In tandem to the regular census, do an alternate census of the inanimate objects that make up the human environment. This might include numbers like:
- Cell phone and landline subscribers
- Grocery stores per neighborhood
- Schools and hospitals, and their capacity
- Restaurants per neighborhood
- Average wait time for metro or bus
Obviously the open question is how you’d collect this data. I suspect some already exists and some we’d have to get creative about. The thought came while discussing a Craft 2 census project this morning. To me, this alternate data set is the missing (and more actionable) other half.
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Canada already does some of this, and it is a great resource: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/start-debut-eng.html
Not available for free though, unless you are in a Canadian university.