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The only reason I ever heard of this website because I was taking a data science class and it was one of the suggested places to look for like median income or something like that.
I've been a stats nerd my since I was a kid in the mid-70's when I became interested in geography. I love where I live and other places I've visited. But there are some I haven't. Stats have their merits, as do the intangibles of a place's qualities or the lack thereof. But I don't think it necessarily comes from insecurities or biases. It can, but I don't think so in many cases.
This is called city-DATA after all, so of course you have a lot of stat nerds. That being said, I think all of us know there is more to cities than some base statistics, google maps, and talking to a small sample size of people from the city. However, the problem is on the other end of the data spectrum is people simply making up anecdotes, which happens all the time.
And when it comes to things like "finding good people" or whatever, if someone continually attracts horrible people wherever they go, it might not be the city that's the problem. Just sayin'
I think life is what happens to us. It is a buzz. A flow of sound, light, feeling.
And yet people around here seem to enjoy their city more because they can abstractly compare it to other cities on measures like density, land area, percentages of minority groups.A very posh, detached sort way of living, when living breathing people like these minority groups are just treated as a fact to support one's need to feel they live in a great place. It is so tiring. There is a vague undercurrent of insecurity and hostility to it, over-concern with self rather than a self-forgetting directedness outwards into the actual sticky, warm human goo that a real life pulses with. So many posts with dozens of pages where all people do is reference statistics and sub-statistics and analysis of statistical backgrounds and it all comes across as really insecure.
Am I the only one who feels like this? Is this my own personal problem? I think its worth talking about.
This is a very astute analysis of this section of City-Data.
No you are not the only one who feels this way. Not in the least.
This is why I tend to stick to my active local section of the forum but do pop in here to get a good chuckle every once in a while.
I would definitely characterize myself as a data/geography nerd and that's a big part of why I do enjoy C-D and do find some of the thread topics in this section engaging. But the internalization some posters have with regards to aspects of their own city/region and/or what aspects they deem as "superior" is so incredibly over the top here. Like to get into fights over which city is more "really' more dense or "really" more international or "really" where the "movers and shakers" all are......is obnoxious.
Insecurity is the best way to describe it I agree.
We are on a message board for a website called city-data.com
The people on these boards are likely going to be data nerds. It's kind of self-selecting.
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