Talk:Alma, Arkansas

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[edit] Attractions, Spinach Capital...

I've cleaned up the Attractions and Spinach Capital sections, however to further the approach to WikiProject Cities standard I'm going to put forward that the Spinach Capital section needs to be integrated with Sites of interest section (formerly Attractions). I've found an image of the Popeye statue hosted on the Alma school district server (http://www.almasd.net/ms/images/CCLandmarks/pic28.jpg) however its quality is negligible. Akuyume(Adam) 4:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted demographic data

As of the census ² of 2000, there are 4,160 people, 1,560 households, and 1,168 families residing in the city. The population density is 333.9/km² (865.4/mi²). There are 1,688 housing units at an average density of 135.5/km² (351.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 94.66% White, 1.71% Black or African American, 1.56% Native American, 0.10% Asian, 0.12% Pacific Islander, 0.75% from other races, and 1.11% from two or more races. 3.70% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are 1,560 households out of which 42.8% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.1% are married couples living together, 14.7% have a female householder with no husband present, and 25.1% are non-families. 22.3% of all households are made up of individuals and 10.5% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.66 and the average family size is 3.11.

In the city the population is spread out with 32.1% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 28.9% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 10.8% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 31 years. For every 100 females there are 90.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 85.4 males.

The median income for a household in the city is $28,906, and the median income for a family is $34,068. Males have a median income of $33,235 versus $17,014 for females. The per capita income for the city is $15,227. 16.3% of the population and 11.9% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 19.7% are under the age of 18 and 25.4% are 65 or older.

This information was moved off of the main page for the following reasons:

It was created by script, so there is a high-probability that no one is really interested in keeping it.
Much of the information is meaningless. The distinction between "households" and "families" is meaningless outside of the context of the U.S. Census database, and thus listing these separate values is merely clutter here.
The population density figures are meaningless since they are only averages that can be computed from the other numbers. Many large areas of the town are unpopulated and many large areas are densely populated. So what are the numbers for?
"Race" is a poorly defined and vacuous concept. For those people who have never been to Alma, you can be assured that the population consists of 4160 individuals who, although they may bear all kinds of superficial resemblances to many other people, are each different and valuable in their own ways. No real information may be inferred about any Alma resident by simply identifying their "racial" pigeonhole.
The median income information may be of some interest (although it is, once again, meaningless without knowing the spread of the data). But the detail is given is too verbose. The number of people living in poverty is relevant, but the "poverty line" is an arbitrary number, which has no meaning in this context. The U.S. Census should be consulted for its meaning and relevance.

The fact that the females outnumber the males may be of interest to some lonely men. If somebody wants to put any of this information back on the main page, then that's okay. Jeffrey L. Whitledge 17:10, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)