Hello flybama-ga,
A very handy site for making just the sorts of city-to-city
comparisions that you are asking about is the City-Data.com site at:
http://www.city-data.com/
With some creative searching techniques, I was able to generate some
well-focused lists of cities in the US that share many of the same
demographic characteristics as Birmingham, AL.
Oddly, it's two cities in New York that strike me as coming closest.
But first, let's have a look at Birmingham's key stats at:
http://www.city-data.com/city/Birmingham-Alabama.html
As you can see, there are an awful lot of statistics to choose from --
everything from percent of high school graduates, to number of
divorced people, to racial characteristics.
However, I stuck with the key demographic numbers that are used at the
site -- population, age, and economic characteristics:
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Birmingham, Alabama
Population (year 2000): 242,820
Median resident age: 34.3 years
Median household income: $26,735 (year 2000)
Median house value: $62,100 (year 2000)
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Two cities with very similar profiles are Rochester and Buffalo, both in NY:
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http://www.city-data.com/city/Rochester-New-York.html
Rochester, New York
Population (year 2000): 219,773
Median resident age: 30.8 years
Median household income: $27,123 (year 2000)
Median house value: $61,300 (year 2000)
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http://www.city-data.com/city/Buffalo-New-York.html
Buffalo, New York
Population (year 2000): 292,648
Median resident age: 33.6 years
Median household income: $24,536 (year 2000)
Median house value: $59,300 (year 2000)
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Both cities in NY also have a fairly diverse population in terms of
race/ethnicity, which also bears comparison with Birminghman.
Other cities that also have similar deomgraphic profiles are:
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http://www.city-data.com/city/Hialeah-Florida.html
Hialeah, Florida
Population (year 2000): 226,419
Median resident age: 37.7 years
Median household income: $29,492 (year 2000)
Median house value: $113,900 (year 2000)
-----
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Louisville, Kentucky
http://www.city-data.com/city/Louisville-Kentucky.html
Population (year 2000): 256,231
Median resident age: 35.8 years
Median household income: $28,843 (year 2000)
Median house value: $82,300 (year 2000)
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http://www.city-data.com/city/Providence-Rhode-Island.html
Providence, Rhode Island
Population (year 2000): 173,618
Median resident age: 28.1 years
Median household income: $26,867 (year 2000)
Median house value: $101,500 (year 2000)
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http://www.city-data.com/city/Newark-New-Jersey.html
Newark, New Jersey
Population (year 2000): 273,546
Median resident age: 30.8 years
Median household income: $26,913 (year 2000)
Median house value: $119,000 (year 2000)
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Newark, NJ is noteworthy as a city with a predominately black
population, as is the case with Birmingham. However, housing values
in Newark are considerably higher than in Birmingham (perhaps due to
its proximity to New York City), which throws off the comparison,
somewhat.
I trust this information fully answers your question. However, please
don't rate this answer until you have everything you need. If you
would like any additional information, just post a Request for
Clarification to let me know how I can assist you further, and I'm at
your service.
All the best,
pafalafa-ga
search strategy: I constructed several fairly elaborate Google
searches to identify cities with similar demographic paramaters. The
searches were along the lines of:
[ site:www.city-data.com "males 92000..132000" "median household
income $23000..30000" ]
For this particular example, the "site" command restricted the search
to the city-data site. The use of [..] between numbers identified a
range of numbers to search for, and the quote marks around the phrases
restricted the search to a phrase likely to be found on individual
city pages... the number of males in a city, and the median household
income. |
