on the project. Drive times also do not reflect consumer preferences or psychological barriers.

example of drive time polygons

Census Tracts
Census Tracts, although critical to a proper analysis, are also not the best way to delineate a final market area. Census Tracts are a creation of the U.S. Census Bureau, and their sole purpose of is to make it easy for the U.S. Census Bureau to organize information: Tracts consist of several Census Block Groups which are an aggregation of individual Block Points. Block Points are nothing more than actual city and/or country blocks. Therefore, market areas created by simply aggregating entire Census Tracts are equally likely to include irrelevant areas as well as exclude relevant ones because they do not take any of the factors (barries, population density, etc.) that impact a market area into account. This ultimately results in an inaccurate market area that, much like a simple concentric circle, overstates or understates the true socioeconomic conditions that exist within the actual market area.

example of census tracts

Hand Drawn Market Areas
By far, hand drawn market areas are the best way to delineate a project’s market area. Hand trade areas rely on multiple sources of information to establish boundaries. These might include interviews with local stakeholders, thematic demographic maps that visually display socioeconomic character down to the Block Group level, or oversetting thematic data with drive time polygons. This is important because a useful market area isn’t bound by arbitrary political boundaries; it should be based on all of the information available.

example of a hand drawn market area

Once you’ve delineated the final market area, then you must spatially gather the data associated with the people, housing units and businesses in order to build a profile of exactly “what” the trade area contains. It is during this step that planners, developers and analysts sometimes make the mistake of choosing the wrong tools to do the job. The only proper tool for apportioning data to a market area is a Geographic Information System (GIS). Without a properly outfitted GIS, spatial data is going to be miscounted and miscalculated. Here’s why: This map shows a close-up of a market area boundary (red) and a Census Tract (black) that is bisected by the market area. The area to the right of the red boundary is INSIDE the market area. The area to the left of the red boundary is OUTSIDE of the market area.

Census Tracts bisected by a market area boundary

Let’s assume you have data from the U.S. Census Bureau for this particular Tract. How would you go about the process of determining the number of households within the market area? A lot of guesswork could be involved. For example, visually it seems that 70% of the Tract is within the market area and 30% is outside. It stands to reason, therefore, that 70% of the households must be within the market area and 30% must be outside. It sounds simple, but let’s look at the actual numbers. Using real Census data, we know the total number of households within this Tract is 2,300 Therefore, we are estimating that there are 1,610 (2,300 x 70%) households within this single Tract that reside within the market area. However, if we use a GIS to do this calculation, we find out the actual number of households within the market area is 1,343. That means we over counted this single Tract by 267 households. The typical market area cuts through 20 or more Census Tracts (depending on the type of project and the density of the population). That means there are at least 20 opportunities for estimation and calculation errors from manually assembling this market area data. The difference between the estimation and the actual number has real consequences: at this level, bad information could either potentially provide support for a project that should not be supported OR dissuade a project that is actually viable. In sum, there is a lot of money at stake when apportioning data to a market area. If you don’t use a GIS to apportion the data for you, then miscalculations will assuredly occur, effectively wasting many people’s time and money.

So why does a GIS do a better job of apportioning data to a market area? A GIS is capable of accurately apportioning population, household, housing unit and business data because it uses the location of Census Block Points to determine exactly how many people, households, housing units, or businesses, are within a market area’s boundaries. Let’s look at the zoomed-in map again.

Census Block Points in relation to the market area

The dots you see on the map are proportional symbols that represent the actual physical location of Census Block Points. Block Points contain four types of information for each city/country block that it represents – total population, total households, total housing units, and the total number of businesses. Virtually all Census data (and by extension, third-party demographic data) is associated with one of these “Universes” (that’s U.S. Census lingo). Let’s use the same example market area and Census Tract that we just looked at. A GIS will examine all of the Block Points that reside within the market area and will calculate the actual percent of population, households, housing units and businesses that reside within the market area. Those percentages can then be used to apportion all the data associated with that tract. In other words, we can now accurately determine the precise levels of all data elements within the market area. A GIS can also calculate things like median income for an entire trade area without you ever having to type in a bunch of numbers into a spreadsheet and apply a bunch of assumptions.

A properly outfitted GIS is without a doubt, the most effective tool available for market area delineation and more importantly, for data apportionment to the market area. There is a lot riding on your project(s). Shouldn’t you be using the right tools for the job?

Rick Stein is Principal & Owner of Urban Decision Group (UDG).  He is a trained urban planner, GIS expert, and software developer.

Urban Decision Group (UDG) has expanded its operations and is now providing consulting services in the western United States.  It’s newest office is based in Seattle, Washington, and its location will allow UDG to provide on-site and virtual services to the planning and development community in the western portion of the U.S.  UDG’s Principal and Owner, Rick Stein recently announced, “We’ve had some staff in Seattle for several months and we felt the time was right to market ourselves more aggressively in the northwest.  We already had a strong client base in this market.  Now we can provide timelier service delivery and on-site consulting to our existing and future clients.  There are a lot of planning & development shops in the western U.S. that don’t have the resources to staff a full-time department to do what we do.  We’re excited about the opportunities.”

Urban Decision Group is a location information technology firm that specializes in providing Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)-centric technology and analysis to those in the private and public sectors of the planning and development community.  Urban Decision Group was founded in 2010 by software developer/urban planner Rick Stein when he realized there were large information gaps between urban planners and developers, and the decision makers responsible for making projects happen.  Urban Decision Group’s world headquarters are located in beautiful Columbus, Ohio.

However, many of these transit authorities have not yet published their own data for public consumption via their websites and\or mobile applications. In my opinion, this is a wasted opportunity to improve a product that needs improving – public transportation. One such example is from our hometown, Columbus Ohio. The Central Ohio Transit Authority does have a website, but the route maps are all in PDF format and they aren’t easy to read. They do provide access to a Google widget that can help route your trip by displaying the results on a Google map, but there is no comprehensive system map on the site to see ALL of the stops and routes.

For fun, we here at Urban Decision Group decided to build such a map by using the GTFS data as input. This is relatively easy to do if you have the right tools, which we do. After downloading the data and using ESRI’s ArcGIS to convert the data into GIS shapefiles, we were able to create this map application.  It’s nothing fancy…pretty much a straight conversion of the data with a little housekeeping to make the info windows readable.  It probably took a total of 30 minutes from download to completion.  The point is,…if it’s this easy to build a very basic application, then why aren’t more transit authorities doing it?  I must add, I am aware that COTA is planning on giving their site a makeover and quite possibly adding this type of functionality is part of the face-lift (attention COTA, could we also get updates via Twitter please?).  I’m anxious to see what they come up with.

In the interim, I’m begging the rest of the transit authorities that are stuck in 1998 – please give us a better product to get us on the bus (or train)!  This should not be an afterthought – it is indeed a subset of your product offering.  If you ran a business that provided transportation services, wouldn’t you put a fair amount of energy into marketing and advertising to ensure you were getting the information out to not just your customers, but your potential customer….and anybody that lives within a metropolitan region IS a potential customer.

I’m not picking on COTA, they just happen to be my transit authority.  There are plenty of examples of website fails – too many for me to list.  So that’s why I’m asking for your help.  If you are aware of a transit authority that is falling short in the web and mobile department, then let us know via the “comments” section of this post.  Let’s start a discussion and maybe we can use a little peer pressure to spur some change.

UDG has been thrilled to work with Oakstone Academy to provide a unique internship opportunity that challenges the creative limits of their students. Two Oakstone high school students have been working at our main office with Urban Decision Group’s principal, Rick Stein since September. Each week, Kyle and Robby –along with their supervisor, Jill McQuaid–are given a new task dealing directly with urban planning and/or geographic information systems (GIS). To date, the students have been exposed to the wonderful world of U.S. Census data, Google PublicTransit Data, and regional bicycle transportation networks.

Oakstone interns and their supervisor diligently download data.

We’re writing this blog post to highlight our latest and greatest interns, Kyle and Robby. They’ve done a fantastic job and Urban Decision Group is lucky to have them. Moreover, this is something we believe in. Kyle and Robby, as you’ll see below, are smart, talented kids, and they deserve the opportunity to challenge themselves in a work environment. There are special schools similar to Oakstone all over the country – please consider reaching out to one in your area to set up a similar internship program.

And, without further ado, our interns and their supervisor:

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Kyle’s perspective

When I was first introduced to the idea of working at Urban Decision Group, I was skeptical. My first response was “no I’m not interested,” but when the opportunity was further explained I started to consider it. I may have a stubborn personality, but nonetheless I attempted what I originally thought wouldn’t interest me. Eventually I had given the job a chance and, before I knew it, I had a change of heart.

The process which my boss Rick Stein explained the procedures was very involved. He explained his goals and methods very thoroughly. This is very important for anyone who manages employees and sets the tone for the vital exchange of communication with employee and employer. With that stated, I never felt uncomfortable asking questions or for help. He’s a really good man with a good sense of what should be done. For example, he created his own map of bus routes from the COTA (Central Ohio Transit Authority) system which COTA didn’t have and it only took him around 30 minutes to lay it out. He really is helping people and the community.

“How does this job compare to the previous jobs you’ve held?”

During my hours at a national pet store, my previous job, I first thought it was within my interest area to deal with the animals and such. That soon changed after adjusting to the usual shift at maintenance. It was mainly the cleaning I didn’t enjoy. But here at Urban Decision Group, I work with what I’m used to as a hobby: with technology, files, computers, and the web.

Also, this job is more relaxed with very little noise or commotion. Unlike the pet store, I only need to interact with a few people in person and, if needed, I could work within the comfort of my home. Also, I’ve got more to offer than just cleaning up after animals. This gets my creative juices flowing and keeps my brain stimulated instead of mindless labor.

“What aspects of GIS and/or Urban Planning do you find interesting?”

GIS and Urban Planning are not really within my areas of interest. However, I do think it’s vital to my learning experience through their use of technology in a job environment. I feel confident at this job and it seems to open doors to similar areas within my interest. It’s mainly the cause that I’m working for – maybe if I was working with the same environment, or just different data on a project I that can directly relate to, then that would be nice.

Examples of data I can relate to include creating banners for websites, posters, digital design and, if it’s working with files, I would prefer it be pertaining to a server, or game, or gaming servers like I’m doing now on my spare time.

The Google Earth application really caught my eye because of its vast complexity and astounding features along with satellite photos.

“Please describe your dream job.”

My dream job would probably not be too different from the environment which I’m in today.
The work environment would consist of a relaxed environment with the option to work within my home and still have an office I can go to – similar to a “homework style” work setting. I would always have a supervisor who I may ask for help or ask questions. I would be working from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday-Friday. Preferably within 30 minutes from my house by car.

My comfort level strongly needs a supervisor, or structured environment, but at the same time I’d like the options above. The purpose of my job (or company goal) would be supporting a game company/content and/or a graphic arts design requests as a profitable hobby.

Robby’s perspective

I had a lack of confidence when first starting this internship. I beat myself up over the judgment of other people and over-thought things a lot, which lead me to think that I’m inferior to others’ standards. The day that my internship started I knew I would try my best and learn what I could. Another thing I fear is the unknown. I rely on logic and things I know that I can prove to be true since I like things to make sense. After the first day of interning, I realized that I had lots of potential to do this job. Sometimes I doubt my abilities and degrade myself into thinking that I can’t do things the correct way. I learned some things that I never knew and have a passion for this internship. The things I learned along the way were how to download transit data, Census tracts, use Google Earth to plot out buildings for a retirement home in New York, and how to collect data on bicycle paths in networks. I feel like I’m putting a lot of effort into helping a greater cause. I realized that you must have faith in your abilities or it will weigh you down in the end and prevent you from being successful in life. I feel like you have to give things a chance to see if it’s right for you. When I was interviewed, I came with the mindset that I was going to hate this internship and it wasn’t for me. The reason I felt that way was because I had a lot of information fed to me at once. I have limits on the amount of information given to me; I tend to filter out jargon if the information is too much.

“How does this job compare to the previous jobs you’ve held?”

This job is ranked second in jobs I liked, the first being at an aquarium store since I felt comfortable at that internship and I seemed to open up. I like order to things. If things are abstract, then I tend to panic (mostly on the inside so no one knows that I feel like that) so I’m not considered rude.

“What aspects of GIS and/or Urban Planning do you find interesting?”

I have mixed feelings. I liked some of it and hate some of it. I find some of it boring and repetitive -downloading Census data for all 50 states and searching for pictures pertaining to bicycles can get old fast. I did manage to learn different file types such as png, jpeg, kmz, kml, and other file types that have odd suffixes. I feel that this job is within my field of interest if there is anything art involved or includes coding in languages like SQL and XML.

“Please describe your dream job.”

My dream job would be working with big gaming companies like Valve, Steam, Blizzard, Capcom, or a few others. I’m a huge gamer and take great passion in such. If you were to sit down with me in a room and talk about games you would be there for two days. I have a vast collection of video games and consoles dating back to the NES. I’ve always wanted to make a video game. I want the player feel what the characters feel and make like you live his or her life and struggles that he or she has to overcome. I love games that tell a story and make you feel like that world is real, and I also love a good plot within a game -something that could be compared to a novel. I feel that this internship is one of the many steps to becoming a game developer.

Jill McQuaid’s take

In my years at Oakstone Academy, I have assisted dozens of high school students in community-based internships aimed at helping them advance their cognitive, social and behavioral skills. While students at Oakstone Academy, these young people with disabilities have been immersed into an inclusive education setting for years as they have worked alongside their typically developing peers. It has been my passion to secure them with internship experiences during their transitional years that are equally inclusive in nature.

The students have spent many hours in a classroom learning the skills necessary for successful employment. When given a chance to apply these skills to a real-life work experience, the students have become empowered to understand the impact of their abilities to a real world situation. The work these two young boys are doing with Rick at Urban Decision Group has given them a place to come and realize what they are capable of offering to the work force.

Robby and Kyle were both very nervous about starting at Urban Decision Group. This work site has helped them step outside their comfort zone and work through the anxiety of new challenging expectations. The nature of this internship gives these students a chance to see a big project as a whole, and then learn from Rick as he breaks their assignments down into smaller segments to make them more manageable. They have been taught this strategy for years in school and now they can see it applied to real life. It is my hope that they will be able to relate to their experiences here to more effectively handle future situations with confidence.

Overall, this internship has taught the boys the meaning of self-advocacy, honesty and respect. They have learned to confidently ask questions when they don’t understand or when they feel overwhelmed with a situation. Rick’s responses are understandable and concise, complete and to the point, which is how our students learn best. This internship has offered them an experience that does not pass judgment on what challenges them socially, intellectually and emotionally. We are thankful that Urban Decision Group has opened their doors to our students here at Oakstone Academy!

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And there you have it. Thanks again, Jill for bringing us these great interns. Thanks to Kyle and Robby for their brutal honesty and hard work (is downloading Census data really that boring?). We’re really looking forward to continuing this relationship, and would also like to encourage other firms, big and small, to look into opening their offices for similar internship programs.

This comparative map from I Love Charts via Julia Topaz display’s Nate Silver’s final election prediction vs the final outcome.  It’s an amazing example of how statistics and probability can be used to understand complex human systems in understandable ways.  We also like to think that it shows something else – we believe that, no matter your political affiliation, the most important thing is making sure our voices are heard and dialogue is had.  It’s the only way to get anything done.

-Jenna Silcott
Information Architect
Urban Decision Group

In 2008, the American Community Survey (ACS) began surveying the U.S. population on the subject of health insurance coverage.  To date, the most complete data set available is the 2008-2010 3 year ACS which excludes counties and cities with less than 20,000 people.  Therefore, it’s not a complete count like the decennial census.

The ACS collects data for this category by age.  Although, health insurance is an important topic for all ages, we wanted to focus on the most vulnerable sector of the population – those under age 18.  The following table contains the state by state tabulations  for the uninsured population under age 18.

The percent of the U.S. population under age 18 that is uninsured is approximately 8.6% (excluding towns and counties with a population under 20,000).  Check out this map which illustrates where the uninsured young people live.  There are some areas that stand out.  Florida, Texas, Nevada, and Arizona have rather significant shares of the uninsured under 18 population.  There are also notable pockets of uninsured children in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.  This reflects the concentrations of Amish communities.

It’s estimated that the insured population directly pays an additional $1,017 in health insurance premiums to pay for the health care costs incurred by the uninsured.  But what about the long term ramifications of having so many uninsured children.  Are these children more likely to be unhealthy adults and if so, what is the cost to society?

National health care is a hot topic in America.  Is it a right or a privilege?  What about the long term economic impact of having so many uninsured children.  Are they more likely to become uninsured adults?  Are they more likely to develop health problems at a younger age?  Who pays for all the negative externalities?