From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Sun Sep 26 1999 - 18:55:30 MDT
m wrote:
>
> --- "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net> wrote:
> > "Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > You may be able to make a case comparing
> > states and
> > > counties, but you are comparing apples & oranges.
> > They have
> > > different histories. For example, I'm grew up in
> > Mass. just
> > > north of Boston, and I believe that your
> > comparison between
> > > N.H. & Mass. if fundamentally flawed. N.H. is
> > primarily
> > > has been a rural state except in a few "mill
> > towns". Mass.
> > > is a fairly industrial state in the Eastern half
> > (the part
> > > bordering on N.H. I suspect Mass. has a much
> > higher population
> > > of "urban" poor, as compared to N.H. which may
> > have "rural" poor.
> > > The religious percentages in the two states are
> > different as well.
> > > I'm not sure if this is a factor, but it points
> > out that *you* can't
> > > go making the claims you have been making.
> >
> > Southeastern NH is as urbanized today as the
> > adjacent territory in
> > Massachusetts is.
>
> That's not the whole state...
No, but we were discussing the adjacent counties. Furthermore, I fail to
see any difference between whether a person is poor in the country or
poor in the city.
areas I know that are different:
a) education: NH has higher average SAT scores, as well as higher
percentages of students participating, despite paying less than half of
the per student expenditures on education than Mass.
b) unemployment: NH does have lower unemployment, though Lott, Kleck,
and others have found that unemployment rates have no effect on crime
rates.
c) disposable income: NH does have higher disposable income, despite
having lower gross income. The difference is in the tax rates.
d) economic growth: as far as I recall, NH has been occillating between
positions 1 and 3 in economic growth among the 50 states for every year
since '92. How does this translate to the individual criminal on the
street?
>
> > > If you want to do this, you have to put *all* the
> > data
> > > into a statistical regression model and tease out
> > > exactly what the correlations are -- *and* then
> > after
> > > you have the correlations, you still have work to
> > do
> > > because correlations are *not* causation.
>
> [...]
>
> > Well, though I stated general perceptions, others
> > have come up with
> > solid stats, showing that the crime rate per 100,000
> > population is 3
> > times higher in Mass than NH. rates per 100,000
> > should be the same no
> > matter what your population density if all other
> > factors are equal, so
> > obviously something is not equal.
>
> This *assumes* that density has no effect.
>
> These figures are statewide *means*, so you cannot
> account for regional variations within the state,
> which might show density effects.
The way to do that is to examine different areas, within the same state,
with similar socioeconomic patterns, but with different population
densities.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:05:17 MST