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I don't think that's very interesting: (smart/area) / (population/area) = (smart/population) I don't really care if the population is more educated if they're
by JeffJenkins 16y ago
I don't think that's very interesting:
(smart/area) / (population/area) = (smart/population)
I don't really care if the population is more educated if they're really spread out. Assuming I have some way of selecting people who are smart—which I definitely do in NYC—I'm going to get to see a lot more of them in a place with a higher smart density.
- gvb 16y agoLike all benchmarks, the simplification afforded by the benchmark distorts the results. We really should use a weighting function between (smart/area) and (smart/population) to identify both where smart people congregate and where there is a minimum "smartness" density.
- ebiester 16y agoWhat you're missing is that density is meaningless in a Western city. Consider a city like Tucson, which is really spread out. However, within 30 minutes I can reach 500,000 people. In Phoenix, you are 30 minutes away from at approximately 1,500,000 people. Does that compete with NYC and SF? No. However, density undervalues western cities and overvalues dense ones. Unfortunately, there's no statistics for "people with whom you can have coffee within 20 minutes of travel."
- JeffJenkins 16y agoWhat do undervalue and overvalue mean here? Undervalue car travel? I travel by walking or cycling so the number of people I could reach in a period of time is almost exclusively a function of how dense the area I'm in is.