Estimate the post Peak Oil danger in your part of the USA!

by **Jenab6** » Wed 04 Jan 2006, 10:01:26

Go to...
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/ ... l?_lang=en

Click on "DATA SETS" in the left-hand column of links.

Click on "Thematic Maps" in the right column of the tab for "Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF 1) 100-Percent Data."

Click on "United States" in the window and then hit the NEXT button.

REPEAT...

Select a demographic category from the list in the window, then hit the SHOW RESULT button.

Increase the data resolution in the map from the "state" level to the "county" level.

Modify the color scheme and the data-color fiducials as desired ("data classes").

Turn OFF "stream/waterbody" in "features."

Recenter and/or zoom in as desired [+].

Copy the map to your clipboard and paste it into some photo editing software.

Click on "themes" at the top of the page, under "Thematic Maps."

...UNTIL you have all the demographic categories you want to use in your photo editing program.

Use the photo editing software to overlap the map images, matching the geographical or political boundaries, in order to form a composite map with a combination of both statistics, in order to represent some sort of "combined threat assessment" or whatever. For example, you could combine "population density" with "percentage of people who are conspicuously violent" (ha ha) in order to model something equivalent to the combined threat from high population density and a high percentage of violent people. (It's just a suggestion; you do what you want.)

When you're done, you can paint out the political boundaries (to eliminate their corrupting effect on what you're about to do), then gaussian blur the image to give your "threat assessment" some consideration for the fact that people are mobile, and lastly restore the political boundaries - the same map, but with all demographic data set to "white" - by overlaying it at 50% transparancy and then restoring the original contrast/darkness.

You'll be able to see zones of relative danger and corridors of relative safety.

Jerry Abbott