South Four Corners Makes it into the Washington Post!

This weekend my neighborhood made it into the Washington Post's 'where we live' column in the Real Estate section (http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/south-four-corners-is-at-the-intersection-of-suburbia-and-bustle/2014/02/13/ed51937a-7260-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html).  I thought the author, Amy Reinink, did a great job capturing the flavor of my neighborhood, describing it as "at the intersection of suburbia and bustle."
 
But, being a geographer, I'm always thirsty for more spatial information.  So, I thought I'd share some census data for South Four Corners and compare it to the county as a whole.  Unfortunately, South Four Corners does not have its own census tract.  Rather, it is spread across two tracts, both of which include neighborhoods outside of the generally accepted borders of South Four Corners.

 The map on the left is from the Washington Post article linked above.  It shows the generally accepted boundaries of the neighborhood. The map on right side panel shows the census tracts in which South Four Corners is located (703.000 bordering the beltway and 703.100 just above it). Although these tracts include areas outside of South Four Corners, the neighborhood takes up a large share of both tracts.  So, we can still get a general sense of the neighborhood's demographics. 

























If we look at the racial background of three groups (white, Hispanic, and African American) from the 2010 census, South Four Corners differs in interesting ways from the county as a whole.  On the whole, South Four Corners is 'whiter' than the county.  Whites comprise 66% percent of the population across census tracts 703.000 and 703.100 while they take up a slightly smaller share of the county--63.2%.  Not surprisingly, minority populations take up a smaller share of the total population in South Four Corners as well.  However, there's one interesting caveat--the Hispanic share of the population is slightly higher in South Four Corners than it is in the county as a whole.  This may be due to the growth of the Hispanic population in the border area between Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

Share of the Population by race/ethnicity in South Four Corners and Montgomery County:

	MoCo as a whole	703.000	703.100	Avg of two census tracts
Percent White	63.2	72	60	66
Percent Hispanic	17.9	13	28	20.5
Percent African American or Black	18.3	11	13	12