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  • From: ron thigpen <ron AT fuzzsonic.com>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: On Durham and identity
  • Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:10:33 -0400

betsyshane AT gmail.com wrote:

But that census info really threw me...the median income in Durham is
higher than elsewhere, so does the money thing still hold up? I guess
that's a whole other investigation; why is Durham real estate so
damned cheap?

don't read too much into a median income number. it tells you very little about the distribution of incomes, only that half the incomes are higher than that number and half are lesser.

it helps to think in graphical terms, x axis being income and y being number of folks at that income level. you could be looking at a lot of shapes to the data, but consider two options: a bell curve with the median right at the peak, or you could be looking at a big trough with the median at the bottom. each case would have the same median, but a very different distribution of incomes.

For the trough example, you'd have a lot of poor folks, a lot of rich folks and relatively few in between. i wouldn't argue without facts that Durham has a trough distribution, but it probably does have a different distribution than some of the other cities in the area.

the takeaway here is that you go at your own peril if you try to read too much into a simple statistic like median income.

--rt




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