Too often, the descriptions of urban form are reduced to excessively simple binary classifications (city v. suburb), or rely on data grouped by counties, which are maddeningly disparate units. County-level population data is bad at telling us much of anything…
Part 5. Are the nation’s richest suburbs really its most economically inclusive cities? A statistical methodology that repeatedly flags high income suburbs as “inclusive” probably isn’t actually measuring inclusiveness. (Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a five-part series examining…
What City Observatory did this week This week, we published five posts taking a critical look at how a recent Urban Institute report, Measuring Inclusiveness, illustrates the problems and pitfalls of defining and measuring “inclusion.” 1. Why inclusive is so…
Part 4. Are racially and economically homogeneous cities and suburbs in a segregated metro “inclusive?” Looking only at disparities within cities misses the often far larger disparities across cities within in single metropolitan area. (Editor’s note: This is the fourth in…
Part 3. Do annexations and mergers constitute economic growth? Not adjusting city job growth estimates for changes in city boundaries produces misleading estimates, especially when used for comparing and ranking cities. (Editor’s note: This is part 3 of a part…