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ePodunk Home Town Index - Statistical Sources
The ePodunk Home Towns Index combined 11 statistical sources to
measure residential roots and civic spirit.
Four of the eleven sources in the Index measure "rootedness" and are taken from the decennial Census of Population. These include the proportion of residents who did not change addresses between 1975 and 1980; those who did not change between 1985 and 1990; those who resided in their state of birth in 1980; and state natives in 1990.
Seven sources in the Index measure "civic engagement." These include:
- Local recognition for historic buildings, expressed as the number of listings in the National Register of Historic Places per county resident.
- Faith-based community action, expressed as the proportion of residents who belong to "civically engaged" church denominations – those whose members also have above-average membership in voluntary organizations such as Rotary, labor unions, and professional/trade associations (as measured by the General Social Survey).
- Church adherence, or the proportion of residents who belong to any denomination measured by the Census of Churches.
- The number of churches per resident (Census of Churches).
- The number of voluntary organizations per resident (as measured by the Encyclopedia of Associations).
- The number of informal social gathering places per resident. These are defined as restaurants, bars, coffee shops, barbershops, grocery stores, and other small retail businesses where informal meetings take place (as measured by the Economic Census).
- The number of manufacturing firms with 20 or fewer employees per resident (Economic Census).
In the ranking, each county is assigned a number from 0 to 9 for each variable, and scores for the 11 variables are added to make a total score. The raw scores, which range from 0 to 87, have been adjusted to range from 0 (Chattahoochee County, Georgia) to 100 (Butler County, Alabama).
Using its own database and other sources, ePodunk investigated the
top-ranking counties and chose cities and small towns with exceptional home town qualities. Our list of the top cities is drawn from counties with populations of 100,000 or more, and our list of top small towns is drawn from smaller counties. In the list showing the top place for each state, the top-ranking counties in Idaho, Kansas, Montana, and New York were not assigned places because no suitable place could be found. The designation was given to the second-ranked county.
For more information on the ePodunk Home Towns Index, contact Brad Edmondson.
Return to Home Town Index main page.
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