And Cox has a history of doing this with non-census data to “prove” the failure of various light rail systems. In Portland, he proves its “failure” by moving his baseline beginning and end year to create an appearance of less ridership growth than a standard beginning and end date does. The examples of twisted data from Cox is endless, and is covered in detail in many other places on the web (such as the PDF here). Bruegmann’s data appears to be equally twisted to suit his arguments.

The census offers its urban statistics in three categories: city, metropolitan areas (defined by counties), and urbanized areas (which the U.S. census defines as contiguous areas around a city center with population densities above 1,000 per square mile). If you’re looking at urban density, the latter category is much more useful than the older and arbitrary political boundaries of cities or counties–especially when you’re discussing sprawl, which no one would argue is especially respectful of traditional boundaries. This is not a statistical trick–it’s simply a more useful way to analyze settlement patterns as they exist in reality, and one that is becoming the standard statistical concept for census bureaus around the world.

As for Cox’s site–the commentary is of course his own, but the statistics come straight from the United States Census site (as do Bruegmann’s)–although it does take a little familiarity with census-taking methods to realize it.

The LA densities are based on a gerrymandered boundary taking in only the densest parts of LA, and ignoring the sprawling parts. Note that the New York area figure of 5,309 per square mile includes New Jersey and Connecticut–not simply the five boroughs, where the year 1990 pop density is actually 23,705 per square mile. San Francisco is not the Demographia-cited 7,004 (which includes East Bay suburbs); the city proper is 15,502. See the Census Bureau 1990 figures for more facts.

Cox is notorious for his bad data, and since Bruegmann bases his data on Cox’s data, we have no reason to accept the basis for his arguments, either.

Q.You seem to leave poor people out of the equation. They can’t live in the sprawl zone because there is little if any affordable housing out there, and they may not have cars or adequate public transit to commute out to jobs there, either. What about their needs?

A. Most poor people in America live in single-family homes and they have cars. Los Angeles is a good example. But as more jobs are created on the edges of cities, one answer might be to give every (poor person) a car and make it easier to get out of the city. Government attempts to create affordable housing have not been very successful.

No further comment necessary on this one. Sounds like a proud Heartland policy expert.

The fact that Heartland receives beaucoup bucks from the home-mortgage, suburban builder, oil, and auto industry is directly related to his “surprising” findings that happen to be directly what those folks would like to see.

This is how the corporate right wing has seized the mainstream media over the past decades and it’s only fair to call them on their tactics when mainstream journalists abandon their sacred trust to investigate their sources–that should be their job, not ours.

I suppose he probably received honorariums for all those speaking engagements, but I think implying that he’s “on staff” at any of those organizations is probably stretching the facts more tightly the actual truth warrants. Why dilute your arguments with unfounded ad hominem attacks–surely your viewpoint can be defended without resorting to such tactics.