Chart above from page 128 of David JC MacKay’s book “Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air”. (Thanks to FJ for the link!)

Aside from the energy usage of all these other modes of transportation, this chart echos my earlier ad-hoc and not-to-be-trusted calculation that an electric car uses about 1/4 or 1/5 the energy of a gas-powered car.  It also shows that an electric car with one or two passengers uses more energy than a “full” electric train.  Of course, electric trains aren’t always going to be full, so the “per passenger” number is actually a bit higher.

So now that we have a bit better sense of how these modes of transport relate to each other, lets introduce lifestyle back into the equation.   Does living in an urban environment, taking the train, biking and walking, use more or less energy than using an electric car on a regular basis?  Because while biking and walking will always use minimal energy, a half-full train can ratchet up your daily energy consumption pretty quickly.

Basically, which will use less total energy: a small, walkable town on a mass transit line or a subdivision serviced by electric cars?

Last night, the Decatur School Board approved the city’s reconfiguration of K-3 schools (a slightly tweaked version of Map #9) in order to reintroduce Glennwood back into the mix.

Thanks to greater outreach and cooperation between all parties – and the fact that a school was being added and not subtracted from the mix – the process was much more amicable than the now legendary 2003 reconfiguration, which closed Westchester Elementary and rezoned much of the Northwest side of the city to Oakhurst Elementary.

And one of the most discussed topics between disgruntled Northsiders and pleased Southsiders has been private school enrollment numbers, pre and post 2003 reconfiguration, which are generally assumed to measure affluent satisfaction with the school system.  Well, thanks to the just released 2005-2009 Census Survey – and a nifty map on the New York Times website, we can now look at private school enrollments pre-reconfiguration (2000) and post-reconfiguration (2005-2009).

The data does in fact verify much of what was being said on both sides of the tracks.

The northwest corner of the city saw a 9% increase in private school enrollment from 2000, while all the other areas of the city registered declines.  This can presumably be partially attributed with dissatisfaction with the closing of the neighborhood’s school in 2003.  Conversely, private school enrollment in Oakhurst dropped from 2% in 2000 to 0% in the current survey, while Winnona Park dropped 7 points to just 6% today.

But the really drastic change was in the area of the city that rarely comes up in the endless 2003 reconfiguration discussion – the northEAST corner of the city.  Even though this neighborhood in effect lost their school – Glennwood – to a 4/5 academy in 2003, private school enrollments dropped 27 points to 19% in the recent survey after the 2003 reconfiguration.

Interesting, no?

Thanks to Golazo to pointing out the NY Times maps!

Some top line bullets from the AJC’s parsing of Atlanta’s 2005-2009 Census SURVEY data that was recently release to the viewing public.  This ISN’T the 2010 Census, which is scheduled to be released a week from now.

• “…median income in the city rose from $34,770 to $50,243, a 54 percent increase. At the same time, the percentage of city residents with at least a bachelor’s degree increased by one-third, to 46 percent.”
• “For the metro region as a whole, the percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents increased 43 percent between the 2000 Census and the latest numbers, which cover the period 2005-2009.”
• “Although 21 percent of Atlanta residents lived in poverty during the period 2005-2009, that was a 14 percent decrease from the 2000 census.”
• “The number of white residents rose by 30 percent, eclipsing even the 18 percent increase in the number of people of Hispanic origin. The number of black residents fell by 18 percent.”

An anonymous tipster notes that the popular design blog, Design*Sponge, recently updated their shopping and design guide for Atlanta, and because Decatur is technically a “different city”, didn’t include many of our shops and ‘struants amongst the recommended (although Heliotrope somehow snuck onto the list).

Anywho, in the comments section of the guide, Decatur-lovers freaked-the-geek out, snarking up things like…

…Decatur, which was completely missing from the list…

What? No Decatur? Boo… Glad to see Atlanta on this site, tho…

i would loooooove a decatur shopping guide on here! if you need suggestions…

OK, so not so much “freaking out” as expressing rational displeasure, but still, the people had spoken and the word was “Decatur Guide me gosh darn it!”

All this Declamoring evoked a response from one of the D*S folks…

that’s a different city so it wouldn’t be part of this guide, but i’m happy to publish a decatur guide with any local who’s willing to help

So, who’s gonna help ‘em out?  And what will you say?

Can you imagine trying to shop and eat your way around Decatur in a couple days?  Do any Decatur shops sell men’s pants with expandable waists anymore?