The Merrimack Valley is a region full of diversity. With our fifteen communities ranging from gateway cities, suburban areas, and rural agricultural towns, there is a wide array of demographic data to explore. Last month MVPC launched a demographics dashboard.

Now these communal attributes can be visualized and compared through the demographic data viewer on our website, located on the Our Valley page. Statistics for the region can be understood quite clearly now. Fun facts such as the Merrimack Valley’s unemployment rate decreasing by about 2% in the past decade are now easier to see than ever!

Using PowerBI, a Microsoft data visualization application, our GIS/IT team constructed a dashboard using the most up-to-date census data. Now users can get insights into our region’s population, education level, income, transportation, and housing statistics more easily than ever before. All it takes is finding the demographic on the left side of the dashboard, and the community in question on the bottom to see the data gathered from the ACS 5-year census easily. Did you know that Lawrence’s population is almost twenty times that of West Newbury? Check out our dashboard to see for yourself!

Understanding the demographics of the Merrimack Valley is essential for us as planners to execute projects in a way that will truly benefit the region. Not only can we at MVPC and the communities we work with use this dashboard to gain critical insights, but the general public can also use it to learn about their area. We here at MVPC find empowering those in our region to learn about the area’s demographics very important. Having valuable knowledge of our communities shown in a way that is easily understandable is won’t only help with regional projects, it is a fun way to learn and evoke discussions regarding our communities!

To access the dashboard on our website, click here.