Benchmarking the Ann Arbor Region

Take a look!

See a video demo of our visualization here!

To see it for yourself, either follow the instructions to view locally or simply navigate to the webpage.

Contributors

• Alex West
• Avinash Chandrasekaran
• Bethany Keller
• John Boudreaux

What's in it?

A comprehensive look at different aspects of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw county for key economic indicators. These would be useful for new businesses looking to move to the region or local policymakers trying to make the region more attractive for outside investment.

The visualization is divided into a few key parts, each made by a different contributor.

• Net Migration - Avinash Chandrasekaran
• Driving Industry Employment - Alex West
• Housing Affordability - Bethany Keller
• Labor Market - John Boudreaux

Key Users, Tasks and Data

Our intended users for the entire infoviz is a rather wide bunch, including:

• CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK (local economic development nonprofit - Alex’s boss)
• Young startups growing in the region
• Companies considering locating in the region

Each visualization has a few key tasks that we hope a user can effectively and easily perform with the data for the infoviz. We list these below as both tasks in Tamara Munzner's framework from Visualization Analysis and Design and also as questions that we hope our key users above would be able to answer.

• Net Migration

  • Data: Population Movement data from US Census Flowmapper
  • Main Task: Present -> Explore -> Summarize Distribution.
    • For the five year period 2013-2017, would you consider Washtenaw county, MI to be attractive to outside talent from net migration figures?
  • Other Task: Present -> Locate -> Identify Trend
    • Is the net migration in Washtenaw county, MI improving over time?
  • Other Task: Present -> Browse -> Identify Outliers
    • Which county has the best level of intrastate differential movement during 2013-2017?
  • Insights: Washtenaw county is attractive to outside talent
    • Ann Arbor region sees consistent uptick in net migration pattern over a few years

• Driving Industry Employment

  • Data: Employment percentage in specific industry sectors
  • Main Task: Present -> Explore -> Summarize Distribution.
    • What is the metric “driving industry employment” measuring, and would you consider Washtenaw county to have a lot of it?
  • Other Task: Present -> Locate -> Identify Trend.
    • Is the level of driving industry employment in Washtenaw county improving over time?
  • Other Task: Present -> Browse -> Identify Outliers.
    • Which county has the best level of driving industry employment in 2017?
  • Insights: Washtenaw County is in the bottom third of the pack on Driving Industry Employment - but performs higher than the US average.

• Housing Affordability

  • Data: Median home sale price per year, median income per year.
  • Main Task: Present -> Explore -> Summarize Distribution.
    • Would you consider Washtenaw County, MI affordable when it comes to housing?
  • Other Task: Present -> Locate -> Identify Trend.
    • Is housing affordability in Washtenaw County, MI improving over time?
  • Other Task: Present -> Browse -> Identify Outliers.
    • Which county is the most affordable in 2018?

• Labor Market

  • Data: Labor Force Participation Rate, Unemployment rate per county per year
  • Main Task: Present -> Explore -> Summarize Distribution.
    • How does Washtenaw county rank among its peers as of 2018 for labor market competitiveness?
  • Other Task: Present -> Locate -> Compare Trends.
    • Is the labor force participation stable over the past 4 years for Washtenaw county compared to its peers?
  • Other Task: Present -> Locate -> Compare Trends.
    • Is the unemployment rate changing for Washtenaw county more, less, or on par compared to peer counties?
  • Insights: Washtenaw County is middle of the pack for Labor Market with oddities around labor force participation

  Enjoy!