Post by VandarPost by Floyd L. DavidsonPost by Douglas BerryPopulation density. Alaska has, by far, the lowest population density
of any of the states. Y'all don't get the stress from crowding more
dense states get.
Interesting, but very mistaken concept. Alaska's population is
not spread out evenly over the huge geographical land mass.
While it is true that there are no population centers with
multi-millions of people, Anchorage's meager 300,000
Over half of the state's entire population.
Actually less than half. In 2006, 282,813 of the State's
670,053 people, which is merely 42.2 percent.
Here are some comparative numbers though, from around the
state. These came from the 2000 census data, so they are
a bit out of date but still quite indicative.
City: Anchorage Barrow Kipnuk Chuathbaluk
Population: 282,813 4,026 668 95
Avg household size: 2.67 3.27 4.70 3.61
Percent lacking plumbing 0.5 11.1 95.8 75.7
(sink, shower/bath, or toilet)
Percent lacking kitchen 0.6 9.3 94.4 70.3
(running water, stove or refer.)
Those are typical figures. Barrow is the seat of the wealthy
North Slope Borough. Kipnuk is a thriving Yupi'k Eskimo village
on the Bering Sea coast, and Chuathbaluk is one of several very
small upriver villages on the Kuskokwim River. None of the
numbers stand out as unusual for bush villages of that size.
Anchorage numbers are comparable with Fairbanks (which has a
lower household size and higher percentages that lack
facilities).
I don't know what sort of figure like that would be found for
urban or rural areas on the Lower-48, which might be interesting
for comparison. It would also be *very* interesting to see
a study like the one reference below...
Post by VandarPost by Floyd L. Davidsonhas all the
attributes of urban life that are available anywhere (gangs,
freeways, malls, whatever).
But the other point is that even in most of "rural" Alaska
there
is also a relatively high population density in the areas where
people do live.
Anchorage has a density of about 160/sq mi, which is very low.
But that is not the *city*, or urban part of Anchorage. It is
the "Municipality of Anchorage" which includes, for example all
of Fort Richardson, all of Elmendorf AFB, Eagle River, Kincaid
Park, Girdwood and Glen Alps. It has far more non-urban area
than it does urban area, as evidenced by the large populations
of moose, black bears, brown bears, and even wolverines. Much
of it is just plain wilderness!
Inside the city of Anchorage there is one area that exceeds
15,000 people per square mile (a couple of blocks in Mountain
View), and several areas sprinkled around town are between
10,000 and 15,000, with many areas of 5-10,000 per square mile.
justice.uaa.alaska.edu/indicators/series03/aci03a2.population.pdf
And of course, the social pressures referenced above do exist in
those areas. In fact, the above figures come from a report that
correlates "Population Density" with "Social Deviance" in
Anchorage. However, they found no correlation between
population density and social deviance; instead they say the
data clearly shows that illegal behavior loves company!
Anywhere they found high rates of deviance for one criteria they
found it for others too.
--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) ***@apaflo.com