Hey everybody!
This summer and before I have been collecting datasets and doing my own statistical analysis two expand my own skillsets, bring real-life problems to my students (I currently teach Applied Statistics, Research Methods, Ethics, and Judgement and Decision-making):
1. Why this, why now
Some of my analysis is steeped in my own biases and don’t belong in a classroom so I needed a place to flesh out my thinking that was personal vs. professional.
2. What kind of community are you looking to build here
Anybody that can bring incites to my thinking is welcome. I know I’m not the only person to do these analyses (most are directly inspired by others) so I welcome constructive feedback.
3. An example of this process can be seen this week.
I wanted to test the notion that Democratic cities were significantly more dangerous places (i.e. more violent crime). This didn’t jive with my personal experience living in urban areas all of my life and I had also heard that Republican dominated states had more murders (often mentioned in gun control debates). I had also just finished reading JD Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy which had vivid descriptions of a violent culture that was very much not urban in nature. So I wanted to get a better handle on if the notion that cities (and thus presumably represented by democrats) are more dangerous places was something I could replicate with data.
Google searches for “violent crime county .csv” let me to https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/violent-crimes-by-county-2006-to-2013 this dataset gives violent crime data vs. counties in Maryland between 2006 and 2013.
I then tried to think of a way to measure representation of these counties by Democrats (remember the claim is that Democratic Representation is related to violent crime). I thought of finding the political affiliation of mayors etc. but I was having trouble with finding this information and also had the recognition that mayors are limited in their ability to legislate. This has recently become political fodder for legislation that supersedes the governance of cities by asserting the law making authority of state/national legislative bodies i.e. Anti-sanctuary city laws. So what
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YaDcFLcFfJFGpf29w0aDv5Bp0CtHEVW4VOqd8fS0ABs/edit?usp=sharing