Oak Ridge scientists use data to help a rapidly urbanizing planet During World War II, the then-brand-new city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, housed a population of 75,000, boasted the nation?s sixth-largest bus system, and consumed a significant percentage of the country?s electricity on huge industrial operations that ran around the clock. The average age of the population was 27, and when residents were not working long shifts at the huge government plants, they met their future partners at local dances, went bowling, attended the theater and the symphony, and swam in one of the nation?s largest swimming pools. It was a young, loud, energetic city, imbued with wartime patriotism and camaraderie.

Seventy-five years after its heyday, the population of Oak Ridge, now at a median age of 42.3 (the national median is 37.9), languishes around 30,000, less than half of what it was in 1945. Bruce Applegate, who carries a variety of job titles but calls himself the city catchall, thinks the city has more to offer. Every day at his desk in the municipal building, Applegate logs onto his computer and pulls up a colorful dashboard full of maps, charts, and graphs displaying real-time data on the city?s water and air quality, traffic, population dynamics, social media use, and a variety of other metrics. This information, Applegate thinks, is the key to bringing new vitality to Oak Ridge. The city of Oak Ridge is partnering with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to develop U...