There were the usual battles over the number of people attending the anti-war protest in San Francisco in January – organizers said “as many as 500,000” attended and police put the number at 30,000 to 50,000. Already according to the BBC there are divergent estimates of the size of the crowds in London – the organizers say closer to 2m and the police at least 750,000.
In Salon a prof uses an obvious method to accurately estimate (which requires you to know the size of the area covered by protesters) and says there were 60,000 people – tops (lots fewer than the organizers claimed then). The number is interesting, and I do wonder why this prof’s technique is not more widely used, but what I found even more interesting was the prof’s realpolitik reaction to the numbers:
“For whatever it is worth, the composition of Saturday’s rally and march — a lot of middle-aged and affluent folks — was far more interesting and impressive than the tens of thousands of people who were present…”
So there you have it. Never mind mass protest – what’s important is if the middle classes turn against something. Sad, but probably true…credit cards accept at business yourcard american credit companywithout to credit card accessand education accreditationcredit 0 card lifeamerica consolidation creditservices accreditationcard 1st credit nation Map
Huge differences in crowd size estimates in Australia too. Brisbane had above 50 000, but below 100 000. The proportional size of the crowd to the countries population is what matters. For instance in Australia it was the biggest peace time rally ever and approximately 1 in every 40 – 50 Australians marched.
The only solution to the counting problem is to have someone run around with a numbered ticker and stamp, giving one to each person that wants to be counted in any “official” statistics.
Comment by ABliss — 17 February 2003 @ 6:23 am