The "places data" were distributed to interested ASA members a few years ago so that they could apply contemporary data analytic methods to describe these data and then present results in a poster session at the ASA annual conference. Latitude and longitude have been added by Paul Tukey.
A 329 x 14 numeric array
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The first dataset is taken from the Places Rated Almanac, by Richard Boyer and David Savageau, copyrighted and published by Rand McNally. This book order (SBN) number is 0-528-88008-X, and it retails for $14.95 . The data are reproduced on disk by kind permission of the publisher, and with the request that the copyright notice of Rand McNally, and the names of the authors appear in any paper or presentation using these data.
The nine rating criteria used by Places Rated Almanac are: Climate and Terrain Housing Health Care and Environment Crime Transportation Education The Arts Recreation Economics
For all but two of the above criteria, the higher the score, the better. For Housing and Crime, the lower the score the better.
The scores are computed using the following component statistics for each criterion (see the Places Rated Almanac for details):
Climate and Terrain: very hot and very cold months, seasonal temperature variation, heating- and cooling-degree days, freezing days, zero-degree days, ninety-degree days.
Housing: utility bills, property taxes, mortgage payments.
Health Care and Environment: per capita physicians, teaching hospitals, medical schools, cardiac rehabilitation centers, comprehensive cancer treatment centers, hospices, insurance/hospitalization costs index, flouridation of drinking water, air pollution.
Crime: violent crime rate, property crime rate.
Transportation: daily commute, public transportation, Interstate highways, air service, passenger rail service.
Education: pupil/teacher ratio in the public K-12 system, effort index in K-12, accademic options in higher education.
The Arts: museums, fine arts and public radio stations, public television stations, universities offering a degree or degrees in the arts, symphony orchestras, theatres, opera companies, dance companies, public libraries.
Recreation: good restaurants, public golf courses, certified lanes for tenpin bowling, movie theatres, zoos, aquariums, family theme parks, sanctioned automobile race tracks, pari-mutuel betting attractions, major- and minor- league professional sports teams, NCAA Division I football and basketball teams, miles of ocean or Great Lakes coastline, inland water, national forests, national parks, or national wildlife refuges, Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area access.
Economics: average household income adjusted for taxes and living costs, income growth, job growth.
head(places)
animate_xy(places[, 1:9])
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