Data stories

Governor Snyder delivered his first State of the State speech last night.  While I appreciated the upbeat tone and a number of his "initiatives" - securing funding for Pure Michigan, support for the DRIC project, and a new emphasis on reaching out to immigrants - it...

Washingtonians are the nation's most well-read citizens, but they're reading less these days. And so, it appears, are city dwellers everywhere.  That's according to the latest findings of an annual study (conducted since 2005) of the >United States' most literate...

As I prepare to make a presentation to the newest Leadership Oakland class (XXI) on January 12, as part of their Diversity and Inclusion section, and look toward Martin Luther King's birthday on January 17, my thoughts go to two recent surveys that have been conducted...

“A decade ago bed bugs were still the vermin of lore--blood-sucking creepy-crawlies laid to waste by the amazingly effective (and toxic) pesticide DDT.”  It appears that DDT no longer gets the job done as reports of infestations are coming from all parts of the...

While Michiganians, or Michiganders as our new Governor prefers, knew that the first decade of the 21st Century had been hard on the state, the first 2010 Census results, released on December 21, truly “brought it home.”  With a 2010 population count of 9,883,644,...

For years I have been making demographic presentations that incorporated forecasts of the age distribution of populations both national and local.  An important date incorporated in these talks was the year 2011.  This was the year that the first baby boomers would be...