BS: Do you fit your community's profile?

Subject: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:56 AM

Christian Science Monitor has a survey HERE which is kind of interesting to take. It tells you how much your lifestyle, political views, etc. match those of your community. I know my area has a lot of born-agains and conservatives, but I have been feeling as though it might be changing and be more akin to my own outlook. Alas, if the survey is right I only match about 58% with what they have termed an "Evangelical Epicenter" as defined in their Patchwork Nation blog info.

So, I am wondering, is this true of most folkies? Or is it just me?**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:57 AM

'Monied Burbs'

I match it 72%. (Obviously, my income isn't high enough:)

Interesting questions- seems more valid than many of the sort.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: maire-aine
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:02 PM

Same "Monied 'burbs" n'hood type. Matched 82%

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:05 PM

"Immigration Nation"

Matched 66%

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:07 PM

I heard a most reliable profile that predicts many thigs is a person's opinion of God.

If one is looking roughly only at political connections...
If one believes in a controling God they will be Rep
If one espouses a more compassionate God they are Dems and if ones God as a distant notion they are usually liberal technocrats.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:09 PM

Boom Towns, 86 % match.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:21 PM

I went back and did another survey, this time with my old home town in Oregon, giving the same responses.

It got the wrong town- although the location it came up with is the county rather than the town, i.e. Yamhill is the county in which is my hometown of McMinnville.

Evangelical Epicenter: 60% match

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:42 PM

Minority Central, 80% match.

I like Ebbie's idea of taking the survey under different zip-code identities. I'll do that myself, using my birthplace in central New Jersey insterad of my New Orelans address of the last 25+ years...

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:54 PM

I liked Ebbie idea, too, so I checked different locations. Looks as though I might want to look for some more compatible places to live! (Not that I'd move back to any of these!)

"Natrona" WY, which is what it came up with for Casper which is in Natrona County: Military Bastion 63% which is funny because there is no military facility there except for Nat. Guard and it is an oil boom town!

Northampton, MA which I thought I was pretty in sync with; seems it may be changing: Monied Burbs - 72%

Mystic, CT - Monied Burbs - 74%

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:59 PM

At my former family home, I am placed in the "Monied 'Burbs," and I'm a 75% match ~ almost a close a "match" (80%) as I am in my "Minority Central" current home.

Are the Monied Burbs really that closely similar to minority world?

They use the zipcode to place you in a county. I suppose that in very sparsely populated rural areas, there might be a one-to-one correspondence between postal code and county, but not in either of my two reported "homes."

There are about a dozen different zipcodes in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, and probably at least twice that many in Union Count, New Jersey. In both cases, some of the zipcodes define fairly affluent areas, while others designate much older and poorer neighborhoods.

My New Orleans zipcode probably does qualify as "Minority Central" about as well as any other neighborhood in the city, but my old neighborhood in the west end of Plainfield NJ (07063) is definitely NOT the same kind of "monied 'burb" as places like Westfield and Summit, elsewhere in Union County.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:09 PM

Monied Burbs - 64%

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:19 PM

Gee, I'm in an "Evangelical Epicenter," and I'm a 76% match with them. I wouldn't have thought I matched so closely.
Maybe it's because I lied about my ZIP code - I put the place where I get my mail and not where I live. I'm a 73% match with where I live, which is also an "EE."
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:24 PM

I'm in the minority central part of my boom town, although they wouldn't know that because my zip code covers a lot of different kinds of neighborhoods. I think the reason they have classified my town as a boom town is because it's growing fast. And most of the people here come from somewhere else, which may be why I have a good match.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Melissa
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:25 PM

I think the population in my county is about 8,500 or so. Each town has different zip codes.
Mine was called Military Bastion and the category doesn't seem to fit my town (pop. under 450) I can think of one person who is/was Nat'l Guard. I do know we've got a good handful of prison workers, so maybe that's what categorizes us as military?

It was a much odder category than I expected for us.
I match 70%.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:27 PM

Maybe they're going by the number of people from those towns (military bastions) who join the military.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: kendall
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:29 PM

Monied burbs 85%

They made a mistake, I do not live in Cumberland Maine, but Scarborough Maine.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:36 PM

I have no idea where Melissa lives, but perhaps there's a large military base in some other part of her county. While the survey asks for zip code, it seems to categorize areas by county, with no regard smaller areas within the county, not even individual zipcodes.

With a town population under 450 people, and a total county population around 8500, it sounds like a fairly sparsely populated area that may well contain a lot of farmland and/or forest between communities. That describes a fairly typical setting for, say, an Army or Marine training base, which requires a lot of wide-open space. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that such a base might be located at the other end of Melissa's county, so far away from her little town as to have no local impact there at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Melissa
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:37 PM

We do have a good percentage of Veterans..maybe that's what makes us a Bastion.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Becca72
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:48 PM

Emptying Nests community type with a 75 % match. They also got my city wrong. It claims I live in York, ME when in fact I live in Biddeford, Me in York County.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:53 PM

I see that survey makes no allowance at all for people with mixed ethnic origins. Bizarre.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 02:37 PM

79% match to my "boom town"...of course, like many others reporting, I wouldn't consider all of the zip codes in Bernalillo County, New Mexico as having even remotely similar demographics.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 03:34 PM

And I wouldn't consider all the zip codes in Santa Rosa County, Florida as having even remotely similar demographics. Gulf Breeze and Pace are upscale bedroom communities in which almost everyone commutes to Pensacola (in a different county). Milton is a military town, closely linked with Whiting Field Naval Air Station. The entire northern half of the county is farmland and timberland. That's where I live, among the tractors and deerhunters, and if I fit that community's profile to the tune of 66%, as the survey says, I'll eat a bowling ball.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 03:36 PM

I'd pay to watch that (the bowling ball thing).

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 11:12 AM

I'd be interested to see a UK version!

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 11:27 AM

I didn't fit, but then they had our area profile all wrong. The influx of transplants may be changing the BUYING demographics that show up on "market research," but it doesn't change the mix of who really has influence here in things that really matter, at least so far.

Your area's mileage may vary, too.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: GUEST,crazy little woman
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 04:22 PM

Well, they labelled Kansas City, which is a center for engineering, health care and government an 'industrial metropolis.' Hell, most of our smokestacks are on barbecue places.

So I guess I don't have much faith in how they rate me.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 05:12 PM

Healthcare, engineering, other white-collar pursuits, and even government (to some extent) can certainly be classified as "industries." The term is not, or at least should not be, limited to old-fashioned "smokestack" indusutries, and a large city which serves as a focal point for these major economic engines can very plausibly be classified as a "metrepolis" AND as "industrial." I think it's more of an economic description than an air-quality rating.

Even those barbeque joints (they're quite excellent ~ I know) belong to an industry, the "hospitality industry."

Subject: RE: BS: Do you fit your community's profile?
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 05:38 PM

They labelled my town wrong too...called it a College/Campus town. There IS a 2 yr community college here, but by and large it is agriculture and retired Ag. Sheesh. Also said (lil' liberal old me!) is 95%! Ho ho ho!

In RED Wyoming??? I don't think soo.....