apples to apples

There is a stereotype that dense places are filled with singles and childless couples while low-density, suburban cities are filled with families with children.

 I'm sure this stereotype is true if one compares central cities to suburbs.  It's true for Austin, for example.

 Children make up less than 15% of the population of San Francisco proper.*

There is a stereotype that dense places are filled with singles and childless couples while low-density, suburban cities are filled with families with children.

 I'm sure this stereotype is true if one compares central cities to suburbs.  It's true for Austin, for example.

 Children make up less than 15% of the population of San Francisco proper.*

Back in March, I wrote about economists Matthew Kahn and Ed Glaeser's work comparing carbon emissions among metropolitan areas.

Among other things, they estimated how carbon emissions from driving vary across metropolitan areas.

 The variation in gasoline use is just as interesting, though.  Kahn and Glaeser did not explicitly calculate this, but I did the simple arithmetic to convert their estimates of carbon emissions to estimates of gasoline use.

 

I've hit on this in the comments to other posts, but one of the nice features of weighted density is that it permits us to compare apples to apples (even though the comparison may be royal gala to red delicious).  Standard density is extremely sensitive to geographic boundaries.  This is why most debates over density quickly turn into squabbles over the proper geographic unit.  CMSA?  MSA?  Urbanized area?  Central city?  And then it's just a matter of time before someone brings up City  X's moutains or parks

I've done some more thinking about the Glaser and Khan paper I bogged about the other day.  Glaser and Khan examine total energy use among major metropolitan areas in order to compare cities carbon emissions.  But their data also allow us to compare gasoline use city by city.  That's just as interesting a

I've done some more thinking about the Glaser and Kahn paper I bogged about the other day.  Glaser and Kahn examine total energy use among major metropolitan areas in order to compare cities carbon emissions.  But their data also allow us to compare gasoline use city by city.  That's just as interesting a