Visualizing the latest city population estimates
The latest estimates for city populations came out today from the Census Bureau, and they show rapid growth in the outlying suburbs of the state’s two largest cities. (Read the national press release here.)
We included a number of charts with today’s paper version of the story. I also posted an online database on our Right to Know page so you can search the latest population estimates of almost 600 cities in Oklahoma.
Of course, the latest estimates showed continued growth in suburban cities. But growth was also fairly good in Oklahoma City, which gained about 45,000 people since 2000. That’s a growth rate of 9 percent. By contrast, Tulsa lost about 7,000 people, a drop of 2 percent, in the same time period.
There’s wasn’t much room in the story to go into detail on this point, but here’s a look at Oklahoma City and Tulsa population over the years 1920 to 2008. Both cities almost doubled in size in the years of the Oil Boom in the 1920s. The Dust Bowl and Great Depression then took their toll in the 1930s. By the 1970s, the cities were fairly close in size. The population gap has only widened since then.
Oklahoma City and Tulsa population, 1920 to 2008
Source: U.S. Census historical records
As for the other cities in the state, here’s a look at how they stack up in a bubble chart. The bigger the circle, the bigger the city. This helps you see the relative size of each city to others in the state. You can also select your city from the alphabetical list to the left of the bubbles.
Another type of visualization is a tree map. Here’s what the latest population estimates look like using a tree map. In this one, the boxes are relative to the size of each city, and the color shade shows the intensity of each city’s growth rate or decline.
–Paul
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[...] has turned itself around in a lot of ways. The Oklahoman’s crack Database Editor Paul Monies put together some visualizations of the differences in population between the Oklahoma of the Great Depression and the the Oklahoma [...]