online resources to evaluate cities?
October 5, 2011 1:42 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for online resources to evaluate American cities. I have seen theatlanticcities.com, what other well-done sites are there where I can go in and put in "Bozeman" or "Amarillo" or "Augusta" and get cost-of-living, demographic and housing information, and other city facts? Extra points if there is some kind of side-by-side comparisonator.
Best answer: I would sign up for the free trial of ESRIs Community Analyst program and map it out. You can select a lot of different types of demographic information and then create maps and reports. I think you can only make seven reports with the trial, but I think that's only if you officially create the report, you could look at the data without pulling a report.
posted by stormygrey at 2:08 PM on October 5, 2011
posted by stormygrey at 2:08 PM on October 5, 2011
Census.gov. Cost of living they don't do much on, but housing and demographics they're the source everyone else is going to be pulling from. Their site can be a bit tricky just because there's so much there, but most of the stuff you want is in American Factfinder. Most importantly, if you dig a bit you can find helpdesk info fir their local offices, and a real live person will email you back.
posted by Diablevert at 2:08 PM on October 5, 2011
posted by Diablevert at 2:08 PM on October 5, 2011
Best answer: You can plug "Bozeman vs. Amarillo", for example, into Wolfram Alpha to get side-by-side comparisons. You can use "vs." to compare all sorts of things, like bacon vs. cheddar.
posted by partylarry at 3:18 PM on October 5, 2011
posted by partylarry at 3:18 PM on October 5, 2011
Almost all of these sites ultimately derive their data from the American Community Survey.
posted by dhartung at 4:37 PM on October 5, 2011
posted by dhartung at 4:37 PM on October 5, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by dyobmit at 1:46 PM on October 5, 2011