kottke.org posts about demographics
This is likely the pull-quote of the week (I've seen it on about 20 sites in the last 10 minutes):
Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive now.
But only by a little...there's lots more to chew on in the full article. Like how 65 became the retirement age:
The idea of a retirement age was invented by Otto von Bismarck in the 1880s, when as chancellor of Germany he needed a starting age for paying war pensions. He chose the age of 65 because that was typically when ex-soldiers died.
Pew Research Center's interactive maps of migration flows in the US are pretty interesting. The region map makes it seem as though the Northeast is rapidly losing population to the South but the states map clarifies the picture...the flow looks to be hundreds of thousands of retirees moving to Florida and Georgia.
19.20.21 (19 cities in the world with 20 million people in the 21st century) is a nice site for an effort to undertake "a five-year study that will encompass all aspects of the phenomenon of supercities" but the real attraction are the maps of the world's largest cities through time (Menu/10 Largest Cities). In 1000, the largest city in the world was Cordova, Spain and by 1500, 4 of the top 10 were in China and one was in Nepal. (via snarkmarket)
An analysis of how populations are growing and shifting around the US, with a focus on the policital consequences. He splits the country into four main areas: Coastal Megalopolises, Interior Boomtowns, Rust Belt, and Static Cities. "The bad news for them is that the Coastal Megalopolises grew only 4% in 2000-06, while the nation grew 6%. [...] You see an entirely different picture in the 16 metro areas I call the Interior Boomtowns (none touches the Atlantic or Pacific coasts). Their population has grown 18% in six years."
The must-see link for today is Social Explorer. Jump right to the maps section or to the New York City % White 1910-2000 and the the New York City % Black 1910-2000 slideshows. Running the shows forward, you can see blacks settling into Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens and then spreading out from there. I wish it were slightly easier to make slideshows, but it's still really fun to play around with all the maps. (via vsl)
Nine months after the World Cup, Germany is experiencing a baby boom, which is good news because Germany's birth rate is among the lowest in the world.
Morning subway demographics in NYC. Early morning blue collar workers give way to late morning white collar workers. (via capn)
