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Why would anyone with a modicum of intelligence use MEDIAN AGE to make a point about a city that has virtually no children? Answer: he wouldn't.
When you cut off the low end almost completely, as SF has (for good or bad/right or wrong) has done, it will skew the median age older. Does that translate into an older populace? Not necessarily. All it does is invalidate "median age" as a useful measure for SF.
I would challenge you to find more than 5 local residnts of SF on an hour-long walk, who are over 32 or so. Think of it this way: if you had 10 people in SF and 9 of them were 22 and one of them was 66, the median would be 44.
That wouldn't represent reality or fiction.
you seem to not grasp statistics. Did you fail math in high school?
Median in this instance means 50% of the population is over a given age, and 50% are less than that age.
Its very simple and concrete, and can not be scewed, like an average.
More than half of Sf's residents are over 38 years old. Its literally a city dominated by old people.
This in comparison to chicago, where half the city is under 32 years old.
Location: Baghdad by the Bay (San Francisco, California)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal Dude
you seem to not grasp statistics. Did you fail math in high school?
Median in this instance means 50% of the population is over a given age, and 50% are less than that age.
Its very simple and concrete, and can not be scewed, like an average.
More than half of Sf's residents are over 38 years old. Its literally a city dominated by old people.
This in comparison to chicago, where half the city is under 32 years old.
Consider yourself schooled, and treated.
Okay, you are right that my example was in error, but my logic was correct. I didn't illustrate it properly. A city almost devoid of children will skew the median age higher, as those children do, in fact, count in the total population.
Here is a better example:
Let's say city A has 100 people as follows:
10 are age 5
20 are age 10
10 are age 20
20 are age 30
25 are age 40
25 are age 50
Median age is 35, right?
Let's say city B has 100 people as follows:
30 are age 20
40 are age 30
20 are age 40
10 are age 50
Again, median age is 35, but there are 15% FEWER people in their 40s and 50s when kids are taken out. I'm not trying to say this breakdown represents the cities in question, I'm merely trying to illustrate how the stat can be skewed in a situation that is relevant to one of the cities in question.
That's why median age alone can't be the sole measure--because it only works if all things are equal.
Okay, you are right that my example was in error, but my logic was correct. I didn't illustrate it properly. A city almost devoid of children will skew the median age higher, as those children do, in fact, count in the total population.
Here is a better example:
Let's say city A has 100 people as follows:
10 are age 5
20 are age 10
10 are age 20
20 are age 30
25 are age 40
25 are age 50
Median age is 35, right?
Let's say city B has 100 people as follows:
30 are age 20
40 are age 30
20 are age 40
10 are age 50
Again, median age is 35, but there are 15% FEWER people in their 40s and 50s when kids are taken out. I'm not trying to say this breakdown represents the cities in question, I'm merely trying to illustrate how the stat can be skewed in a situation that is relevant to one of the cities in question.
That's why median age alone can't be the sole measure--because it only works if all things are equal.
You still don't get it. Median is a statistic. And is not skewing anything. It merely notes where the half way mark is. And in sf half the people there are over 38. No matter how you slice it, chicago has more young people in terms of proportion and raw numbers.
Location: Baghdad by the Bay (San Francisco, California)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal Dude
You still don't get it. Median is a statistic. And is not skewing anything. It merely notes where the half way mark is. And in sf half the people there are over 38. No matter how you slice it, chicago has more young people in terms of proportion and raw numbers.
They don't call in san fran nimby, for nothin.
I do get it.
But what if the half in SF that are below 38 are all in their 20s and 30s and the half that are above it are all in their 40s? What if the half below 32 in Chicago are in their teens and half above 32 are all in their 40s and 50s?
I realize this is hypothetical, but doesn't it bear out the point that further factors must be used to form any real opinion based on this data? I believe demographic distribution is very different in these two cities' city limits. I also believe that using metro area stats yields more meaningful data, due to the physical structure of the cities.
But what if the half in SF that are below 38 are all in their 20s and 30s and the half that are above it are all in their 40s? What if the half below 32 in Chicago are in their teens and half above 32 are all in their 40s and 50s?
I realize this is hypothetical, but doesn't it bear out the point that further factors must be used to form any real opinion based on this data? I believe demographic distribution is very different in these two cities' city limits. I also believe that using metro area stats yields more meaningful data, due to the physical structure of the cities.
The census confirms that I am right. Sf is simply filled with much older people. Most 20-30somethings can't afford 3000 dollar a month rent.
That's why median age alone can't be the sole measure--because it only works if all things are equal.
But the comparison is even sillier, because it isn't actually comparing median ages.
It's a comparison of median ages for about 30% of the Chicago area and about 10% of the Bay Area, and drawing conclusions about the overall cities based on this comparison. It makes no sense.
An apples-to-apples comparison of the two metros shows they have around the same median age.
Location: Baghdad by the Bay (San Francisco, California)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Standard111
But the comparison is even sillier, because it isn't actually comparing median ages.
It's a comparison of median ages for about 30% of the Chicago area and about 10% of the Bay Area, and drawing conclusions about the overall cities based on this comparison. It makes no sense.
An apples-to-apples comparison of the two metros shows they have around the same median age.
Right. I wasn't trying to imply that the figures I was using were at all representative of anything--only that figures taken from two different criteria--in this case, the city limits of two cities that are structurally very different--can skew the results. Maybe comparing the Loop to SF would yield more accurate results.
Sf is a smaller city, its going to have a smaller sample size.
That's sf, a small time town. Like i said earlier, chicago is the big city.
If you don't want to tango with the big kids, go tango with Boston, seattle, dc, and all the other small time towns.
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