January 31, 2008Roanoke's growing, but how, and where?Roanoke's population, like that every other urban center in Virginia, has been in decline for a couple of decades now. But, as reported by Jay Conley in today's paper, estimates from the respected Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service indicate that for the last two years, the city's population has actually increased by a total of 833 people. The bleeding appears to have been stemmed, but what remains unclear (and forgive me for belaboring the metaphor) is what or who is supplying the clot. January 30, 2008Student loans: a bunch of 'em don't get paid backNearly 3.5 million federal student loans came due for repayment in 2005. By the end of the year, nearly five percent were in default for non-payment. That's bad enough, but it's actually a gargantuan improvement over 15 years earlier, when nearly one in four of the same loans were in default. Check out the default figures for over 5,000 U.S. colleges for 2003 through 2005 now in the DataSphere. The data comes from the U.S. Department of Education. You can make a number of assumptions from those figures. Some people had legitimate hardships and couldn't pay (although deferments are an option in some circumstances), while others no doubt just shirked their responsibility. But, as the U.S. Department of education sees it, those numbers reflect not only on the borrowers, but on the colleges who awarded the loans in the first place. Continue reading "Student loans: a bunch of 'em don't get paid back" » January 29, 2008More crime map updatesI guess it's all I talk about anymore, crime, but it is kind of the hot new item in the DataSphere. Anyway, I updated both the Roanoke and the Roanoke County crime maps today. The city one now runs through January 26, while the county is up to date through January 19. January 28, 2008"Maps give clear view of neighborhood crime"That's the headline from my latest DataSphere column in Sunday's paper. Just thought I'd put up a link here for you folks who don't get the print edition. This month's column is basically the exposition of some thoughts you may have already read in this forum, plus some interesting back story on the city quadrants issue. And keep your eyes open for some new additions to the DataSphere, hopefully this week. We've got city parking ticket data still in the works, and I also picked up data on student loan default rates for over 5,000 colleges, plus some foreign universities. January 25, 2008First Roanoke City crime map updateThe Roanoke City crime map has its first update, with data through January 19. At the same time, to keep the map from getting too cluttered, I removed the oldest offenses. So, there's now exactly a month's worth of reports mapped. Also, if you want to know what each offense type listed means, you can check out the definitions from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. I wish I had a convenient way to archive these maps, but I don't -- not yet. But we're still plugging towards building a crime mapping site that has a searchable archive. One day, hopefully soon, you'll be able to sort the map by offense, limit it by a date range, or by offenses within a certain distance of an address you enter. For now, we're still on the low-tech end of this high-tech kind of undertaking. You can read more of my thoughts on crime maps in Sunday's paper, by the way. Look for my next DataSphere column in the Virginia section. January 22, 2008Major violent and property crimes down in RoanokeThe briefing of Roanoke City Council on crime statistics proved to be a summary report on crime trends in the city, which showed a substantial decrease in Part I offenses -- basically major crimes against people and property, and the same crimes listed on our crime maps. Here is one of the charts council was shown: Continue reading "Major violent and property crimes down in Roanoke" » City council to get briefed on crime statsRoanoke City Council will get a scheduled five-minute briefing on "2007 Crime Statistics Police Initiatives" during its 2 p.m. meeting today, according to the agenda posted online. I have no idea what this means, but any talk of crime stats stirs interest on this blog and in the DataSphere, so I thought I'd pass it on. If you lack the time or interest to actually go to the council meeting (and, really, I or anyone would forgive you for either of those excuses), you can check out a live video feed of the meeting, or view it later by going here. You can also watch this space for a run-down of what was discussed later today. January 18, 2008Roanoke County crime mapped now, tooOur Roanoke City crime map now has company from Roanoke County. Just this week, the Roanoke County police department began posting weekly crime reports that are basically uniform to those posed by the Roanoke City Police Department that are the basis for the city crime map. So, having figured out the city map, it was easy to duplicate the process for the county data. The county has long published a monthly report of all kinds of offenses on its website, but it wasn't always posted in a timely fashion. The change this week not only offered the possibility of a map, but the chance to be fair to Roanoke. Now you can see the same offenses mapped for both localities and make fair comparisons. Currently, the county map looks somewhat bare compared to the city one, but that's in large part because the county map has only two weeks worth of offenses, compared to five weeks of city data. Valerie, in a comment today, asked how we got this rolling finally. The first part was, the crime data became available on a regular basis in a form we could use. The second part was me finding ways to maximize my minimal know-how for the technical part of this job. In short, I learned how to use a free web-based mapping utility, called mapbuilder.net, to plot large numbers of addresses simultaneously. That allowed for a level of efficiency in building these maps that made doing them make sense. Really, it's not that hard. If a thick-headed, retro-fitted newspaper man like me can figure out, it must be easy. January 17, 2008Roanoke crime map now availableIt took a while, and what we've got is still a pretty simple product, but we're at last mapping crime data in the DataSphere. Yesterday I put up a map of Part I offenses reported to Roanoke police from December 1 to January 12. I'll update the map every week or two, so that the most current four or five weeks' of offenses are there. I'll also be adding a map for Roanoke County Part I offenses soon, perhaps this week. January 16, 2008Where have you gone, Lee Suggs?Lee Suggs, if you don't know, was a top flight running back at William Fleming High School in Roanoke, then at Virginia Tech, and finally in the NFL, albeit briefly. He's also one of the last football players of note to come out of the Roanoke Valley. Check out the map of The Roanoke Times' sports staff's picks for the top 50 high school football prospects in the state, class of 2008. Naturally, there are more good players out of the heavily populated eastern half of the state. But it's hard to overlook the glaringly vacant space in and around Roanoke. From where I sit, there nearest prospects are a good drive away, in Richlands, Bristol and Lynchburg. Meanwhile, it seems you can't swing a dead cat in Tidewater without hitting a player bound for a top college program. January 14, 2008Graffiti in the DataSphereAnd on Williamson Road and Salem Avenue and Windsor Avenue, and about 100 other places. Roanoke registered 110 graffiti complaints in 2007 and up to January 5 2008. See where they happened on the map just posted in the DataSphere. I was noodling around learning how to flow large numbers of locations and information onto a Google map and needed some test fodder. My boss, Senior Editor for New Channels Dwayne Yancey, suggested the graffiti complaints, for which you can find details in the city's online permit center. It was a good test case, so I decided to go ahead and put it out there for you all to peruse. And within a day or two, look for a similar maps with the most recent month's worth of crime data for Roanoke and Roanoke County. January 10, 2008More professional solicitors, same old patternAfter Roanoke Times reporter Amanda Codispoti showed me a database a few months ago of contracts between professional solicitors and public safety-related charities that revealed the huge portion of funds the solicitors keep, I got curious. Is it only rescue squads and volunteer fire departments who are cutting these kinds of deals? It's not. We now have available in the DataSphere a database of over 4,000 contracts between solicitors and charities of all kinds and sizes, running from January 2000 to June 2007, and the pattern is the same. These contracts raised nearly $2.1 billion, according to the data from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which keeps the tallies. The solicitors kept about $1 billion of it. It didn't matter much if the charity was a local Civitan Club or UNICEF. January 8, 2008Is this thing on?Thought you might be wondering. But I haven't gone away. Just took some time off for the holidays, but I'm back and working on more fresh data for you. Here's what's going on and coming up: -- I've updated our Virginia Tech and UVa football recruiting database and the related map. -- Within a day or two I'll have an expanded database of contracts between professional solicitors and charities. This one includes all kinds of charities -- everything from the ACLU and the American Cancer Society to the World Wildlife Fund. It covers fundraising campaigns back to 2000. -- We're gettting closer to offering searchable real estate transfers for Roanoke, as well as mapped crime data. -- And there's other stuff in the works, too: mapped sightings of the elusive cougar, two years worth of Roanoke parking violation data, and more. So, keep checking back for what's fresh in the DataSphere. And Happy New Year. |
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