Census Bureau has released the Metropolitan Data Book
Rochester, Minn., home to the famed Mayo Clinic, had the highest rate of physicians — 1,871 per 100,000 people — in 2007 of any metro area in the country, according to data from the American Medical Association contained in a publication released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The prevalence of physicians is among the 1,600 data items found in the Census Bureau’s 2010 edition of the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book.
Metro areas that contained “college towns,” such as Ann Arbor, Mich.; Charlottesville, Va.; Durham, N.C.; and Iowa City, Iowa, also had high rates of physicians, according to the Data Book. Published periodically since 1979, the Data Book serves as a statistical guide to the social, economic, political and demographic structure of the United States, according to the Census Bureau. The data, provided at the national, state, metropolitan, micropolitan and county levels, come from nonprofit organizations, private businesses and government statistical agencies, including the Census Bureau.
Broad topics covered in the Data Book include births, health care, education, elections, crime, employment, housing, immigration, language, income and poverty, retail sales, science and engineering, social services, tourism, manufacturers, marriages and divorces, natural resources, business establishments, agriculture, energy, traffic fatalities, transportation and commuting, communications, construction, finance and elections.
Other notable statistics include:
• Among all 601,411 bridges across the nation in 2008, more than 25 percent were deficient and obsolete.
• New York and Washington had the most arduous commutes to work of any metro area, with an average travel time of 34 and 33 minutes, respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, commuters in Grand Forks, N.D.-Minn., spent 14 minutes a day getting to work.
• In 2006, there were 31 police officers per 10,000 people in the United States. Among states, New York had the highest ratio, with 47 police officers per 10,000 people (the District of Columbia had 75) and West Virginia and Minnesota had the lowest, both with a ratio of 21 officers to 10,000 people.
Read more information on the Data Book and download the related data tables in Microsoft Excel and PDF format.
