Lab 8 (Final Lab!!!) - County race populations

This map shows the United States black population by county. The data is from the census website, and is taken from the 2000 census. The way the map works is that the data has been split into intervals, and each interval assigned a color. So, in this case, there are six intervals that have broken up the data range of 1 - 1,405,361. I chose to break up the data according to the quantile data classification, which i though looked the best. This means that there are an even number of units in each category - in other words, there are an equal number of dark purple, light purple, and blue colored counties on the map. From this map you can see that the greatest concentrations of black people reside in the south east and south west of the US. This makes sense, since the south was originally where the slaves were brought from Africa. And over time they have migrated west, along with everybody else. Aside from the South, there are a lot of blacks along the eastern, and to a lesser extent, western seaboards, which also makes sense since there is generally speaking greater integration along coasts. And finally, there are greater black populations in certain centers of population dotted around the country. One thing that is interesting to note is that black people live in fairly great concentrations everywhere along the South, except in West Texas. In fact, it's almost as if a knife has been cut vertically down, and to the right, there are lots of blacks, but to the left, there are very few. I've heard that West Texas is pretty racist, so i guess this makes sense. Aside from West Texas, there is also a general midwest fail, when it comes to having any sort of black population. Again, this makes sense.

This map was made according to the same data classifications as the one for black population, except this time the map shows Asian population concentrations according to county. The Asian population is pretty evenly distributed across the country, with the greatest concentrations in population being on the West coast, Florida, and the Northeast. This makes sense, since the original flux of immigration from Asia happened in the West (San Francisco!), obviously, since if you're traveling by boat from China, or Japan, or where ever in Asia, you're not going to circumnavigate the entire US just to get to New York. Now, there are lots of Asians all over the east coast, which makes sense since, again, coasts tend to be cultural melting pots. Florida, i'm not sure why there are so many Asians there. Maybe it's a lot of Southeast Asians who are attracted to the hot and humid climate? The most interesting feature of this map to me, is the vertical swath of land right down the middle of the country, where there are virtually no Asians. I mean, i'm not too surprised that there are few Asians there, as those states are generally pretty homogeneous, and anyways, why would anyone voluntarily move there? just kidding. sort of. But it's weird that it's such as straight, column-like stretch of states. i don't know how to explain that.

 

This map is the same as the other two, except it shows "other" race population by county. Now, i was initially confused as to why we were even doing this map, until i looked at the list of possible spreadsheet downloads from the census website, and quickly saw, to my surprise, that hispanic population was not an option. Why isn't that a census category? Well, i just googled it, and it turns out that apparently hispanic is not considered to be a race, it is an ethnicity. So, you can be hispanic, and still be white. or black. OK, mystery solved.

Anyways, the point is that this map, although it is called 'other', mostly shows the US's latino/hispanic population, since actually most latinos/hispanics don't identify as white, black, asian, etc, and will choose this category. Taking that in mind, this map makes perfect sense, since the big population concentrations are shown to be in the West - most of all the states that are adjacent to Mexcio - Florida, and the Northeast. As we here know in LA, there are a LOT of hispanics in California, and throughout the West, where there have always been hispanic communities (we used to be part of Mexico!). Obviously Mexicans who are coming across the board are going to go, at least initially, into Texis, California, Arizona or New Mexico, and then maybe spread out over the rest of the West. They steered clear of the Bible Belt though, where again, they don't like people who don't look like them. The high populations in the Northeast make sense also, again because of the large interracial characteristic it holds, but also because from what i hear, there are large Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Central American immigrant populations there. And of course we all know that Florida is a hub for Cuban immigrants. 

When  you compare the three maps you can easily see some trends emerge: the two coasts are by far the most diverse places in the country, and the south is actually surprisingly more diverse than you might think. in the deep south there are the highest concentrations of black people, while in the Southwest there are a lot more 'others' aka latinos. I find this interesting, since you might think that especially black people would want to get the heck out of there, since that's where the last bastions of slavery held out, and where there are the most conservative, and often, racist people. but i guess that after generations, no matter what the original situation, you start to feel as if it's your home as much as anyone else. 

Another obvious trend is the phenomenon of a practically ALL WHITE midwest. i mean, let's face it, we all knew that the midwest was mostly white, but to see it like this is pretty startling. The most interesting part about this, is that all three maps show a deficit of racial mixing in that region, but all three show it in slightly different ways. in The black population, the white region is pretty much the entire midwest as we traditionally think about it, except for wisconsin, and chicago. it is like the Race Knife has cut a horizontal line across the country - it's like the Mason-Dixon line all over again. However, in the Asian map, the white area is much more narrow, and is completely vertical, and includes mostly the western half of the midwest, but includes Montana and Texas. I don't know how to explain this, except to hypothesize that maybe Asian people don't want to be cowboys. and finally, in the other race map, we see that the white region stretches more diagonally, starting up in Montana and the Dakotas, and going down to Alabama and Mississippi. 

Overall impressions of GIS:

Overall, I came out of this class with the impression that GIS is pretty cool. I didn't find it that fun, per se, probably because we were doing really basic, introductory stuff, but i definitely got the impression that GIS is an incredibly useful tool that is used in practically every field. So, i will be taking intermediate GIS, because i want to learn more. It's a good skill to have i think.

Here are some of the things we learned how to do in GIS this quarter:

- create data layers

-assign different symbols and color ramps to various features

- use different map projections

- extract specific features into new layers

- download GIS data from the internet

-  create DEMs

- convert .exl to .dbf

- join different layers to one another

- use VERY BASIC sql to select features (and, or, etc)

- measure distances

There's probably a lot more, but those are the main ones I think. I'll see you in class next quarter!