“Map lovers, rejoice! The United States Geological Survey, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, is about to complete a massive project to digitize its cache of approximately 200,000 historic topographic maps”
I’ve posted a link to the article but See here for the USGS site.
![I posted this on the comments of this piece on the source website i’ll update with a response, if/when I get one:
Indices are a pet hate of mine, they have three problems:
Firstly; Good, as in up-to-date and high quality, comparable data is required for any calculation to considered equal between areas.
Secondly; Any calculation for an index value must be so robust, well-thought out, and does not contain any bias and factor in all parameters of the issue it is trying to engage with.
Finally; When one see an ‘index’ they imagine it is comparable across space and time
Bearing these three things in mind; I think this is an inherent flaw of most social indices, as the calculations to deduce values are often subjective and nearly always temporal in nature. This is particularly true with indices relating to deprivation, something I studied at thesis level as part of a GIS M.Sc., a topic I took on with an open mind but developed a deep cynicism for.
In the case of a deprivation index; Aspects that build a deprivation such as Internet access, Third level education, and access to transport have consistently being changing over time, e.g. It is safe to say access to the WWW now is far more important than before in terms of access to education/ideas , with the roll-out of mass transit in many cities and the rise in fuel costs, independent private travel may no longer be as pivotal in persons social and economic development . To compensate for this indices are generally modified to reflect the changes and weightings within deprivation score calculations are altered.
So, if they are changed how they are calculated, can one really they are ever comparable with other values from previous years as they are only really the same index in name.
My question for the Author is:
1 - What is yours source data?
2 - What calculation was used to generate and score each location? (how did it compare to this older piece of research, in the same field, you worked on? http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1000492_tech_and_tolerance.pdf)
3 - How would you calculate a tolerance index if it was 1962 (or any other decade) rather than 2012, and would you consider the values comparable over time?
I don’t mean to beat on your research and ideas, I’m just casting a cynical eye.
theatlantic:
Do You Live in a Tolerant City?
San Diego is the top-ranked metro on the updated Tolerance Index, followed by Napa, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ithaca, New York; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks, California; Cape Coral, Florida; Boulder, and Ann Arbor round out the top 10. Miami, Las Vegas, Portland, San Francisco, and Boston all rank in the top 20. Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Orlando, and greater Washington, D.C. all make the top 30.
Read more. [Image: Martin Prosperity Institute]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m79h0zICmu1qcokc4o1_r1_500.jpg)
I posted this on the comments of this piece on the source website i’ll update with a response, if/when I get one:
Indices are a pet hate of mine, they have three problems:
Firstly; Good, as in up-to-date and high quality, comparable data is required for any calculation to considered equal between areas.
Secondly; Any calculation for an index value must be so robust, well-thought out, and does not contain any bias and factor in all parameters of the issue it is trying to engage with.
Finally; When one see an ‘index’ they imagine it is comparable across space and time
Bearing these three things in mind; I think this is an inherent flaw of most social indices, as the calculations to deduce values are often subjective and nearly always temporal in nature. This is particularly true with indices relating to deprivation, something I studied at thesis level as part of a GIS M.Sc., a topic I took on with an open mind but developed a deep cynicism for.
In the case of a deprivation index; Aspects that build a deprivation such as Internet access, Third level education, and access to transport have consistently being changing over time, e.g. It is safe to say access to the WWW now is far more important than before in terms of access to education/ideas , with the roll-out of mass transit in many cities and the rise in fuel costs, independent private travel may no longer be as pivotal in persons social and economic development . To compensate for this indices are generally modified to reflect the changes and weightings within deprivation score calculations are altered.
So, if they are changed how they are calculated, can one really they are ever comparable with other values from previous years as they are only really the same index in name.
My question for the Author is:
1 - What is yours source data?
2 - What calculation was used to generate and score each location? (how did it compare to this older piece of research, in the same field, you worked on? http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1000492_tech_and_tolerance.pdf)
3 - How would you calculate a tolerance index if it was 1962 (or any other decade) rather than 2012, and would you consider the values comparable over time?
I don’t mean to beat on your research and ideas, I’m just casting a cynical eye.
Do You Live in a Tolerant City?
San Diego is the top-ranked metro on the updated Tolerance Index, followed by Napa, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ithaca, New York; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks, California; Cape Coral, Florida; Boulder, and Ann Arbor round out the top 10. Miami, Las Vegas, Portland, San Francisco, and Boston all rank in the top 20. Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Orlando, and greater Washington, D.C. all make the top 30.
Read more. [Image: Martin Prosperity Institute]
Epic video and a great great track by Cinematic Orchestra
