Thread by @GeorgeWHerbert

Project Covidville

This is a new project I’m starting in order to help bring home the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on America. The premise is simple: the fastest growing US city today is the City of #Covidville , populated by our recently dead.
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Each day, we’ll look at how #Covidville grows and the cities that it passes. We’ll use CDC total US Coronavirus deaths statisics ( cdc.gov/coronavirus/20… ) and estimated 2019 US Cities population rankings in Wikipedia ( en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U… )
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Also using WHO historical data for US (for references, see the Wikipedia page for pandemic deaths over time at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_… ) #Covidville

For example, May 30 we passed 100,000 deaths in the US (100,304).
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#Covidville on May 30 passed the size of Woodbridge, New Jersey. It had almost reached the size of the cities of Bend, Oregon and Clinton, Michigan and Vacaville, California.
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The next day, the end of May, it surpassed them and then San Angelo, TX, then Spokane Valley, WA, Carmel, IA, Tuscaloosa, AL and Edinburg, Texas. Davenport, IA was early the next morning.

#Covidville /5

You’ll recognize some of these cities. Renton, WA. South Bend, IN. Burbank, CA. Skipping a bit, Las Cruces, NM. Green Bay, WI. Boulder, CO.

#Covidville /6

110,000 dead was June 10. Billings, MT, Miami Gardens, FL, Broken Arrow, OK. The next morning, it passed Peoria, IL.

#Covidville /7

120,000 dead was June 24. Passed Cambridge, MA, Rochester MN, Ann Arbor, MI.

In the next two days, it grew past Ann Arbor, Michigan, Arvada, CO, Richardson, TX, Berkeley, CA, and Allentown, Pennsylvania.

#Covidville /8

On its way to 125,000 we pass Odessa, TX, Wilmington, NC, Fargo, North Dakota.

125,000 was June 29, blowing past Norman, Oklahoma and Topeka, Kansas.

#Covidville /9

According to the CDC, today we passed 129,811 deaths. We’re going to hit 130,000 tomorrow. Past Athens, GA, Elizabeth, NJ, Concord, CA, and Stamford, Connecticut. New Haven is tomorrow or Wednesday.

#Covidville /10

If your home city is smaller than 130,000 people, I want you to go outside (with a mask) and look around. COVID-19 has killed as many Americans as live there. Everyone on your street. Everyone who works or shops at your grocery store.

#Covidville /11

Everyone at the office buildings, everyone in the schools. Everyone you know. Everyone you see.

And You. #Covidville /12

If you’re following along, and you live in these cities that #Covidville is growing past, take a moment and tweet something to the hashtag about your city. Even if you spent time in those cities.

If you’ve lost someone to COVID-19, and can talk about it, tell us about them. /13

I’ll tell you a bit about Thousand Oaks, California, which #Covidville grew past a few days ago around the first of July. I worked there for a living for about a year. Great people, relaxed Southern California friendly. /14

Thousand Oaks is down in a valley with big hills north and south. Fun to walk and drive around. #Covidville /15

Nobody knows exactly how many more people are going to die in the US from COVID-19. Too many. But we have to remember them. And we have to understand the scope and scale of what’s happening to us. With virus surging again in many states, it’s clearly not over.

#Covidville /16

(End for tonight)

#Covidville /17

Tuesday 7/7 midday update:

Official CDC number at this instant stands at 130,133. That’s 322 new deaths recorded, putting #Covidville just short of New Haven, Connecticut (130,250 people). It looks like we will or have passed it sometime Tuesday.

A friend and former coworker got her PhD at Yale in New Haven after the 2000 dot-com crash. There are academics there now that I follow. I’ve never personally been there, only drove past on the way to Boston.

Tell us something about New Haven if you’re there.

#Covidville

Later today will be Santa Clara, California (pop 130,365). The consulting company I work for was headquartered there for around 10 years. Several clients were in the city. My current client is headquartered there. Many many friends live or work in Santa Clara. #Covidville

New Haven is distant but significant; Santa Clara would be a blow to my friends and coworkers, too many to really comprehend. My personal history and career. Restaurants... Pedros, Birks steakhouse, Mongolian BBQ down on El Camino. #Covidville

That’s #Covidville later today, for me. I know a bunch of my in real life friends and current and former coworkers have more Santa Clara stories or connections. They can speak up if they want to. But Santa Clara hurts.

It’s Wednesday, July 8 in #Covidville , and today’s CDC number is 131,065. That’s 932 more deaths since yesterday’s count.

We talked about New Haven, Connecticut and Santa Clara, California yesterday. Covidville passed their populations as predicted some time yesterday.

Sometime today, we’re looking at #Covidville passing Columbia, South Carolina. At 131,674 estimated residents today Columbia is an important city. It’s the state capital of South Carolina and its second largest city. Regrettably I’ve never been to Columbia.

I’m going to the Wikipedia entry on Columbia because it deserves fair coverage as #Covidville passes its population. According to written records from Hernando de Soto, they passed the area in 1540 and noted the native Congaree tribe there, part of the Cofitachequi chiefdom.

The current city of Columbia was formed in 1786. It was the highest navigable point of the Congaree river. It was formed intentionally as a new central state capital. It was boosted in economic significance by the 1800 opening of the Santee Canal.
#Covidville

In 1801, South Carolina College was founded in Columbia, now the University of South Carolina. I’ve just learned thst their mascot and sports teams are named the Gamecocks.
#Covidville

Columbia was largely burned during Sherman’s March in the Civil War, but rebuilt soon after. It became a textile and trading center. By WW2, signifiant US Army bases were built in the area, becoming a major training center.
#Covidville

Today, Columbia has significant employment in state government, healthcare, and the university. Major nearby employers include energy, Fort Jackson, and diverse manufacturing industry.
#Covidville

The Town Theater in Columbia apparently is the oldest continuously operating community theater in the country.

I hope some Columbia residents or people from there can add personal reflections. I can appreciate it from afar, but not really know it’s culture & charm.
#Covidville

At this pace, tomorrow or Friday we’ll see #Covidville grow past the population of Kent, Washington and Sterling Heights, Michigan. Over the next week at this pace we’re climbing the population charts towards Round Rock, TX, Cedar Rapids, IA, Coral Springs, FL, and Warren, MI.

Not that far ahead are Gainsville, FL, Hampton, VA, Visalia, CA, and West Valley, UT. After that, we’ll revisit South Carolina again with Charleston, SC, the 200th largest city in the US. At that point, #Covidville will be bigger than any one city in South Carolina.

It’s easy to look at numbers and statistics and be numbed by them. The point of #Covidville is to be humanizing the loss for everyone. If #Covidville was to happen to my city, I would have to go almost five miles to find a living human being.

If you have time today, think about cities smaller than 131,065 people that you’ve been to or lived in. Imagine gravestones in front of every house and apartment instead of families in them. #Covidville is taking that from all of us.

And please, please wear masks. Isolation is important. Be safe yourselves.

Don’t move to #Covidville . The city is booming, but it hasn’t got much future for the inhabitants.

Today’s #Covidville update sees an official CDC Covid-19 death toll this morning of 132,056 people in the United States, up 991 from yesterday (second day in a row over 900). Assuming today’s numbers are similar, #Covidville will end the day with 133,000 deceased residents.

Over the course of today, #Covidville ‘s population is passing that of Kent, Washington and then Sterling Heights, Michigan.

I’ve driven through Kent, but not stopped there that I recall. I know friends nearby there but alas (fortunately?) not in Kent proper.

Kent is south of Seattle and north of Tacoma, on the east side of Puget Sound. It nearly touches the water, but a sliver of Des Moines, WA sits in between. Kent runs from I-5 in the west for several miles inland.
#Covidville

Historically Kent was populated by Coast Salish Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe. The Duwamish Valley and Green River overlap significantly with Kent’s boundaries.
#Covidville

Again according to Wikipedia as I’m not personally familiar, Kent was settled by Europeans in the 1850s and incorporated in 1890. It was part of the area generally involved in the Battle of Seattle in 1856 and ongoing Yakima wars. #Covidville

From the 1860s to 90s it grew Hops, then had dairy and then Lettuce crops. It industrialized after WW2. Current major employers include Amazon, Boeing, and other aerospace and materials manufacturing. The two largest waterjet cutting companies in the US are there.
#Covidville

Notable natives of Kent that Twitterers may recognize include @pzmyers . Perhaps he can tell us something about it from the personal perspective as someone who grew up there.
#Covidville

I’ll be back later this afternoon as the #Covidville population passes Sterling Heights, Michigan, for coverage of that city. As always, stay safe and wear a mask; you don’t want to move to #Covidville .

This took a bit to get back to, and the #Covidville population passed Sterling Heights as predicted late Thursday. Friday morning's official CDC number was 132,855, an increase of 799 official deaths over the Thursday numbers. We'll review Sterling Heights, and Friday's cities.

Official Friday numbers aren't available yet (early Saturday) but I'm presuming another 800 people, so over the course of Friday #Covidville passed the populations of Round Rock, Texas at 133,372 and Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 133,562.

It's possible that it passed Coral Springs, Florida at 133,759. We'll see what Saturday's statistics are.
#Covidville

Sterling Heights is a town some friends from Michigan are somewhat familiar with. The fourth largest city in Michigan, it's also reportedly the safest Michigan city of its size. Sterling Heights is a suburb of Detroit. #Covidville

Sterling Heights' demographics show that it's had large influxes of immigrants, from eastern Europe in the 1990s and Iraqi refugees in the 2000s. Parts of the city were nicknamed "Little Baghdad" afterwards.

Sterling Heights seems like a really nice city, from afar.
#Covidville

Sometime Friday #Covidville passed Round Rock, Texas. Round Rock is part of the Austin metropolitan area. I've never been to Round Rock, but a couple of features really interest me personally. For one, it's straddling an old (15 million years dead) earthquake fault.

That ancient fault puts half the city on fertile flat plains and the other half up on a karst hill plateau. Faults that are safe to look at and varying topography can be a lot of fun. If, you know, we weren't doing this because of all the dying. #Covidville

Round Rock's area has over 11,000 years of human habitation, with native american residents having been confirmed around as early as 9,200 BC. They seem to have been part of the Clovis Culture, a widespread early civilization in North America. #Covidville

Round Rock had thriving cotton agriculture in the early 1900s and then grew up as a major city by arranging for Interstate 35 to be routed right through the middle of town, bringing both residents and businesses. #Covidville

Round Rock was mostly a bedroom community by 1990 but then became a business center from the late 90s. Notable industry includes the Dell corporate headquarters. Unusually, several colleges collaborated on a joint campus system sited in Round Rock. #Covidville

Several well known films were filmed in Round Rock, including Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blood Simple, and The Rookie. Despite the first two, I think I want to visit Round Rock, once there's a COVID-19 vaccine and treatment available and we're past the Pandemic. #Covidville

Our second Friday city was Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa, and has an unfortunate tendency to flood in recent years. #Covidville

Again from Wikipedia as I haven't visited Cedar Rapids myself, the area was inhabited by the Fox and Sac tribes of native americans prior to Europeans arrival. The city was founded in 1849 to use the eponymous rapids in the Cedar river as energy for a grain mill. #Covidville

That mill drove transportation, first a steam riverboat then by 1859 the first railroad. The city became a meatpacking center using ice from the river, and a major grain center (Quaker Oats' primary Oatmeal mill). #Covidville

Interestingly, Cedar Rapids had Islamic immigrants from the Syria/Lebanon Beqaa Valley as early as 1895, and is a major US center of Islamic history. A major Halal food certification society is based there since 1975. #Covidville

Cedar Rapids sounds like a nice city to visit, but for me only during summertime. The winters are described as "long and cold" and significant snowfall and freezing weather are usual in wintertime. Brr. #Covidville

Corn and grain milling are still major employment centers, along with industries (Collins Aerospace corporate headquarters) and healthcare. It has two four-year colleges, and a fairly extensive arts and entertainment sector. #Covidville

Actors Ashton Kutcher and Elijah Wood are both Cedar Rapids natives. It's had a fair number of natives and residents notable in the arts, and in sports. #Covidville

Honestly, with surges in the COVID cases on Friday, it's a little hard to focus on #Covidville as a project. 70,000 new cases diagnosed, Florida and Texas hospitals describing morgues full and conditions like NYC's peak months ago.

It's still important to take time and understand the magnitude of what has happened and is still happening. Two 9/11's a week. Approaching three times as many people killed in the US as we lost soldiers in Vietnam. Ongoing shortages of protective equipment. #Covidville

And all of this is just the United States. Three times more pandemic deaths in other countries than the US, terrible tolls in Italy, China, India, and emerging in Africa and elsewhere. Tragedy & disaster, compounded in the US by mismanagement but felt everywhere. #Covidville

I'm going to leave the "Friday" (early Saturday morning) update there. Sadly, Saturday I expect #Covidville to grow larger than Coral Springs, Florida, then Warren, Michigan and finally Gainesville, Florida. When will it stop, and how many dead? How many crippled?

#Covidville update for Saturday, July 11, 2020. The new CDC number today was 133,666, up 811 deaths from yesterday. As expected, we surpassed Cedar Rapids and Round Rock over the course of Friday. Saturday at the same rate would bring us to 134,477.

The population of #Covidville has grown past three cities over Saturday; Warren, Michigan at 133,943, Gainsville, Florida at 133,997, and by early Sunday we see Hampton, Virginia at 134,510. First up is Warren.

Warren is another suburb of Detroit and the third biggest city in Michigan. It's actually been losing residents along with Detroit, but still ranked here. Warren was founded as Beebee's Corners, a carriage stop, in 1830. #Covidville

Early businesses included a grain mill, distillery, tavern, and trading post, a compact source to consumer business model if there ever was one. The town was renamed Warren in 1837. #CovidVille

I don't appear to know anyone from Warren, and the Wikipedia article is short on descriptions of its arts and culture. Current industry is apparently led by GM Technical Center and the Detroit Arsenal, hosting US Army TACOM and TARDEC. #Covidville

Famous residents didn't include a lot of widely known names, but evidently rapper Eminem went to high school in Warren though he was born in Detroit proper. #Covidville

Later in the day, the death toll from Covid passed Gainsville, Florida. Again, I haven't been there myself, but here Wikipedia has some more information. In prehistory, native american habitation up to 12,000 years ago. #Covidville

2,500 years ago were the Deptford culture, then the Alachua and Potano. In the 1700s the Spanish ranched cattle there.
The American city was founded in 1854. #Covidville

In 1906, the University of Florida moved to Gainsville. In the 1960s, the sports drink Gatorade was invented there for the football team. Current employment is led by the university and dominated by education, health, and government. #Covidville

UF has been promoting business startups and tech incubators, with some success.

Transportation wise, I-75 runs along the city boundary. #Covidville

As is often typical with college towns, performing arts such as theater are strong, along with visual arts. Musically it's had a strong local scene, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers hails from Gainsville (as do two of the Eagles). #Covidville

With the arts and music scene, I think I'd like to visit next time I'm in Florida on business. Except for, you know, #Covidville and the pandemic.

The last city is Hampton, Virginia. Technically #Covidville is most likely passing the population of Hampton a bit after midnight Sunday morning, but as writing this up has taken me a bit past midnight into Sunday morning I'll include it here.

Hampton was established in the 1600s by early european colonizers, and now is one of the seven major cities making up the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. I believe I drove through once when young. #Covidville

Hampton has a university (Hampton University), is adjacent to Langley Air Force Base, and contains NASA Langley Research Center. Fort Monroe, from the 1600s, is now a historical park. A variety of industry and a NASCAR track are in the city. #Covidville

The Wikipedia entry lists mostly museums under arts and culture. Famous aerospace people from the city include Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson (Hidden Figures, NASA women mathematicians), Chris Kraft (NASA Flight Director). #Covidville

There just isn't much listed in the Wikipedia article about the city culture other than the businesses and the above. It's fairly likely that some people following are at/around Langley, let us know if you want what the city is like to live in. #Covidville

As the deceased population of #Covidville grows now we're seeing more and more locations and areas of national importance. Keep in mind, though, that the point of #Covidville isn't to just run up the list along with the death toll from the pandemic. It's to humanize the toll.

If you're in any of these cities, look around and think about what's been lost so far to COVID. Approaching 135,000 people is a national tragedy and disgrace. That it took seven months for the US President to wear a mask is a disgrace. Think about how many died. #Covidville

As always, remember the dead. As always, *keep yourself safe*, and your loved ones and friends and community. Wear a mask, minimize contact, wash your hands and sanitize. Don't become a victim. Survive this and remember what happened and what it's cost us. #Covidville

That's it for Saturday (and early Sunday morning). Later Sunday we're going to see the #Covidville death toll pass Visalia, California, and probably West Valley City, Utah. Past those at 137,566 population is Charleston, South Carolina, the largest city in South Carolina.

Charleston is the 200th largest city in the US. It may take a couple of days to get there. If it does, I'll go back and list some notable smaller cities, including other biggest-city-in-state cities in less populous states that #Covidville surpassed earlier in the pandemic.

Goodnight, stay safe, and remember the dead and the ill. #Covidville

Sadly, coming to you this early Monday morning is the retrospective #Covidville update for Sunday, July 12, which started Sunday at 134,572 dead on the CDC official charts.

As predicted, early Sunday the death toll passed Hampton, Virginia at 134,605 as described in the Saturday (actually very early Sunday morning) posts. At 910 deaths from Friday to Saturday totals, extrapolating to Sunday end of day puts us at 135,482 dead Sunday. #Covidville

At 135,482 over the course of Sunday #Covidville passed the populations of Visalia, California (134,605) and then West Valley City, Utah (135,248). The next after that, Charleston, SC, will probably come on Tuesday at this rate.

Visalia is on the southeast side of California's Central Valley, along Highway 99 between Fresno and Bakersfield. It's not far from Sequoia National Park and National Forest. #Covidville

The Yokuts and Mono native american tribes were resident in the area before European settlers. The first European written history was in 1722. Visalia was founded around a fort in the 1850s, named after the hometown of its first surveyor. #Covidville

The Visalia area (and Central Valley in general) started out agricultural, became boomtowns in the 1849 and onwards Gold Rush, and then grew steadily with the agricultural growth all over the valley. Visalia itself had rail, telegraph, and a local merchant center. #Covidville

Economically, Visalia's area is dominated by agriculture especially grapes, olives, cotton, and citrus. Cattle ranching is also significant, as are distribution centers and light industry including paper products. #Covidville

Famous people from Visalia include musicians Tom Johnson of the Doobie Brothers and Avi Kaplan of Pentatonix, and physicist Robert Laughlin, who won part of the 1998 Physics Nobel Prize. Steve Perry of Journey went to college at College of the Sequoias in Visalia. #Covidville

Visalia is the biggest city near the planned Kings City / Tulare California High Speed Rail station, but that's outside city limits.

I've driven through Visalia and stopped for gas, but not really gotten to know the town. #Covidville

Next is West Valley City, Utah. West Valley City is the second largest city in Utah. #Covidville

The area was Ute and Shoshone before europeans arrived. Four smaller areas were independently founded and then unified in one city in 1980. In the 2002 Olympics, it hosted the Ice Hockey competitions. #Covidville

The economy includes largest employer Discover Financial, several transportation companies, several aerospace companies, healthcare and financial services. #CovidVille

I-215 and SR-201 run at the outskirts of West Valley City. Bangerter Highway runs through the center, and the TRAX regional light rail has a station at the city hub. #Covidville

West Valley City has the Utah Grizzlies ECHL ice hockey team, playing at Maverick Center, the old Olympics stadium. USANA Amphitheater is a 20,000 seat open-air concert & event venue.

I wish there was more online about culture & entertainment in West Valley City. #Covidville

Those were the two US cities that #Covidville surpassed in population on Sunday, July 12th. Remember that these victims of #COVID19 are your friends & relatives, your coworkers & community members. There are now only 200 US cities larger than the number of dead from the virus.

How far is #Covidville going to grow? The answer is sadly a lot bigger. I hope not; I'm not a praying man, but if you are you might put in a word. Medicine won't save us, although it can lessen the worst of the effects.

Our behaviors and safety habits (Masks! Wash hands! Stay in!) are what we have to count on. Isolate, social distance, stay safe, and keep your family and neighbors safe by keeping yourself healthy. #Covidville

If you get ill, get tested for #COVID19. I hope you don't get it. Please don't move to #Covidville .

Good night.

Monday night / Tuesday morning update of the #Covidville project. As I expected there is somewhat of a gap between major cities, due to a unusually low 312 deaths and total dead of 134,884 by Monday morning.

That would indicate that as expected the population of #Covidville passed Visalia, California late Sunday, and by Monday morning sometime we passed West Valley City, Utah. Both were described last time.

Even with the prior several days average 8-900 deaths over the course of Monday, that would leave #Covidville smaller than Charleston, South Carolina until sometime Tuesday. So today, Covidville remains just below the limit for top-200 largest cities in the USA.

I wanted to take this unusually quiet #Covidville growth day to look at some smaller top-300 cities we grew past before the project started. Cities like Billings, Montana, the largest city in Montana.

You may remember Billings from treats such as Yellowstone. I remember driving through when it and I were much smaller. #Covidville

There was Burbank, California, where I flew in and out of repeatedly on my way to Thousand Oaks, and which houses Norton Sales (a most amazing aerospace surplus company) and a friend lives there. #Covidville

Boulder, Colorado, with fun arts, entertainment, and Colorado University, which I’ve visited several times for conferences. #Covidville

As the sun’s rising on Tuesday in California I’m going to leave it at that. I could list out sports stadiums that #Covidville grew past, but that would be all of them. I was trying to think of other analogies and ran out of imagination. #Covidville is huge.

Stay safe and remember people you’ve lost, for any cause. There are a lot of us mourning COVID victims now. Be good to your friends and family. #Covidville

This is the Tuesday night / Wednesday morning #Covidville report. At the end of Tuesday the CDC reported COVID-19 deaths totaled at 135,235. Having looked at the data for the CDC and NY Times tracking, there's clearly a weekly cycle of low Monday and Tuesday deaths numbers.

I don't know if that's actual lower death rates early in the week or if it's reporting artifacts. I am going to continue to use the CDC numbers without attempting to correct. This may mean my estimations for when #Covidville population passes particular cities are sometimes off

At 135,235, that says that officially at the end of Tuesday we hadn't actually passed West Valley City, Utah, so a little later than I'd predicted. If the 351 per day rate held steady, then Wednesday morning at 10 seconds to 1am Eastern Time #Covidville did pass West Valley City

If the rate bumps back up to last week's roughly 700-900 per day range, then #Covidville is headed towards Charleston, South Carolina in approximately 2 more days. I'm not reading any crystal balls, we'll see how the statistics go.

We're not at Charleston yet, but with no other cities in between I'm going to start easing into it. At an estimated 2019 population of 137,566, Charleston is the largest city in South Carolina. Like #Covidville, it's been growing rapidly. The city was founded in 1670.

The area around Charleston was originally inhabited by the Cusabo tribe of native americans. Of course, within a year of arriving, european settlers were at war with them. The settlers allied with another tribe, the Westo, in 1679, but then turned on them in 1680. #Covidville

Charleston suffered a smallpox outbreak in 1698, an earthquake and fire in 1699, yellow fever outbreak during rebuilding, and then a huge hurricane hit the city in 1713. #Covidville

Charleston history seems to have been inexorably intertwined with the slave trade until the Civil War. I'm going to leave it at that for Charleston for tonight, more details can come tomorrow. For now, as always, stay safe, wear masks, and stay isolated. #Covidville is booming

Consider over the next couple of days as we talk about Charleston the disease that's about to have robbed us of the equivalent of the whole population of the largest single city in the 23rd most populous state in the United States. #Covidville

The statistics are growing and growing, don't be one of them. Keep yourself, your family, your friends, your community safe. Believe the doctors. Use masks, wash hands and use hand sanitizers, stay inside / stay home. #Covidville

It's Wednesday, July 15th (for 14 more minutes as I type this part) and this is our #Covidville update for today. The CDC number today for deaths due to COVID-19 through yesterday is up to 135,991. Another 773 people moved to #Covidville ... err, died of COVID-19 on Tuesday.

773 doesn't sound so bad... except that there are parents, spouses/partners, children, grandchildren, ...friends, the twentyish close & hundredish more distant friends & family most of us count in our lives. Around a hundred thousand of us lost someone yesterday. #Covidville

If one of you lost someone yesterday, I'm sorry for your loss. Statistically, at my followers count, someone following me has lost someone they know every day since roughly March 30, probably many per day in the April-May peak. #Covidville

The total #Covidville population is still increasing towards the estimated 137,566 population of Charleston, South Carolina. There are 1,575 people to go. At Tuesday's rate, we'll reach there roughly midnight Thursday.

As we're still around 24 hours short of passing Charleston, we'll keep discussing that city in the leadup. But I also would like to point out that this weekend and early next week are likely to be lively again.... #Covidville

After Charleston, the next city is Fullerton, California at 138,632. After that, Orange, California at 138,669. Then Waco, Texas at 139,236 and Carrollton, Texas at 139,248. Dayton, Ohio is sometime next week at 140,407. #Covidville

As I mentioned earlier, Charleston SC is a bit marker. It's the 200th largest city in the United States, a very memorable marker in COVID-19's death toll. A terrifying marker. #Covidville

I was planning to go back into Charleston's history before and during the Civil War, but I think I'm going to skip that. It gets kind of morbid. I'll focus on what it is today, to the residents there now. #Covidville

Again going off Wikipedia because I haven't spent time in Charleston. I apologize if I miss anything important. #Covidville

The Charleston arts community seems pretty active, starting with the Spoleto Festival, with 100 different events and acts. Theater includes the Footlight Players community theater group. Other events include Taste of Charleston and MOJA Arts #Covidville

Charleston's music heritage includes music and dance descended from the Gullah african-american community. Geechee dances from dockworkers morphed into jazz dance and music such as the Charleston Rag in the early 20th century. #Covidville

Without digging into city statistics, I don't have the employment breakdown, but tourism, shipping, and manufacturing including auto industry are major segments. #Covidville

I'm going to leave off at this point. In approximately 24 hours, the population of #Covidville should pass Charleston's population. That's the 200th largest city in the United States, one of the oldest cities in the US, 109 square miles of history and vibrant life.

As always.... Remember what's happening. Don't become what's happening. Stay in as much as possible, wear masks always when you're out, wash hands and sanitize. If you start to get sick with a fever, go get tested. If you get it, don't spread it. Survive this. #Covidville

[Organizational note on #Covidville project]
I've been using the CDC website count for total death count from COVID-19 pandemic in the USA to date. However, the recent White House intervention to strip the data flow from the CDC and centralize it in HHS is appalling.

The administration are transparently trying to set things up to allow them to misreport the total cost of the pandemic. Cost in lives, not dollars. And that's not acceptable. #Covidville

If the CDC site stops being reliable, I will shift over to the NY Times website tally of the death toll, see link below. It's currently about 400 higher than the CDC number, not seriously divergent. #Covidville

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

I hope not to have to, but the impact must be accurately reported. Shifting statistical sources in the middle of something like this is unfortunate, but accuracy is more important than precision for times like these. [End administrative note] #Covidville

#Covidville update for Thursday July 16, 2020 (typing a bit after midnight into Friday the 17th). This has been a bad, sad 24 hours. CDC official count 136,938 , plus 947 dead; NY Times 138,268 , and NPR 137,419. I mentioned yesterday that I started looking beyond CDC.

We'll still use the CDC count for now but I'm including the others for context. #Covidville

We've been sneaking up on the population of Charleston, South Carolina, estimated at 137,566 in 2019. With 136,938 dead by end of Wednesday and three solid days over 700 dead, by the time I'm writing this on early Friday morning it's safe to say #Covidville reached there.

It's also pretty clear that absent a sudden lull in deaths, #Covidville population will pass the next two cities, Fullerton, California at 138,632 and Orange, California at 138,669 . Fullerton is the 199th largest US city and Orange the 198th largest.

However, today is today. Today is Charleston's day. Charleston at #200 on the US cities list, One of America's oldest cities and still a significant one today. Charleston, the largest city in the entire state of South Carolina. #Covidville

#Covidville is, to restate the purpose of this tweet project, the size of the city of our dead in the United States due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic in 2020. I'm putting the size of that in context in comparison to the real live US cities that #Covidville is passing.

Today it's passing Charleston, SC. Since there was a gap in populations that took #Covidville a couple of days to surpass, I've been talking about Charleston already for a bit. One of the US cities founded in the 1600s, an original colony center.

If you started reading names of the dead at the rate of one every two seconds, right now as I type this, you would finish up Monday morning, assuming you could stay up and keep talking continuously. #Covidville

From downtown Charleston, it's about 2 miles in any direction before you come to a human who doesn't live in the city of Charleston. If #Covidville had happened in Charleston, you'd walk for half an hour or more before you found someone left alive.

Today, there is no place in South Carolina larger than the population of the city of the dead COVID-19 has built us.

There are only 199 larger cities in the whole country. Tomorrow it may only be 197. #Covidville

The 100th largest city in the United States is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at 220,236 living people. Based on current case counts, and the April and May fatality rates, we could reach there in the next month (though I hope the current spike is not as severe as feared). #Covidville

The 75th largest is Chula Vista, California at 274,492. The 50th largest is New Orleans, Louisiana at 390,144. The 25th largest is Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at 655,057.

If this second wave doubles the total dead, we'll be at Chula Vista by the end of summer. #Covidville

If we have a third fall wave, and another equal death rate, #Covidville will pass New Orleans and be somewhere near Minneapolis, Minnesota at 429,606.

Nobody can predict that far ahead, and people's behavior changes will affect the spread. But #Covidville *is* booming.

I wish I could visit Charleston today and see the city arts, museums, restaurants. Feel the history. Meet the people, find the vibe. Smell the air, feel the roads, touch the water.

It's not safe to at all right now. #Covidville

It feels wrong to be telling you about all these comparably sized cities of the living and what it would be like to lose them, without knowing them in person. I do seriously invite residents to talk about their cities following these posts. #Covidville

What would we all be losing, if #Covidville was your city? What would you be losing?

The disease has robbed us all of so much.

Goodbye, Charleston. You have so much to offer. But #Covidville must move on because the deaths aren't stopping.

Friday night, July 17, and #Covidville is booming. The CDC total fatalities from the pandemic number is up to 137,864 tonight, plus 926 from yesterday. NY Times is up at 139,186; 138,364 for NPR. NY Times was updated later in the day. I'm still using the CDC number for now.

At 137,864 for the end of day Thursday number, the City of #Covidville did pass Charleston, South Carolina as predicted. Next up are Fullerton, California at 138,632 and Orange, California at 138,669 people respectively.

With daily increases over 900 dead for the last 2 days, #Covidville probably passed both of them over the course of Friday. Plus 900 dead would be 138,864. Not to Waco or Carrollton Texas, at 139,236 and 139,248 respectively. Those will be about midday Saturday at this pace.

Fullerton and Orange are strangely physically close together for their proximity on the populations list; they're both in Orange County, California. They almost touch, separated by a thin wedge of Anaheim and Placentia. Their general area was settled in the 1700s. #Covidville

Fullerton was founded in 1887; Orange in 1869. I'll focus on Fullerton first. It was part of the Mission era 1837 land grant Rancho San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana, granted to Juan Pacifico Ontiveros. He sold parts to Abel Stearns, who sold to Domingo Bastanchury. #Covidville

Bastanchury sold in 1886 to George & Edward Amerige, who purchased it speculating on rumored railroad expansions. They then apparently (?) bribed George H. Fullerton, head of a Santa Fe Railroad subsidiary, with free railway rights & half the land, to route there. #Covidville

In 1887 the rail line was re-planned through Fullerton and the land split. In 1894, Charles Chapman purchased an orange orchard in Fullerton, brought Valencia Oranges, and citrus agriculture took off, along with walnuts and avocados. #Covidville

Oil Drilling also was growing, and drove another boom through the 1920s. After the depression, the city shifted rapidly to manufacturing and food processing rather than growing. #Covidville

Leo Fender, of the guitars, started his factory and invented the Telecaster and Stratocaster in Fullerton in the 1950s. The city was moving towards suburbanization, and in 1957 what's now Cal State University Fullerton was opened in the city. #Covidville

After 2000, the city ran out of open development land, and needed downtown revitalization and entertainment district management. #Covidville

Employment is now dominated by education and medical, with Raytheon, Alcoa Fastening Systems, and the Vons corporate HQ as other major employers. #Covidville

Fullerton has had a vibrant music scene, including a major part of the Orange County Punk Scene, including bands Agent Orange and Social Distortion. No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani was attending CSU Fullerton and the band played there in early years. #Covidville

Fullerton has a big music festival each summer solstice (June 21), Day of Music Fullerton. Recent years (other than this one) have had over 150 performances in 40 or more venues. Fullerton also has a vibrant small theaters scene for plays. #Covidville

The railroad still runs through Fullerton, and Interstate 5 creases a corner. The freeway system and jobs in Los Angeles helped transform the city into residential post-WW 2. #Covidville

I have been to Fullerton in passing, and briefly stopping in downtown. All of Southern California has a certain sun relaxed vibe, Fullerton no exception. I missed seeing the music and arts parts though, I should go back. #Covidville

If #Covidville had happened in Fullerton, we'd have missed a lot of oranges, the Stratocaster, and Social D. That would hurt, man. I'm glad it's not just happening in Fullerton. But it is happening everywhere.

On to Orange, California. #Covidville

Orange's early history is much the same as Fullerton, including the Spanish land grants and railroad speculation. It evidently missed the oil fields and manufacturing boom, instead getting a Post-WW2 suburban residential boom through the 1970s. #Covidville

Orange's economy is dominated by healthcare, with a good chunk of education and government employers. I-5 and the same Santa Fe railroad line through Fullerton both cross Orange as well. #Covidville

Other than sports figures, the two most notable people I can find from or residing in Orange are Dean Koontz, who moved there and included the area in a number of novels, and Mike Pompeo, whose recent accomplishments might seem to belong in a Koontz novel. #Covidville

The culture section in the Wikipedia article is pretty bare. Orange has a rumored reputation in northern California as kind of boring; I don't have any personal information to either contradict or add to that description. Any Orange residents want to speak up? #Covidville

I have stopped in Orange before, for gas and a bit of exploration, but not enough to get the local vibe. I should do better at ferreting out local culture and arts, but sadly #Covidville is moving rapidly and there is only so much time.

The #Covidville project is here to put the pandemic deaths into context. We've almost lost 140,000 people so far in the United States. We're looking at over 200,000 by the time this second wave peaks, if the models are right. #Covidville

The United States is the biggest country in the world in global reach and nominal economy (second if you go by purchasing power parity). We are currently the biggest flop in the COVID pandemic. We had all the advantages going in and are still the biggest loser. #Covidville

We need the ability to do ten or twenty times as many COVID-19 tests per day; there are more cases than there is test capacity now. We have several areas headed into the same hospital capacity shortage as killed tens of thousands in New York & New Jersey. #Covidville

#Covidville is like if everyone you personally know, and everyone that they personally know, and a few times more than that all died all at once. Tens or hundreds of square miles of population wiped out at once.

The high end estimate for the number of people killed when the US bombed Hiroshima is 140,000 people. #Covidville will exceed that number this weekend.

You have to look at holocaust death camps or the Khmer Rouge genocide to find single intentional acts with more dead in the last 100 years.

The US response must be counted as an intentional act. #Covidville

We must do better. If we don't do better, we'll be in a third wave of pandemic by the end of the year and looking towards a half million dead of COVID-19. #Covidville

Don't become a COVID-19 victim. Stay in, wear masks, wash hands and use hand sanitizer. Don't go where you don't have to. You have a job: Survive, help those around you survive, and remember what happened. And never let this happen again. #Covidville

It's the Saturday Night ( / Sunday very early morning) #Covidville update for tonight, slightly delayed due to migraine. Today's numbers for our dead:
CDC 138,782 dead (Saturday morning update)
NYT 139,955 (Saturday night)
NPR 139,265 (Saturday morning)

CDC number in line with the others still, so will continue using it. My earlier discussion about political pressure possibly affecting the CDC results is still active, but no sign of inaccurate results yet. #Covidville

At 138,782 dead this morning, the deceased population of #Covidville wasn't at Waco, Texas at 139,236 people or Carrollton, Texas at 139,248. But at this pace #Covidville passed both of them over the course of the day today.

Waco is a medium sized city on the freeway between Dallas/Fort Worth and Austin. It's a bit northeast of Killeen.

Waco was named for a Wichita tribe named the Waco, who lived there in pre-European times. Settlers arrived around 1824 and there was soon conflict.
#Covidville

Stephen F. Austin made a treaty with them in 1825, but over the next 50 years they were pushed north towards the Fort Worth region and then into Oklahoma. #Covidville

In 1866 the settlers had the first bridge across the Brazos River built at the city, causing an immediate economic boom as a transportation hub. The bridge still stands, now only used by pedestrians.
#Covidville

In 1885, Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco. The next year, Baylor University moved to Waco. In 1895 what was to become Texas Christian University moved to Waco; it stayed until 1910, moving to Fort Worth after the main building in Waco burned down.
#Covidville

The Waco area became a major cotton producer, and from 1894-1931 the Cotton Palace Fair was held at a dedicated building. The building was torn down in the Depression, but the fair continues to this day. #Covidville

In the 20th century, race relations became troubled. In 1916, african-american teen Jesse Washington was lynched after confessing to raping and murdering his employers' wife. The lynching was done openly in the middle of town, including burning his body. #Covidville

That led to an NAACP investigation and anti-lynching laws. An NAACP investigator eventually agreed that he'd been guilty, but photos of the burnt body and mutilations were spread worldwide and led to some reforms. #Covidville

An attempt by citizens to lynch another african-american teen in 1923 was stopped by the local sheriff. That man was eventually executed for murder. #Covidville

In 1942 an Army pilot training airfield was opened; that is now the local airport.

In 1953, a tornado hit downtown Waco, killing 114 people. To date, that was the 11th deadliest tornado in the United States. It was the first tornado tracked by radar.
#Covidville

In 1964, the Texas Rangers Museum (now Hall of Fame and Museum) opened in Waco.

In 1978, bones of 68,000 year old Mammoths were discovered near the river confluence. They're now in a Mammoth Museum in Waco.
#Covidville

In 1993, a Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raid on the Branch Davidian complex 13 miles from Waco led to a gunfight leaving 10 dead and a siege and eventual fire that killed 74 more.
#Covidville

Today, Baylor University is the largest employer in Waco, with significant other educational, health, and government employent. L3 Technologies is the 4th biggest employer.
#Covidville

A number of famous actors were born in or raised in Waco. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Steve Martin, Peri Gilpin, and director Kevin Reynolds were born in Waco. Terrence Malick and Shannon Elizabeth were raised in Waco.
#Covidville

Thomas Harris, author of "Silence of the Lambs" went to Baylor and reported for the local paper's police beat.
Ted Nugent lives outside Waco now. Jessica Simpson was raised partly in Waco; her sister Ashlee was born there.
#Covidville

Ann Richards, former Texas governor, was born just outside Waco and graduated from Baylor.

Heloise of the "Hints from Heloise" newspaper column was a Waco native.
#Covidville

I've never been to Waco; all of the above are from Wikipedia and related sources. I think we can all agree that Waco made a noticeable impact on the country. I would like to have more personal, more arts and culture information to add, I just don't know it.
#Covidville

I'll be firing off the Carrollton coverage in a bit. #Covidville

Carrollton, Texas is in the north center of the Dallas / Fort Worth region. It was settled by europeans from 1842, initially agricultural but with railroads from 1878 it gained significance as a transportation center and industry.
#Covidville

I drove right past Carrollton a number of years ago on a business trip, but didn't stop. At least I've seen part of the town. #Covidville

In 1912 a gravel production industry started in Carrollton, and in 1913 the city was incorporated. By WW 2, it had significant grain and gravel businesses as well as dairy and a bricks plant. #Covidville

By 1970, residental suburban growth out of the north end of Dallas reached Carrollton and led to rapid population growth ; 1610 residents in 1950, 4,200 by 1960, and almost 14,000 by 1970. It had 40,000 residents by 1980 and 82,000 by 1990. #Covidville

Top employers today are a mixture of consulting, light manufacturing, financial, and information industries. #Covidville

I've googled around some looking for specifics about local arts and entertainment, culture, etc. Not much seems to be online. This feels like inadequate coverage; unfortunately, I can only describe what I can find online now. Travel there would be unsafe due to #Covidville

Tonight we've seen two cities in Texas passed by #Covidville . Tomorrow, it will probably pass Dayton, Ohio, Olanthe, Kansas, and Mesquite, Texas. They're the 195th, 194th, and 193rd largest cities in the United States.

As I noted yesterday, at some point tomorrow #Covidville's dead population will also exceed those killed in the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.

At this point, hardly a day goes by without someone I follow on Twitter, or a follower of a follower, reporting about a friend or family member dead. It's not just the quarantines, the masks, the lives disrupted. It's about the ill. It's about real lives lost. #Covidville

Take some time on Sunday to think about your community. How many of the closest 140,000 people living near you do you know? In normal times, how many do you see on the street, in shops? Church? Restaurants? Theaters? Parks?
#Covidville

For me, that's tens of square miles of people all gone.

That's what COVID-19 has done to us. #Covidville

Be smart. Be resilient. Remember. Be humble. Stay safe.

Wear a mask, stay in as much as you can, wash your hands and use hand sanitizer. If you feel sick, get tested.
#Covidville

Stay in touch with your friends and neighbors and family. Safely, please. But remember, you're not dead. They're not all dead. We're the lucky ones, so far. Stay that way. Stay connected by phone or text or zoom or whatever.

Goodnight.
#Covidville

It's Sunday night, July 19, 2020, and #Covidville keeps gaining people by the hundreds. Well, we're losing people by the hundreds. Today's numbers are:
CDC: 139,659 (Sunday AM, +877)
NYT: 140,373 (Sunday PM)
NPR: 140,114 (Sunday AM)

It looks like #Covidville did not in fact pass the population of the next city up by end of day today. That would be Dayton, Ohio at 140,407 people. Dayton gets a brief reprieve. Good luck, Dayton. Probably see you tomorrow, unfortunately.

There's a cluster next, though. From Dayton we find Olanthe, KS at 140,545; Mesquite, TX at 140,937; Pasadena, CA at 141, 029; Miramar, FL at 141,191; Thornton, Colorado at 141,464; Roseville, CA at 141,500; Denton, TX at 141,541; and Surprise, AZ at 141,664. #Covidville

We've seen statistically a downturn in fatalities on Monday and Tuesday, so it could start slowly. I'm not going to assume the Mon/Tue low numbers trend nor assume a shape to the overall curve yet, though it's concerning. #Covidville

As predicted, we did pass the population killed in Hiroshima in the nuclear bombing. #Covidville

This cluster of cities will bring us from sea to shining sea, and everywhere in between. Pasadena in the LA area, the Rose Parades, Rose Bowl, & NASA JPL. So much for most of our exploration of distant planets, though the flowers may breathe a sigh of relief. #Covidville

Miramar, Florida, big city in the Miami metropolitan area. Spirit Airlines corporate HQ is in Miramar. #Covidville

I'm going to be sad, fast paced week, seeing a pile of cities here. We deserved better, the pandemic shouldn't have been this out of control. But it is now.

Stay safe, stay in, wear masks, wash hands and sanitize. Stay healthy. It's going to be a deadly week #Covidville

It's Monday night / Tuesday morning, July 20 / 21 2020 and this is tonight's #Covidville report. The death toll in the US today per the various tallies I'm using are:
CDC: 140,157 (+498, Monday AM)
NYT: 140,903 (Monday PM)
NPR: 140,529 (Monday AM)

Still using CDC for now.

The data indicates that as of the morning CDC tally time, #Covidville dead from the pandemic were still fewer than the population of Dayton, Ohio at 140,407 people. That wasn't true by noon. Shortly afterwards, it passed Olanthe, Kansas. We'll talk about them.

Dayton is the 195th largest city in the United States. It was founded in 1796, in a good location for river and road travel. In 1827 construction started on a Dayton / Cincinnati canal which further enhanced its transportation capacity. #Covidville

Dayton was a manufacturing center from the mid-1800s. National Cash Register was formed in 1884 in Dayton from an earlier company. Dayton was the home of the Wright Brothers and their famous Flyer was built nearby. #Covidville

Aviation remains strong in the area, with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and associated infrastructure active to the current day.

The city suffered a catastrophic flood in 1913, prompting many hydraulic engineering and flood control efforts. #Covidville

In WW 2, a branch of the Manhattan Project to develop the Polonium neutron triggers used in early atomic bombs was housed in the area. Numerous other war industry activity was in the area as well. #Covidville

Manufacturing has been somewhat in decline more recently, and Dayton's population has been slowly falling since the 1980s. The city has been diversifying into other industries. #Covidville

In 1995, Dayton hosted the negotiations that ended much of the war in the former Yugoslav states. Histories of those events said that the city population rallied to encourage the negotiations and negotiators towards success. #Covidville

In 2019, an extensive Tornado swarm damaged large parts of the city but only killed one person. #Covidville

Dayton has a good depth of "classical" culture; A Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera, and Ballet (sharing the same event center), numerous other playhouses and performance centers for theater and music events. #Covidville

There are a good number of local entertainment attractions, including airshows and Folk and Celtic music festials among several others. #Covidville

The city is at the junction of I-70 and I-75 interstate freeways. Two universities are in the city, private University of Dayton and public Wright State University. #Covidville

The next city #Covidville passed is Olanthe, Kansas. It's in the Kansas City metropolitan area. It was founded in 1857 by John Barton, allegedly named after the local Shawnee word for "Beautiful", after Barton was struck by the beauty of local flowers and land.

Early history was marred by violence over the slavery issue, and when Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861 as a free state Olanthe was garrisoned with Union soldiers and local militia. Several Confederate raids, one successful, challenged the occupation. #Covidville

Olanthe was a staging point for the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe trails west until the coming of the transcontinental railroad. After that it faded for a while until I-35 was built in the 1950s tying the city to Kansas City. #Covidville

As a residential suburb of the Kansas City area, it started seeing significant population growth and is still believed to be growing, expanding out into farming areas west and south of the city. #Covidville

The economy now has mixed employers including local government, educational, and health centers, but also Garmin and Honeywell avionics. #Covidville

The Wikipedia entry is pretty bare on the local arts and entertainment. I tried googling and looking up the local chamber of commerce. Other than a local entertainment arcade/restaurant/bowling alley/laser tag complex, google showed two adult clubs next. #Covidville

I've never been to Olanthe. I did recognize one of its sister cities, though; Ocotlan, Jalisco, Mexico. Not since the lake came back, but I've spent time in the past around Lake Chapala and drove through Ocotlan more than once. Nice place. #Covidville

Of the two cities #Covidville passed, I think Dayton is more dynamic to Olanthe's residential suburban life. But they're both noticeable american cities. Without Dayton, we'd not have had modern cash registers, airplanes, and an important treaty 25 years ago.

Olanthe may be a residential suburb, but it's an important one for the Kansas City region. That's over 140,000 people, 61 square miles of people.

That's what the COVID-19 pandemic passed today.
#Covidville

I don't know whether airplanes and a peace treaty beat 61 square miles of normal americans. "Beat" is a terrible word for this anyways. The pandemic is beating us all, with how we're treating it. We have to get better. #Covidville

It's now taken from us the equivalent of one of these cities. The pandemic will keep doing so relentlessly, hundreds or thousands per day, until we're smart, stay safe, wear masks, isolate, and care for each other. #Covidville

Don't be a victim. Remember when the pandemic was smaller than Dayton or Olanthe. Remember before it was as destructive as wiping out tens of square miles of americans. Remember what we're losing and what we lost. #Covidville

Stay safe. Help your neighbors. Try and find some joy in what we have now without putting anyone at risk. But remember the danger and the losses. Goodnight. #Covidville

Greetings from #Covidville, this is the Tuesday night / early Wednesday morning July 21/22nd report. Our US fatalities from the pandemic are, at last report from sources:
CDC: 140,630 (Tuesday AM)
NYT: 142,028 (Tuesday PM)
NPR: 140,987 (Tuesday AM)

Still using CDC.... but...

...as we can see from the NY Times report on Tuesday evening's statistics, it's been a brutal, brutal day and we had over 1,000 more dead today for the first time in months. #Covidville

Yesterday was Dayton, Ohio and Olanthe, Kansas. Today's end of day list is going to look like:
Mesquite, TX (140,937)
Pasadena, CA (141,029)
Miramar, FL (141,191)
Thornton, CO (141,464)
Roseville, CA (141,500)
Denton, TX (141,541)
Surprise, AZ (141,664)

#Covidville

Seven cities. The population of our COVID-19 pandemic dead went from the 194th biggest city in the US to the 193rd, 192nd, 191st, 190th, 189th, 188th, 187th, and *nearly* passed Syracuse, NY for 186th place among American cities. In one day.
#Covidville

If Wednesday's death toll is similar, it will pass Syracuse around 8am Eastern Time, about four hours from now. #Covidville

There is a little slowdown in the statistics growth then, because McAllen, Texas is 143,288 to Syracuse's 142,327 residents, and it probably won't reach McAllen until Thursday. But McAllen and Torrance, California are lined up for this week. #Covidville

And Bridgeport, Connecticut next. #Covidville

I'm going to take a brief pause and moment of silence before I proceed through the city descriptions. Seven at once wasn't what I thought I'd have to do tonight.
#Covidville

Mesquite, Texas prehistory shows that three native american tribes lived in the area near the time of contact. The Ionies, Tawakonies, and Caddo, with the Caddo being farmers on present day Mesquite's area. From 1680 to 1790 they held annual tournaments and fairs. #Covidville

The modern city was settled in 1878, on the east side of Dallas on the railway line between Dallas and Louisiana. It was an agriculture town until after WW 2, when suburban residential expansion started. #Covidville

In 1959, Big Town Mall, the first air-conditioned mall in the US, opened in Mesquite. Freeways came, including loop freeway I-635 and I-30, I-20, and US Route 80. #Covidville

Mesquite has been a rodeo town since the 1940s; operating at a fixed location, it was televised by ESPN from the 1980s. #Covidville

Mesquite has a long green tradition with trees as a major civic focus. It built an arts center including a 500-seat performance hall, now used by a Community Theater, Community Band, and Symphony Orchestra. #Covidville

According to Wikipedia, @ID_AA_Carmack lives in Mesquite. While I can't claim to be a close friend, John and I have met at numerous rocketry events and conferences over the last 20 years. #Covidville

So, Mesquite was the first city that #Covidville grew past today. I didn't remember John lived there; that would be a personal loss and a great loss for several technical communities: AI, visualization, gaming, and rocketry. Sadly I have six more cities to do and must move on.

Next up is Pasadena, California. Home of among other things the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, a major space related site. I'm having a tough night. #Covidville

Pasadena is the biggest city in the San Gabriel Valley, northeast of Los Angeles proper. It's known for the Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses parade on new years. It has a number of educational facilities including Caltech university. #Covidville

Before europeans settled Pasadena, it was inhabited by the Hahamog-na tribe of the Tongva nation. Next came the Spanish and Mexican missionaries and land grants. It hosted a vineyard and a respiratory recovery colony early on. #Covidville

It was a notable resort from the 1880s to WW 2. The Raymond Hotel was built in 1886, others followed. By WW 2 it had significant technology and manufacturing industries. #Covidville

The 210 freeway was built through Pasadena in 1970, followed by a decade of economic downturn. It's picked up again more recently. #Covidville

The top employers today are JPL, Caltech, hospitals, other colleges & schools, and Bank of America. Old Town Pasadena is a 21-block open air mall with entertainment, dining, and retail. The Pasadena Playhouse is the State Theater of California, over 100 years old. #Covidville

Pasadena also has a Symphony, Pops orchestra, performing arts center with various music and theater productions. The city holds a twice annual ArtNight Pasadena and PasadenART Weekend. Red Hen Press, an independent literary publisher, is based in Pasadena. #Covidville

Pasadena is on the LA Metro Aera light rail Gold Line, with six stations in town. #Covidville

Pasadena has been colonized by several species of parrots. A popular theory for why is that a number of birds were set free to save their lives in 1959 when a pet store was burning down. #Covidville

A tremendous number of notable people live in Pasadena; fewer were born there, but two that caught my interest are the late author Octavia Butler, and Internet pioneer Steve Crocker. #Covidville

Five more cities. Next is Miramar, Florida #Covidville

Miramar was founded in 1953 as a bedroom community for Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Though it's seen high population growth, the city planned and managed that. Wikipedia states that 2/3 of the city remains undeveloped, which a brief OSINT overhead review questions. #Covidville

The Wikipedia entry is thin on arts and culture. Anyone from Miramar is welcome to follow up with some local details. #Covidville

I don't think that's fair coverage for a city of over 140,000 people, but I've not been there and online resources are thin. I apologize to the residents of Miramar. #Covidville

Next is Thornton, Colorado. Thornton is northeast of Denver proper in the Denver metropolitan area. It was farmland until 1953, when Sam Hoffman purchased land and designed the planned community of Thornton. #Covidville

I-25 and I-76 interstate freeways go past or just inside Thornton, giving it good road connectivity in the Denver area. It has good outdoor activities and parks, and an extensive list of local restaurants. I'm unable to find a good online entertainment guide. #Covidville

Again, it's a busy night and not much is online but I feel badly treating a city this big in so few tweets. If you're a resident, please add some more local flavor. #Covidville

Next up is Roseville, California. Roseville is a suburb of Sacramento, California, lying out Interstate 80 towards Tahoe and Reno and places further east. State route 65 runs north from I-80 in Roseville. #Covidville

Roseville was originally a stagecoach station named Griders. In 1864 the Central Pacific Railroad was built north from Sacramento; where it met the California Central Railroad was then named "Junction", and that became Roseville later on. #Covidville

Roseville was a railroad town into the 1970s; in the 50s the conversion to diesel engines and rise of interstate highway traffic changed the economics. Roseville shifted towards residential. #Covidville

Between 1985 and 2000 it tripled in size, and doubled again by 2019. Businesses like Hewlett Packard and NEC arrived in Roseville in the late 70s and mid 80s. #Covidville

As of 2017 the top employers were hospital / health, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the Union Pacific Railroad, city, and varioius education districts. #Covidville

I've been through Roseville and stopped for gas and snacks, but not explored the town. I will take the next opportunity headed through town after the pandemic to get to know the city better. #Covidville

Down to our last two. Next is Denton, Texas. Denton is another suburb in the Dallas / Fort Worth metropolitan area, north of those two cities proper. That's the second major DFW suburb *tonight*. #Covidville

The county was formed by land grant in 1846, and the city incorporated in 1866. The railroad in 1881 spurred development, including University of North Texas in 1890 and Texas Woman's University in 1901. #Covidville

Denton was incorporated in 1866. It was an agricultural trading center, and then transportation center. After WW 2 it gained heavy manufacturing companies as well. #Covidville

Denton lies on I-35 as well as railroad routes. #Covidville

Wikipedia lists a number of entertainment events; North Texas State Fair and Rodeo, Denton Arts and Jazz Festival, 35 Denton Music Festival. Total attendance (pre-Covid) was apparently over 300,000. #Covidville

The social, business, entertainment culture of Denton aren't well documented online. I looked at several references but other than the music events listed above, not a lot came up. Write more about your city, Dentonese! Dentoners? Anyways. Spread the word. #Covidville

Tuesday's last #Covidville city is Surprise, Arizona. Surprise forms roughly the northwest corner of the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. It was founded in 1938 by Flora Mae Statler, who said she "would be surprised if the town ever amounted to much".

Surprise started as subdivisions for inexpensive agricultural worker housing. Its first huge growth spurt was the 1990s addition of Del Webb retirement community, Sun City Grand. The economy is led by schools, retail, and government workers. #Covidville
#Covidville

Baseball wise, the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers have spring training in Surprise. The city otherwise hosts golf, tennis, and outdoors leisure activities. Not much listed for nightlife or civic arts. #Covidville

A bunch of these cities felt like I didn't do them justice. But with #Covidville passing seven all at once, I only had so much time. If you know these cities or live there, take a moment to think about what it would be like without your city.

The pandemic is spiking again, and everyone needs to do their part to avoid becoming a victim. Be smart, use masks, stay indoors, wash and sanitize hands. #Covidville is happening. Don't make it happen to you. Thank you. Goodnight.

This is the Wednesday July 22, 2020 / early Thursday morning #Covidville pandemic deaths update. Our pandemic fatalities numbers today are:
CDC: 141,677 (Wed AM)
NYT: 143,165 (Wed PM)
NPR: 142,070 (Wed AM)

second day in a row over 1000 dead.

Based on the list of top US cities and their populations, #Covidville's city of the dead moved past Syracuse, New York at 142,327 residents this afternoon and probably past McAllen, Texas (143,268) tonight. I don't think it passed Torrance, California (will tomorrow, though).

Syracuse is in upstate New York, southeast of Lake Ontario roughly between Albany and Rochester. It's on I-90 and I-81 and contains their intersection. Previously it connected Erie Canal branches and main line, and was a major railroad center. #Covidville

French missionaries came to the area in the 1600s at the invitation of the Onondaga Nation, one of the five native american nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Jesuits and soldiers set up Sainte Marie, a mission on Onondaga Lake. #Covidville

French fur traders established trade routes, Dutch and English colonists traded, and the English claimed the area from Albany, NY. During the Revolutionary War the area was contested as Iroquois tribes and bands split their allegiance. #Covidville

Settlers moved in from eastern New York and from New England. The salt trade, from natural salt springs and halite (rock salt) deposits was a major driver for early habitation. The city was named Syracuse in 1820. #Covidville

Salt and chemical production including the invention of the Solvay process for soda ash production continued for some time. After the civil war, salt production declined but other manufacturing and chemical production boomed. #Covidville

Industries included Franklin Automobile Company, Century Motor Vehicle Company, Smith Corona typewriters, and the Craftsman workshops making Stickley handmade furniture. #Covidville

Syracuse University was founded in 1870. Before that, Geneva Medical College (now Upstate Medical University) opened in 1834. In 1841, the New York State Fair was held in Syracuse, and after moving around some it settled in Syracuse permanently. #Covidville

In World War 2, local production of steel, fasteners, and custom machining boomed. Manufacturing started to falter in the 1970s, with the US economy, but the population has been relatively steady through and since. #Covidville

The current top employers in Syracuse are universities and healthcare / hospitals. Lockheed Martin, Wegmans, and Carrier Corporation are significant as well. #Covidville

Syracuse has three Jazz festivals annually, and had a Symphony Orchestra, now replaced by Syracuse Symphoria. Syracuse Opera Company has a nearly 60 year history. The free Shakespeare Festival runs free events each year. #Covidville

Syracuse has a large contemporary music scene, including heavy metal, hardcore, ska, and punk rock. #Covidville

John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, is from Syracuse. As are a fairly long list of other lumenaries. #Covidville

I've never been to Syracuse. I apologize in advance to all the snow belt cities I've largely avoided; not my preference in climate. I don't think I know anyone from Syracuse; Cornell / Ithaca yes, but they're outside Syracuse's metro area, quite a bit more south. #Covidville

Syracuse is the 186th largest city in the United States. Without it, we would have lost a lot of early chemical industry and manufacturing, one of our older larger good research universities. A ton of people who made marks on the country as a whole. #Covidville

Other than the music, I don't know a ton about the town's culture and character and vibe. These are things that should bring life to the thread, but it's not the year to go on road trips to discover all these places. Pandemic has seen to that. #Covidville

Perhaps some Syracuse natives will chime in on the thread and tell us what the city is like. #Covidville

The #Covidville project is about humanizing the death toll from the pandemic. We've seen cities in every corner of the country passed by the pandemic death toll. Some are places I know, some that are wonderfully described online for those of us not personally familiar.

Remember that the project is fundamentally about deaths, though. We've had about 143, 000 people die so far of this, as of tonight. That's a horrible, horrific number. A small metropolitan area or medium sized city full of people dying before their time. #Covidville

That's what the pandemic has done to us. We mismanaged it, at the top and a lot of places at the bottom. Now it's got us. Remember to stay safe yourselves; stay in, socially distance, wear a mask. Wash your hands, use hand sanitizer. #Covidville

Be safe. Goodnight. #Covidville

It's Thursday night July 23 / Friday morning July 24th 2020 and this is today's update for #Covidville , where we keep tracking the growth of the pandemic dead compared to our real live cities in the United States.

Our numbers tonight:
CDC: 142,755 (AM) +1,078
NYT: 144,283 (late PM)
NPR: 143,843 (early PM) +1,195

Continuing the trend of significantly over a thousand dead per day. #Covidville

Very early today, #Covidville's city of the dead passed the population of McAllen, Texas, at 143,268, the 185th largest US city. Late in the day it passed Torrance, California at 143,592, the 184th largest US city.

It almost but not quite passed #183, Bridgeport, Connecticut; Bridgeport will be on tomorrow's report.
#Covidville

McAllen is a city in the Rio Grande Valley, near the southern tip of Texas, about 70 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. It was settled in 1904, on land partly donated to the railroad by John McAllen. #Covidville

Oil discoveries in Reynosa in 1947, across the border, led to increasing population in the general area. McAllen had mixed agricultural, oil, and tourist businesses by 1970. By the 80s economic troubles had affected both sides of the border. #Covidville

Cross border manufacturing and logistics have led to relative economic stability, and many McAllen area residents cross the border daily. In 2019, President Trump did a press event in McAllen at the border station. #Covidville

McAllen has a designated Foreign Trade Zone to facilitate international shipping and trade activities. the local airport is included in the designated area, for freight activities. #Covidville

Currently, McAllen is rated as one of the safest cities in Texas. Health is more problematic; while a number of diseases are rare, obesity and diabetes are higher than normal. #Covidville

Wikipedia briefly discusses recreation and educational activities, including the International Museum of Art and Science, birdwatching, and bike trails. Not much listed about music or theater or the like. #Covidville

Digging in other sources, I find McAllen's holiday parade, Palm Fest, Movies in the Park, Friday Artwalks, Sunset Live. Digging in, it seems to have a decent nightlife and local culture. Residents should put more of that into Wikipedia.
#Covidville

According to @HidalgoCounty (the county McAllen is in) their COVID-19 death toll through today is around 400, out of 869,000 residents total. That's slightly higher than the national average would suggest (around 375). The area is experiencing a second wave though. #Covidville

Next up is Torrance. Torrance is nestled mostly inland on the LA County, California coast, just north of Rancho Palos Verdes and south of Gardenia. About 1.5 miles of beach are in Torrance. #Covidville

Historically, the Tongva native americans lived in the area around Torrance. In 1784, the Spanish deeded Rancho San Pedro (including now-Torrance) to a soldier Juan Jose Dominguez. #Covidville

In the early 1900s developer Jared Torrance and investors decided to create a industrial-residential planned community, hiring Fredrick Law Olmstead Jr as the architect. The town was founded in 1912. #Covidville

Torrance's industry is diverse; the US Headquarters of Honda Motors, the main medical center, Honeywell Aerospace, Robinson Helicopters, Arconic (Alcoa Fasteners), two oil companies rounding it out. #Covidville

Once a major oil producing region, Torrance now has less wells than it once did but a major southern california oil refinery. #Covidville

Torrance's public Cultural Arts Center holds diverse events, including the Aerospace Players, the Art Museum, Los Cancioneros Master Chorale, South Bay Ballet, South Bay Conservatory, and the Torrance Symphony. #Covidville

Yelp and online resources show a ton of nightlife, bars, entertainment. I can't really get a good feeling for the city local vibe. I've been through Torrance but not stopped. We need to find more about the city's style. #Covidville

Today, #Covidville, our city of the pandemic dead, passed both these cities in population. They're important as residential cities, trade and industry. Southern California would be down much of its gasoline supply without Torrance. #Covidville

The rate of nationwide deaths from the pandemic is horrific. Every eighty seconds today, another Amerian died of COVID-19. And yesterday, and the day before. A city the size of Torrance, or McAllen. 58 square miles of people in McAllen, 20 in Torrance. #Covidville

In perspective, today's death toll totals compared to these cities. If you started at the beach in Torrance and walked due east, inland, it would be over an hour before you stopped walking through the cemetery full of the newly dead. #Covidville

In McAllen, you would walk over two hours north past nothing but the dead if you started at the bridge across the Rio Grande. Every house, apartment, townhouse, everything. All the cars and businesses. #Covidville

Tomorrow, as the death toll passes Bridgeport, Connecticut, there will be no city in the state of Connecticut bigger than the city of the COVID-19 dead. #Covidville

Take the pandemic seriously. Stay safe, stay home, socially distance yourself, wear masks, sanitize and wash your hands. Think about your risks of going out, how important each thing is to do. #Covidville

This is the #Covidville update that should have gone out last night; I started preparing it and fell over asleep. My apologies for the delay.

As of last night, COVID-19 US pandemic deaths reports were:
CDC: 143,868 (AM)
NYT: 145,978 (late PM)
NPR: 144,306 (AM, +1,114)

Cities passed Friday by #Covidville, our city of the pandemic dead:
Bridgeport, Connecticut 144,399
Savannah, Georgia 144,464

Saturday it's passing Paterson, NJ (145,233), Rockford, IL (145,609), and Midland, TX (146, 038).

Bridgeport is the largest city in Connecticut. It's on Long Island sound, at the mouth of the Pequonnock River, a historic seaport and one of the largest New England cities.
#Covidville

Before English settlement, Bridgeport's area was home to the Paugussett native american tribe. The first settlement, named Pequonnock, was in 1644. Then came Newfield, a little ways away, in 1695. The overall town was renamed Stratfield in 1695 or 1701.
#Covidville

The English settlers at the time fished and farmed; the native americans similarly cultivated corn and other crops, and fished and gathered shellfish. The port started to become an economic hub.
#Covidville

By the Revolutionary War, Newfield harbor was noted as a center of Privateering. When the Articles of Confederation were signed in 1781, many local farmers and businessmen were shareholders in ships trading up and down the US coast or with the West Indies.
#Covidville

The village became the Borough of Bridgeport in 1800, part of the nearby city of Stratford, named for the bridge across the river. Bridgeport Bank opened in 1806. In 1821 the Borough became an independent township.
#Covidville

By the 1840s the town was an independent city (1836), had steamship and whaling and railroad companies (to Massachusetts), and was a major port. In 1845 two more railroads opened, one to New York and one internal to Connecticut.
#Covidville

Industry increased rapidly. After the civil war, Bridgeport had iron foundries and factories making firearms, cartridges, locks, blinds, and sewing machines.
#Covidville

The city elected longtime resident and circus promoter P. T. Barnum mayor in 1875, and the Barnum and Bailey's Circus and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show became based at winter headquarters in Bridgeport.
#Covidville

Through the early 1900s the city became the major industrial center in Connecticut, with a population over 100,000. Immigrants from much of Europe came to Bridgeport. Singer became the second sewing machine factory in Bridgeport.
#Covidville

Early car company Locomobile opened in Bridgeport, producing a prototype of the Stanley Steamer. Other Bridgeport industry included typewriters, phonographs, milling machines, and 20% of America's corset production. Remington Arms' headquarters were in Bridgeport
#Covidville

In 1915, strikes imposed an eight-hour workday on the cities industry. Some feared business would flee; instead, it thrived and the eight hour day became standard throughout the Northeast US.
#Covidville

Growth continued through WW 2. After the war, industry began a slow decline and restructuring. Nearby suburbs attracted middle class residents, leading to economic decline. Bridgeport filed for bankruptcy in 1991 but was declared solvent.
#Covidville

In the 21st century, Bridgeport started redeveloping its downtown and neighborhoods. Rental conversions of former industrial and business properties and new developments added modern housing. Some projects planned were affected by the 2008 recession.
#Covidville

In 2009, 3 of the top 6 employers were hospitals, 2 were colleges, and the People's United Bank. Medium sized industry made up most of the rest top 10.
#Covidville

Bridgeport has a number of entertainment venues including the Downtown Cabaret Theatre, The Stress Factory comedy club, Klein Memorial Auditorium, and Webster Bank Arena with sporting events and concerts. Bridgeport Symphony uses the Klein Memorial Auditorium.
#Covidville

Bridgeport hosts a Discovery Museum and Planetarium, the Housatonic Museum of Art at Housatonic Community College, the Barnum Museum with circus history, and a small zoo, the Beardsley Zoo (reportedly the only one in Connecticut).
#Covidville

Bridgeport has an AHL hockey team, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, using the Webster Bank Arena. A former minor league baseball park, The Ballpark at Harbor Yard, hosted the Bridgeport Bluefish until 2017. It's now slated to be converted to an auditorium.
#Covidville

Transportation wise, I-95 runs through Bridgeport, along with several smaller highways. Amtrak and Metro-North commuter trains connect the city to New York City among others. There is a ferry service to Long Island.
#Covidville

I've driven through Bridgeport but never explored it.
Wikipedia hasn't got much on the current local culture, so google and yelp to the rescue. Bars and nightclubs popping up include M. White Lounge, Tautog Tavern, Azul Lounge, Sazon Y Mambo, The Acoustic.
#Covidville

(Meta-note - residents of cities should definitely add more about the culture and notable local events to Wikipedia... #Covidville )

And that's all I could really find on Bridgeport. Almost 145,000 people, about two miles along the water and three from shore to inland boundary. If #Covidville happened in Bridgeport, from the center, you'd walk a mile before you came across someone who'd survived COVID-19.

Connecticut is now yet another state that has no cities larger than the pandemic deaths from COVID-19.
#Covidville

I'm going to pause here and send a second subthread for Savannah, Georgia in a bit.
#Covidville

Savannah is a port city on the Georgia Atlantic coast, with about 144,464 residents. It's the oldest city in Georgia, established in 1733 on the Savannah River. It was the colonial era capital of Georgia, then the first state capital.
#Covidville

The Savannah River forms the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina, so Savannah is part of that boundary and regionally connected into areas of South Carolina as well as coastal Georgia.
#Covidville

It was founded by General James Oglethorpe and settlers from the ship Anne in 1733. They landed at Yamacraw Bluff and were met by the Yamacraw and Tomochichi native american tribes, along with two Indian traders John and Mary Musgrove.
#Covidville

In the Civil War, Savannah was the sixth most populous city in the Confederacy and the objective of Sherman's March to the Sea. It was spared the destruction that befell other cities when the city officials negotiated its surrender.
#Covidville

I feel like I should say more about Savannah's history with slavery, in this era of BLM and historical confrontation. Wikipedia's article on the city focuses on black slaves churches and secondary matters. I had to dig deeper.
#Covidville

I did find some references:
georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/histo…
theatlantic.com/business/archi…

I'll let you explore more on your own. The historical specifics are deeper and more nuanced than I can do adequately here.
#Covidville

Early Georgia economy was driven by the region's silk, indigo, and cotton growing. Savannah was the usual transshipment port for the export of those commodities. The port itself drove the city economy, and that is still true today.
#Covidville

Current economic drivers are the port, manufacturing, the military, and tourism. One of the worlds largest paper mills is in Savannah. Gulfstream Aerospace, manufacturer of large private jets, is headquartered there as well.
#Covidville

Savannah is the fourth largest port in the US for intermodal container traffic. 4.5 million 20-foot equivalents worth of containers were moved through the city in 2019.
#Covidville

Savannah hosts an annual book festival over Presidents' Day weekend. It has a Ballet Theatre, numerous local music festivals and performing groups including a Orchestra and Philharmoic, the Coastal Jazz association.
#Covidville

Savannah has numerous small and large theatres, independent, city affiliated, nonprofit and professional.
#Covidville

The city's tourist industry is a major part of the economy and culture. Historic districts, museums, parks, a number of memorials and monuments abound. Several coastal defense forts including Fort Jackson and Fort Pulaski remain as well.
#Covidville

Savannah hosts the Savannah Bananas minor league baseball team, Savannah Wildcats and C-Port Trojans (formerly Savannah Storm) minor league basketball teams, and Savannah Steam indoor football team.
#Covidville

Savannah hosts a number of colleges and universities. Georgia Southern University-Armstrong Campus, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah State University, South University, and Mercer Universities' medical school.
#Covidville

I-95 runs just west of Savannah proper, but through an incorporated area around the city owned Savannah / Hilton Head International Airport. I-16 terminates in downtown. I-516 is a perimeter highway around the city.
#Covidville

The city has incorporated areas outside the primary city limits to its southeast as well, so the city map has a number of unincorporated areas in between.
#Covidville

Savannah was the setting for John Berendt's 1994 nonfiction bestseller "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", and the movie adaptation three years later. There were some fictionalized elements (Berendt moved there after the murder rather than just before).
#Covidville

The book is credited with a 46% surge in tourism to Savannah over the two years after its publication, according to a Washington Examiner article.
#Covidville

Savannah is home to many overlapping subcultures and arts scenes; Southern traditional, the gay and transgender community, a wide variety of music & dance, industrial and port and military communities. I get the feeling you have to live there to truly understand it.
#Covidville

I have never been to Savannah but plan on going, after the pandemic.
#Covidville

With Bridgeport and Savannah, we've seen the pandemic deaths in America pass two old old Atlantic ports, dating to the 1600s and 1700s. Bridgeport is the largest city in Connecticut, Savannah the fifth-largest in Georgia. They're 183rd and 182nd biggrest in the US.
#Covidville

The pandemic death toll in the United States is distributed, but it only being catastrophic in a few geographical areas is fooling people. We're at four million diagnosed cases nationwide, an unknown number of undiagnosed cases. We are approaching 150,000 dead.
#Covidville

The second wave of COIVD-19 pandemic will surely top 200,000 dead, almost certainly 250,000, possibly 300,00 or more. At this rate we'll have another fall surge as well.

#Covidville

200,000 dead is Yonkers, NY, the 117th largest city in the US.

250,000 is Winston-Salem, NC, the 90th largest.

300,000 is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the 66th largest.

#Covidville

By the time we reach Pittsburgh, there will be more victims than the largest cities in Alaska, New Jersey, Idaho, Iowa, Alabama, Utah, Arkansas, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Mississipi, as well as today's Bridgeport, Connecticut, and all the prior ones.
#Covidville

If we reach 450,000 in a third wave by end of the year, that's Virginia Beach, Virginia, the largest city in Virginia.

We know better. We all need to urge government responsibility and save lives. Be safe yourself. Stay in, wear masks, wash hands & hand sanitize.
#Covidville

I'll update again Saturday night / early Sunday morning. For now, be safe, remember what's happening, stay sane, stay healthy. Try and safely do good things for your friends and loved ones this weekend. We need to get through this. Thank you.

#Covidville

It's Saturday night (11pm Pacific), and this is tonight's #Covidville update. Our pandemic death numbers tonight are:
CDC: 145,013 (AM, +1,145)
NYT: 146,314 (PM)
NPR: 145,541 (AM, +1,130)

At those numbers, by this evening #Covidville has passed Patterson, New Jersey, Rockford, Illinois, and Midland, Texas. This one's going to hurt.

First up is Patterson, NJ. Before American settlement, the native american Acquackanonk tribe was living in the area. The city was established in 1792, by the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures.
#Covidville

It was founded to extract energy from the Great Falls of the Passaic River. It was named for William Patterson, Governor of New Jersey, who signed the charter creating the city.
#Covidville

Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who had done initial plans for Washington DC, was the initial planner. He proposed to harness the water power through a channel in the rock and an aqueduct. He was taking longer than the society wanted, and was replaced by Peter Colt.
#Covidville

Cold proposed a simpler reservoir system to get water to factories in 1794. Eventually that system ran into some problems and was replaced by a scheme more like L'Enfant's in 1846.
#Covidville

Mills and industry were powered by the water until 1914. Initially the primary industry was textile, then firearms, silk, and railroad locomotive manufacture were significant. By the late 1800s silk was the dominant industry.
#Covidville

Samuel Colt started making firearms in Patterson, but moved a few years later to Hartford, Connecticut. Later in the 19th century, John Phillip Holland started his experiments with submarines in Patterson. Two early models are on display in the Patterson Museum.
#Covidville

The brewing industry was another major industry from the 1800s until Prohibition.
#Covidville

In the 1930s and 40s, the New York Black Yankees of the Negro National League played at Patterson's Hinchcliffe Stadium. The stadium is in disrepair but is one of the two surviving Negro League baseball stadiums in the US.
#Covidville

After WW2, Patterson played an important role in aircraft engine industry, but industry in the area was in decline. Unemployment increased in the 1960s. Immigrants have helped revitalize the area more recently.
#Covidville

Patterson partially flooded in Hurricane Irene in 2011.
#Covidville

The Wikipedia entry on Patterson describes over a dozen Patterson neighborhoods and current conditions and notable locations in them. I commend its details; they wouldn't fit here.
#Covidville

Ethnic groups strongly represented in Patterson today include Irish, Germans, Dutch, and Jewish immigrants in the early 1800s, Italian and Eastern European immigrants soon after, and in the late 1890s Syrian and Lebanese joined.
#Covidville

African Americans were joined by more recent Caribbean and African immigrants. Puerto Ricans are a strong influence in town, along with other Dominican, Peruvian, Columbian, Mexican, and Central Americans.
#Covidville

More recent diversity has included Turkish-American immigrants, Arab immigrants, specifically Syrian and Palestinians.

Bangladeshi immigrants are estimated to number around 15,000 now.
#Covidville

In terms of transportation, Interstate 80 runs through Patterson. It also has train transit to Hoboken and other New Jersey locations via NJ Transit Main Line commuter rail.
#Covidville

Lou Costello of Abbott & Costello comedy duo was born in Patterson. A number of films and TV series were set or filmed in Patterson. It's also know as where steam and electric powered model trains were invented.
#Covidville

I've never been to Patterson. It seems like an interesting, diverse city. I wish there were more on its social life and entertainment online, but the diversity sounds invigorating.
#Covidville

Next up is Rockford, Illinois. Rockford is the largest city outside the Chicago metropolitan area. It's on the Rock River, which gave it its eventual name and transportation advantages.
#Covidville

Rockford was founded in 1834 as the town of Midway, on both sides of the river. It was renamed Rockford in 1837, highlighting a ford in the river within city limits. By 1847 it had a post office, newspaper, and what's now Rockford University.
#Covidville

It was connected to Chicago by rail in 1852. Most of the founders came from the northeastern US. In 1853, John Henry Manny moved to Rockford to produce mechanical reapers for farmers, and transport them to customers by rail.
#Covidville

Along with agricultural machinery, Swedish furniture companies started factories in Rockford. It eventually rose to second in the country in furniture production.
#Covidville

In the 20th century, it was home to numerous diverse immigrant populations. In 1963, Chrysler built the Belvidere Assembly Plant in the nearby area. Outside city limits, many of its workers live in Rockford.
#Covidville

Rockford endured industrial decline like many other Rust Belt cities. In the 2000s it's been working to revitalize downtown, and new industries have moved in, including fasteners, automotive suppliers, and aerospace industry including Woodward & Collins Aerospace.
#Covidville

As of 2017, top employers included the Belvidere auto plant, schools and health systems, Collins, Walmart, Woodward, and the county.
#Covidville

I-90 runs through Rockford and connects it to the Chicago region, as do many state freeways. No passenger rail service goes to Rockford today.
#Covidville

Rockford doesn't have any 4-year public colleges, but private Rockford University has around 2000 students, and Rock Valley College, a community college has over 10,000. There are several satellite branches of other universities.
#Covidville

Rockford has a number of historic buildings in the Gothic Revival, Art Deco, and Prarie School styles. It has the Burpee Museum of Natural History, the Discovery Center Museum, and Rockford Art Museum.
#Covidville

Rockford has several minor league sports teams, the IceHogs (AHL hockey), RIvets (NWL baseball), Raptors (indoor football), and Rage (roller derby). The Rockford Peaches were a founding All-American Girls Professional Baseball League team.
#Covidville

I looked for good online resources for Rockford nightlife and entertainment, music and theater, didn't find much. My experiences in the midwest have been more briefly Madison and Chicago, I don't know Rockford. Perhaps some residents can chime in.
#Covidville

Last up is Midland, Texas. Brief break and then I'll continue the thread. #Covidville

Midland is in west Texas, near the corner of New Mexico. It's the county seat of Midland County and the 24th largest city in Texas. Former First Lady Laura Bush was born in Midland and the Bush family lived in or near the city for years.
#Covidville

Midland started in 1881 as Midway Station, on the Texas and Pacific Railway halfway between Fort Worth and El Paso. It changed its name to Midland in 1884 when it got its first post office, because there was another Midway in Texas already.
#Covidville

It was a major cattle shipping center by the 1890s, was incorporated in 1906, and was changed significantly when oil was discovered in the Permian Basin. It gained some aviation industry in WW 2, as a bombing training area.
#Covidville

Petroleum is still the dominant economic driver in the region, but Midland has added telecommunications and distribution centers. Downtown Midland has a number of taller buildings built during petroleum booms, with a distinctive skyline.
#Covidville

Midland's biggest employers are balanced between health education government areas and oil support activities. Walmart is the one other industry represented in the top 10.
#Covidville

The arts in Midland include the Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorale, several ensembles associated with the Symphony, the Midland community theatre, and Midland College's McCormick Gallery for art.
#Covidville

Sports in Midland includes the Midland RockHounds, a Texas League minor league baseball team. It's an AA affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. Minor league soccer team the West Texas United Sockers also plays in Midland.
#Covidville

Midland's main airport is Midland International Air and Space Port, located between Midland and Odessa. The Spaceport aspect was added as an economic draw to bring aerospace industry to Midland.
#Covidville

That worked to some degree... at least formerly Mojave, California based XCOR Aerospace partly moved to Midland along with several of my friends before shutting down in 2017. At least one of them is still in Midland now.
#Covidville

Interstate 20 runs through Midland, as do rail lines.
#Covidville

The American Airpower Heritage Museum in Midland is the headquarters of the Commemorative Air Force, one of the largest collections of flying warbird aircraft in existence.
#Covidville

Midland has a decent entry in the Wikivoyage online travel guide; I can't attest to its accuracy, but it lists a good variety of town locations, destinations, eateries, etc. en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Midland_(…

#Covidville

With tonight's three cities, the pandemic dead #Covidville city has now reached around the 179th largest city in the United States. 4.1 million cases, over 146,000 dead by tonight, this is the largest health disaster in decades in the United States.

The pandemic wasn't entirely preventable, but countries that followed basic health safety procedures from the start have seen a tiny fraction of the deaths we have had. Isolation as much as possible, masks, washing and sanitizing hands.
#Covidville

Contact tracing, adequate testing, and just taking it seriously would have saved a hundred thousand lives or more, and it's still growing rapidly. Leaders denying its significance and risks got us here. Don't let them continue to do that.
#Covidville

Be safe and make us a safer country by keeping yourself and your loved ones and friends safe. This is literally in your hands. Do what we need to. Otherwise we'll see larger and larger cities of the dead from the pandemic.

Goodnight.
#Covidville

It's Sunday night / about to be Monday morning July 26, 2020, and this is the #Covidville update for tonight. Our current death tolls from the pandemic are:
CDC: 145,982 (AM, +969)
NYT: 146,747 (PM, +433)
NPR: 146,457 (AM, +900)

Yesterday, we talked about Patterson, NJ, Rockford, Ill, and Midland, TX. Today up we have Murfreesboro, Tennessee, population 146,900. Joliet, Illinois is coming up tomorrow.
#Covidville

Murfreesboro was founded as a new county seat for Rutherford County in 1811 as Cannonsburgh (after a local politician) then renamed Murfreesborough (after a Revolutionary War hero) then finally Murfreesboro (shorter and simpler) by 1812.
#Covidville

The general area was fought intensely over in the Civil War, with the Battle of Stones River starting December 31, 1862. That indecisive battle left openings for Union advances later in the war.
#Covidville

After the battle, Union General Rosecrans' ordered construction of a fortified logistics base 2 miles north of Murfreesboro.
#Covidville

After the Civil War, Murfreesboro became somewhat of an academic center, with what's now Middle Tennessee State University founded originally in 1911.
#Covidville

In WW 2, industrial development became a staple of the local economy. It's grown with both residential and commercial areas, from about 45,000 in 1990 to almost 109,000 in 2010 and almost 147,000 now.
#Covidville

Current top employers include a wide diversity of businesses: Nissan Motors, the county government and schools, Middle Tennessee State University, healthcare, insurance, hospitals, and Amazon.
#Covidville

Murfreesboro hosts a number of professional music festivals, including Main Street Jazzfest, Uncle Dave Macon Days, and International FolkFest. A DYI music festival named Boro Fondo sounds interesting as well.
#Covidville

Murfreesboro has a number of theaters, including Murfreesboro Center for the Arts and Murfreesboro Little Theatre.
#Covidville

Murfreesboro has a local small airport, and for larger travel the nearby Nashville International Airport. Interstates 24 and 840 run through town, along with smaller freeways and train lines.
#Covidville

It appears that nearby Nashville is where all the more organized sports take place. There are amateur athletics leagues in Murfreesboro but not minor league teams as far as I see.
#Covidville

In a sense, Murfreesboro can be seen as a suburb of much larger (670,000 people) Nashville. But Murfreesboro was always an independent city and is some distance away with lightly populated areas between.
#Covidville

My impression at a distance is that Murfreesboro isn't a big tourist town and perhaps not as exciting for visitors as some others. But it seems like a decent, nice mid-sized city.
#Covidville

I'm doing this series to highlight what the death toll of the pandemic means to real people. A lot of people are still in denial about the effects or not grasping the scope and scale if it.
#Covidville

As of today, the death toll nationwide in the US is equivalent to having turned out the lights on every single person in the booming independent city of Murfreesboro.
#Covidville

Up ahead before we hit 150,000 we see Joilet, Illinois, Bellvue, Washington, and Naperville, Illinois. Between that and 160,000 we have 16 more cities. At current death rates that's the next 10 days or so.
#Covidville

Murfreesboro is the 178th largest city in the United States. I can see how a lot of people might miss it, in the limelight of Nashville, the five larger cities in Tennessee overall. Don't do that.
#Covidville

It's a city which was planned. It was capital of Tennessee for a time. It has a history of education going back 200 years which earned it the nickname "Athens of Tennessee".
#Covidville

It's 40 square miles of decent hard working Americans, and the pandemic is the equivalent of all of them dying, every single one of them. Nobody deserves that. Nowhere deserves that.
#Covidville

The #Covidville thread is part memorial to the dead part call to action. The action is personal and political. The personal action is that you need to take responsibility for your pandemic health.

Don't go out more than necessary. Wear a mask. Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer. If you get sick stay isolated and get tested. Cooperate with contact tracing if you get it.
#Covidville

The political action is to hold everyone in your governments accountable for this. Every level of government has a part to play in stopping the pandemic. They all have to step up and participate.
#Covidville

ven states that responded quickly can make mistakes. I live in California, and we had an early success at containment but now are having an outbreak surge. The end of this is not in sight yet.
#Covidville

If your city isn't taking it seriously, call and pester the city government. Tell them it's important. Lobby them. Don't abuse them, but keep calling until they're listening and taking action.
#Covidville

If your state isn't taking it seriously, call the state government and your state representatives. Don't abuse them, but get them to take it seriously.
#Covidville

If your federal government isn't taking it seriously, tell your congresspeople and senators. Send messages to the White House urging them to take it seriously. Do what you can.
#Covidville

And whatever you do, vote, and take the COVID response into account. A whole Murfreesboro worth of people have already died of this. Don't let that number double or triple before this is over.
#Covidville

And stay safe. Mask, wash hands, stay inside if you can. Be safe. Be well. Survive this and remember. Your safety is your responsibility.

Goodnight.
#Covidville

This is the end of Monday, July 27 (a bit into Tuesday morning the 28th as I type) 2020 #Covidville project update. Our pandemic death tolls are still rising strong.

The numbers from the three sources I've been tracking are:
CDC: 146,546 (AM, +564)
NYT: 148,448 (PM/early Tue AM, +1,701*)
NPR: 146,930 (AM, +470)
#Covidville

* The NYT number was updated very early Tuesday morning, right as I started writing. Usually I was getting updates from around 8pm ET, this was 12:41AM Tuesday ET.
#Covidville

While I'm not exactly clear what the statistical bump is from the later than usual NYT total, we know that by midday the population of the pandemic dead passed that of Joliet, Illinois (147,344), and likely Bellvue, Washington (148,164) late Monday night.
#Covidville

By the time of this writing it probably passed Naperville, Illinois, which I will cover in tomorrow's report.
#Covidville

First, Joliet, Illinois. It's about 30 miles south of Chicago and estimated to be the third largest city in Illinois now.
#Covidville

Joliet was explored by Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette in 1673. The first non-native-american settler was Charles Reed, on the west side of the Des Plaines River, in 1833, followed by a city being laid out on the east in 1837.
#Covidville

The city incorporated as the village of "Juliet", named after the city planners daughter, disincorporated for tax reasons, renamed itself "Joliet" after the explorer, and then reincorporated in 1852.
#Covidville

Unusually for a Wikipedia covered city of nearly 150,000 people, that's the extent of the history section in the article. I assume something of note happened in the last 168 years so I'm digging a bit deeper.
#Covidville

Joliet was an early transportation hub, including the Des Plaines River, the 1848 Illinois & Michigan Canal, and 1852 Rock Island Railroad. Today, I-80 and I-55 run through Joliet, as do several train lines.
#Covidville

Joliet's early economy included significant limestone quarrying; it was nicknamed the "City of Stone".
#Covidville

In 1858 the State of Illinois built a prison in Joliet. In 1871, rebuilding of Chicago after the Great Fire increased demand for limestone significantly.
#Covidville

The Joliet mill was an early largescale steel production site. Joliet got a new nickname, "City of Steel". Some of the first Bessemer converters in the US increased production in the 1870s.
#Covidville

The steel mill and labor force were the foundation for additional industries, including wire mills and factories for stoves, horseshoes, boilers and tanks, machines, cans, and steel cars.
#Covidville

Along with much of the rust belt, Joliet's economy declined in the 1970s, but began to rebound in the 1990s. Tourism, gambling, and racing were new economic centers.
#Covidville

As of 2017, the largest employer was Amazon, followed by health and government and education jobs, casinos, and petroleum.
#Covidville

The former Joliet Prison is near downtown; it's appeared prominently in movies and television. The 1980 movie Blues Brothers opened at the prison.
#Covidville

Local sports include Chicagoland Speedway, hosting NASCAR and other racing, as well as Route 66 Raceway for drag racing and Autobahn Country Club. The local minor league baseball team are the Joliet Slammers.
#Covidville

Joliet currently has the University of St. Francis and Joliet Junior College.
#Covidville

The main theatre in town is the Rialto Square Theatre, which previously was a favorite of Al Capone.
#Covidville

For music, the city website lists Concerts on the Hill in Bicentennial Park, a Rooftop Outdoor Music Series, and the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum.
#Covidville

I don't know that Joliet is my usual speed, but it's a diverse city of almost 150,000 people and well known nationwide.
#Covidville

Next up, Bellvue, Washington.
#Covidville

Correction. Bellevue. I apologize for the typo. #Covidville

Bellevue is near Seattle, across Lake Washington from Seattle proper.
#Covidville

Before the eurpoean americans arrival, the Duwamish native american people had an outpost named Satskal along what's now Mercer Slough, south of downtown Bellevue.
#Covidville

It was settled by european americans in 1869, by William Meydenbauer and Aaron Mercer, who homesteaded a few miles apart. They eventualy left; permanent residence started in 1879. By 1882 a community of logging homesteaders was growing.
#Covidville

In the early 20th century Bellevue was a weekend getaway for Seattle residents; when the ferry terminal moved, that slowed some, but the city started a Strawberry Festival to bring many back.
#Covidville

The city was still essentially rural agricultural until the 1940s and the Lake Washington Floating Bridge, but in the 1920s James Ditty predicted the bridge and a modern city in the location.
#Covidville

The bridge opened Bellevue up as a bedroom community. That was accelerated by the regrettable internment of Japanese ancestry farmers in 1942 after Pearl Harbor and the start of WW 2.
#Covidville

Bellevue incorporated in 1953. A second bridge opened in 1963. Various spans of the two floating bridges have been in use since.
#Covidville

Downtown Bellevue had a building boom in the 2000s, and continues growing today.
#Covidville

The largest employers in Bellevue as of 2017 were Microsoft, T-Mobile, Expedia, local schools, hospitals, Bellevue College, Boeing, the city, the local power utility, and SAP Concur.
#Covidville

Bellvue hosts an Arts and Crafts fair, biennial Sculpture Exhibition, and the restarted Strawberry Festival. It has the Bellvue Arts Museum.
#Covidville

Bellevue has the Bellvue Youth Theatre now. The city is planning a performaing arts center in downtown.
#Covidville

The area around has more music, dance, theatre, and fesival type events; Bellevue seems to be catching up.
#Covidville

I get a distant impression of Bellevue as trying to figure out what it means to be more than a bedroom community with businesses. Seattle certainly gets it. It sounds like Bellevue have the idea, and are starting along the way.
#Covidville

These were tonights two Covidville cities. We've nearly reached 150,000 residents in our city of the pandemic dead. We'll reach that possibly by end of day Wednesday.
#Covidville

We're not feeling COVID-19 fatalities and illnesses that concentrated in most areas, but the deaths total up to taking a huge chunk out of the Seattle area, or one of the midwest's older industrial cities away.
#Covidville

I'm not feeling super poetic about that tonight. It's a lot of people dead.
#Covidville

Don't join them. Wear your masks, stay in, wash hands and use hand sanitizer. Be safe. Support your friends and loved ones, safely. We all need people to help us through this.

Goodnight
#Covidville

This is the #Covidville update for July 28, 2020, written a bit into early morning on July 29th. The current US pandemic deaths are:
CDC: 147,672 (Jul 28 AM, +1,126)
NYT: 149,767 (12:12am Jul 29, +1,319)
NPR: 148,007 (3:35am Jul 28, +1,076)

The last cities we looked at were Joliet, Illinois and Bellevue, Washington. Today, the population of our city of the pandemic dead passed Naperville, Illinois. At this rate, tomorrow it will pass Pasadena, Texas.
#Covidville

Naperville isn't far from Joliet, from yesterday. It's about ten miles north of Joliet, about 20 miles west of Lake Michigan, about ten miles from the Chicago western edges.
#Covidville

Naperville was founded in 1831, when Joseph Naper arrived with a small party to found "Naper's Settlement" on the west bank of the DuPage River. By 1832 another hundred settlers had arrived.
#Covidville

During the Black Hawk War, the settlers left for Fort Dearborn but no attack materialized. In 1834, the city became a stagecoach stop on the road from Chicago to Galena. In 1839, DuPage County was split from Cook County, with Naper's Settlement its county seat.
#Covidville

In 1857, Naper's Settlement became the village of Naperville. In 1887, the Kroeler company started making furniture in Naperville, becoming the worlds largest furniture maker for a time.
#Covidville

In 1890 the village was reincorporated as a City.
#Covidville

April 26, 1946, two trains collided in Naperville, killing 45 and injuring around 127 people.
#Covidville

While somewhat industrialized, Naperville was predominantly rural until the 1960s, when two new freeways into Chicago opened.
#Covidville

Top employers in Naperville include Edward Hospital, Nicor natural gas distributors, Nokia, the school districts, BP, Nalco, and the city.
#Covidville

Other notable employers include Kraft Foods (the sole Triscuit plant for north america is in Naperville). Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory are nearby.
#Covidville

Naperville's public library system is highly ranked in US cities' library systems.
#Covidville

In the arts, Naperville hosts the Naperville Independent Film Festival annually. Naperville's Municipal Band performs a summer concert series. It hosts a world class six-octave Carillion.
#Covidville

Naperville hosts a number of universities and colleges: North Central College, Northern Illinois University, College of DuPage, and a DeVry University campus.
#Covidville

It also hosts satellite campuses of Governors State University, Northwestern College, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
#Covidville

The Naperville parks district has over 2,400 acres of parks; a separate Forest Preserve District manages significant additional preserves in the city.
#Covidville

Naperville is conencted to Chicago and the area by I-88 (Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway) and I-55, just north and south of city limits respectively. It's also served by Metra local rail and Amtrak to Quincy, Illinois, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
#Covidville

I looked around for sources for nightlife and entertainment; other than movie theaters, a cluster of bars and restaurants on West Chicago Ave by the DuPage River in downtown came up. If I'm ever nearby Naperville, I think I'll head there.
#Covidville

I didn't find any minor league sports teams in Naperville, I guess proximity to Chicago and its major league teams rules those out.
#Covidville

Overall, Naperville seems like a nice place. Not too exciting, but a decent place to live and work. It's almost 150,000 residents built a decent place to live in.
#Covidville

Of course, this is the Covidville project. We're here talking about it because the death toll has now exceeded the population of Naperville. So imagine taking those 40 square miles of decent place to live and work and build a new graveyard there.
#Covidville

Naperville is the 175th largest city in the United States. That's how many people have died.
#Covidville

I'm looking up the list a bit nervously. Over the next 10,000 population we have more cities friends of mine live in, I've formerly worked in, and we're coming up on the city I live in.
#Covidville

There's a gap coming in about ten days; #158 Jackson, Mississippi is 160,000 and #157 Springfield, Missouri is 167,000. That could see a week without any new cities. I hope. But the pandemic rolls on.
#Covidville

Don't be a victim in this second wave of cases. Keep yourself and your family and friends safe. Stay home as much as possible. Wear masks if you go out. Socially distance anyways. Wash hands and use hand sanitizer.
#Covidville

Be smart and survive.

Goodnight.
#Covidville

This is the Wednesday, July 29 night / Thursday July 30 morning #Covidville update. We passed the 150,000 pandemic deaths in the United States milestone on Wednesday.

Our pandemic death tolls for the US tonight are:
CDC: 148,866 (Wed AM, +1,194)
NYT: 151,194 (Thu 4am ET, +1,427)
NPR: 150,735 (Thu 7am ET, +1,403)
#Covidville

The next city up is Pasadena, Texas, population 151,227. By my best estimation the death toll will pass Pasadena TX on Thursday morning, in a few hours. I'll do the writeup on Thursday night.
#Covidville

Passing 150,000 dead is a milestone of great regret, even if we don't have a new city Covidville passed.
#Covidville

You have probably never personally seen 150,000 people in one place. I believe no sports stadiums are that large. After some digging, I found only Presidential Inaugerations and major political events have reached and exceeded that level routinely.
#Covidville

There are only 174 cities in the United States larger than 150,000 people.
#Covidville

Pandemics happen. But responses to pandemics vary. Ours has been a disaster. America has killed at least 125,000 if not more people who didn't need to die.
#Covidville

The COVID-19 pandemic should not have been a political football.
#Covidville

We are here now. We're hitting another spike of deaths now. The most important things you can do are stay safe and watch and remember.
#Covidville

I'm getting kind of repetitive, but I can give you 150,000 good reasons to stay home safely, wear your masks, wash your hands, use hand sanitizer.
Survive this.

Goodnight.
#Covidville

This is the Thursday July 30/Friday morning July 31 update for the #Covidville project. Yesterday we had no new cities but did pass 150,000 dead in the US from the pandemic.
#Covidville

Tonights' numbers are:
CDC: 150,283 (Thursday AM, +1,417)
NYT: 152,422 (Friday 12:04am ET, +1,228)
NPR: 150,735 (Thursday 3:35am ET, +1,403)

Deaths are still significantly over 1,000 per day.
#Covidville

With the significant increase we have (by end of Thursday) passed four more US cities: Pasadena, Texas; Escondito, California; Killeen, Texas; and Pomona, California.
#Covidville

Tomorrow we'll pass Sunnyvale, California, Kansas City, Kansas, and likely Macon, Georgia. Possibly Springfiled, Massachusetts.
#Covidville

First up was Pasadena, Texas. I'd never heard of Pasadena, Texas before the project here, so this is all new to me today. Apologies to the residents of Pasadena.
#Covidville

I now have to correct myself. I'm now pretty sure I've *been* to Pasadena, Texas, but didn't realize it. April 25, 2005, for the Industry Day for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program, I think at the Hilton by the lake by Johnson Space Center.
#Covidville

The preceding revelation brought to you by Google Maps, NASA SP-2014-617, and my memory of the Industry Day at a hotel by the lake right outside JSC proper because there were too many people and not enough time to make space in the space center proper.
#Covidville

Ah, looks like the city boundary is right at the edge of the hotel property. I think I drove through Pasadena getting there.
#Covidville

Pasadena is in the Houston area, southwest of Houston proper. The city proper was founded in 1893 by John Burnett, named after Pasadena, California because of the lush vegitation.
#Covidville

Before the european settlement, it was settled by Karankawa and Atakapan tribes. Spanish explorers charted the bay. Pirate Jean Lafitte apparently had a short lived independent kingdom in the area until 1821.
#Covidville

Early agricultural use was by Sam Allen starting in 1843; by 1888 the ranch had 15,000 acres in Harris County and 10,000 in Brazoria Texas. A railroad ran through the area without any initial permanent settlements.
#Covidville

In 1900, the hurricane that destroyed nearby Galveston seriously damaged Pasadena, but Red Cross donations and influx of former Galveston residents helped it recover. Notably, Strawberry plants were donated to restablish agriculture.
#Covidville

Pasadena was a major fruit producer for some time afterwards. Rice farmers from Japan arrived shortly after, adding rice to the agricultural production mix. A paper mill opened in 1937.
#Covidville

In 1901 the Texas Oil Boom started, and it reached Pasadena around 1917. Major refinery operations started in northern Pasadena and continued growing.
#Covidville

Current large employers include the school district, refineries and chemical companies, Boeing, the Munday company, University of Houston - Clear Lake, San Jacinto College, hospitals and medical, and the city government.
#Covidville

Pasadena hosts a historical museum, nature center, community theater, annual rodeo, and the Pasadena Philharmonic Orchestra. The Strawberry Festival is still held today.
#Covidville

The 1980 film Urban Cowboy was filmed in Pasadena, partly at a honky-tonk bar named Gilleys. The bar burned due to arson in 1989 and was later demolished.
#Covidville

In addition to University of Houston - Clear Lake and San Jacinto College community college, Pasadena has the Texas Chiropractic College, founded in 1908.
#Covidville

Wikipedia and the Pasadena Parks and Recreation website show a large number of parks and recreational facilities, plus the 2,500 acre Armand Bayou Nature Center along the shore of Galveston Bay.
#Covidville

Transportation in the area is car-focused, with Harris County Transit buses. Interstate 45 runs close by Pasadena (I think I drove it down to the area in 2005). The Pasadena Freeway, Texas Hwy 225 is a main freeway, and Sam Houston Tollway runs through Pasadena.
#Covidville

Google and Yelp show a bunch of nightlife and restaurants, ranging from old honky-tonk to new cuisine, rock dance clubs
#Covidville

I wish I'd spent more time in Pasadena and the area in 2005; if space business brings me back I'll hang out for a couple of days.
#Covidville

Posting these and a thread break, more coming later. Escondito, California; Killeen, Texas; and Pomona, California are all coming up.
#Covidville

Next up is Escondito, California. Escondito is in northern San Diego County, about 30 miles northeast of San Diego and 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean.
#Covidville

Escondito is Spanish for "hidden", sources differ if Escondito is hidden water, or hidden treasure.
#Covidville

The first native settlers were the Luiseno tribe, who lived along the creek in present day Escondito. They called it "Mehel-om-pom-pavo". The Kumeyaay migrated from near the Colorado river to southwestern and western areas now forming Escondito.
#Covidville

Spain controlled the area and built missions throughout the general area. After Mexican independence, Rancho Rincon del Diablo covered most of the land now in Escondito. Southern Escondito was in Rancho San Bernardo.
#Covidville

In the 1846 Mexican-AMerican War, the Battle of San Pasqual was fought just southeast of modern Escondito. In 1853, it was envisioned as capital of a breakaway pro-Southern Territory of Colorado, split from the rest of California. The split never happened.
#Covidville

The land passed through several mining an ranching families, then in 1883 was purchased to form a new city. In 1888 the new town incorporated as a city, with a vote of 64-12. Railroads arrived in the 1880s, US Route 395 in 1930.
#Covidville

Escondito was agricultural for a long time, including grapes, orange and lemon trees, olives, walnuts, and by the 1960s avocados. Since the 1970s most of the agricultural land has shifted to residential housing.
#Covidville

The city includes Dixon Lake, north of the main city. It's been developed for recreation including camping, fishing, hiking, and picnics.
#Covidville

Employment in Escondito is led by health and medical, the school districts, the city, Bergelectric, retail, auto, and the California Center for the Arts. Stone Brewing Company and Dr Bronners Soaps are also headquartered there.
#Covidville

The Center for the Arts has two theaters, a small museum, educational and conference spaces. There are several other museums, including folk art, a city history museum, and a Discovery Museum.
#Covidville

A local arts group holds monthly art walks, a Municipal Gallery, and a lending art books library.
#Covidville

Escondito hosts the San Diego Sabers minor league ice hockey team. Other efforts to move minor league baseball teams to Escondito didn't materialize.
#Covidville

The city has 15 parks and is right next to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
#Covidville

Two highways run through Escondito. Interstate 15, runs up from San Diego to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and eventually Salt Lake City and beyond to Alberta, Canada. Route 78 runs from Escondito down to the sea and I-5.
#Covidville

Entertainment and nightlife seems to be well covered, both focused downtown and spread around the city. I've driven through Escondito but not stopped before; I think I'll try out some of the restaurants next opportunity I get, after the pandemic.
#Covidville

Third up tonight, Covidville passed Killeen, Texas. Killeen is right next to Fort Hood, a major US Army base.
#Covidville

Killeen was founded in 1881 by the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway, who laid out a 70-block town adjacent to its new tracks and named after the railroad's assistant general manager.
#Covidville

The town started with a railway depot and rapidly grew to include a saloon, stores, and a school. Residents in smaller communities nearby started moving into Killeen. By 1884 it had 350 people.
#Covidville

Killeen was a shipping point for agricultural goods including cotton, wool, and grain from two nearby counties. By 1900 it had almost 800 people.
#Covidville

In the 1940s, the buildup from World War Two caused dramatic growth. Camp Hood was created in 1942 as a training post for the Army. Thousands of construction workers, contractors, laborers, and soldiers and their families moved to Killeen.
#Covidville

About half the nearby agricultural land was taken by the Army, significantly reducing agricultural support businesses. The base was nearly abandoned from 1945-1950, but was reestablished as a permanent training base from then on.
#Covidville

The base changed the community racial, ethnic, and religious character. The high school integrated in 1956. A junior college opened, Central Texas College. Killeen troops participated in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Shield / Storm.
#Covidville

In 1991, a gunman killed 23 and wounded many others in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen. The gunman committed suicide. He was evidently mentally unstable and had ranted both during and before the incident about women.
#Covidville

In 2009, US Army Major Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 fellow military members at Fort Hood, just outside Killeen.
#Covidville

Fort Hood totally dominates local employement; it employs 58,000 employees with the local schools in second place at 6,000 employees.
#Covidville

Killeen hosts the Vive Les Arts Theater, which produces several shows per year for adults and children.
#Covidville

Killeen freeways include Interstate 14, as well as several Tesas highways. Interstate 35 is about 15 miles away, running between Austin and Dallas / Fort Worth.
#Covidville

Nightlife is booming in Killeen, according to Google and Yelp. A lot of standard bar/restaurants, but there are some interesting sounding clubs, one with classic video game machines, a good variety.
#Covidville

I'm not sure I'd go to Killeen other than doing something at Fort Hood, but if I did, Killeen sounds interesting.
#Covidville

Another short break and then I'll cover Pomona, California.
#Covidville

Pomona, California is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and Los Angeles county, in Pomona Valley betwen San Gabriel Valley and the Inland Empire.
#Covidville

The Pomona area was originally inhabited by the Tongva native americans. Europeans settled in the 1830s, by Ricardo Vejar and Ygnacio Palomares, when it was part of Mexico. Settlers from the United States started arriving after 1848.

Railroads and outside water helped Pomona become a major citrus production area. The city was incorporaed in 1888.
#Covidville

In the 1920s Pomona was "Queen of the Citrus Belt" and had very high per-capita income. In the 1940s Pomona was seen as an ideal middle-class audience for film test screenings.
#Covidville

As with many largely residential cities today, Pomona's largest employers are medical, schools, universities, the city itself, and malls.
#Covidville

The LA County Fair is held at the Fairplex in Pomona as well as other activities. It also has a NHRA drag racing strip.
#Covidville

Pomona has over 16 museums and historical locations. Cal State Polytechnic University, Pomona and Western University of Health Sciences are in Pomona as well.
#Covidville

Rail travel serving Pomona includes Metrolink and Amtrak, with the LA Light Rail coming later this decade. Interstate 10 and numerous California freeways also run through Pomona.
#Covidville

There seems to be a good variety of nightlife in Pomona, all sorts of restaurants, clubs, bars, etc.
#Covidville

I've driven through Pomona, possibly stopped for gas. I'll try and stop and get to know it better next time.
#Covidville

So those are our four Covidville cities tonight. Four very different places. I think they all have different local stories to tell. Unfortunately, I was here talking about them because of the pandemic.
#Covidville

The COVID-19 pandemic is still raging, and we don't seem to have the social will to stop it nationwide. If we don't, the death toll will end up many times what it is today.
#Covidville

We won't just lose one Killeen, one Escondito's worth of people. Pandemics expand. That's what they do. You have to fight that.
#Covidville

Today, #Covidville is the 170th largest city in the United States. It's headed up to around 160th in the next week at this rate. These are cities with hundreds of years of history. The pandemic is wiping out equivalents to that much at once.
#Covidville

As always, you don't have to play the COVID-19 game. It wants you sick, like the 4 million people before and the 150,000 plus who have died. You can play your own game and keep playing.
#Covidville

Wear a mask, stay inside as much as possible. Keep your hands clean, washing with soap and water, and using hand sanitizer. Socially distance yourself.

Survive.

Goodnight.
#Covidville

This is the Friday night July 31, 2020 / early Saturday morning Covidville project update.
#Covidville

Tonight's numbers for pandemic deaths to date are:
CDC: 151,499 (Friday AM, +1,216)
NYT: 153,850 (Sat 12:21AM, +1,428)
NPR: 152,066 (Fri AM, +1,233)
#Covidville

All the numbers suggest that by Friday night, the population of pandemic dead passed Sunnyvale, California, Kansas City, Kansas, and possibly Macon, Georgia. I'll leave Macon for tomorrow. CDC continues to diverge a bit low.
#Covidville

Sunnyvale is a city in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, in Santa Clara County, the seventh largest city in the region. It's a key part of Silicon Valley. I grew up next door.
#Covidville

The region that's now Sunnyvale, along with much of the SF Bay area, was populated with Ohlone native american tribes. The Spanish arrival in the 1770s brought diseases such as smallpox, measles, and other diseases that killed much of the Ohlone population.
#Covidville

In 1843, the Spanish land grant of Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas was granted to Francisco Estrada and his wife Inez Castro. Portions of this land later became Sunnyvale and Mountain View.
#Covidville

Another land grant in 1844 to Lupe Ynigo, a native american, formed Rancho Posolmi.
#Covidville

In 1844 Martin Murphy came to California and settled in what's now central Sunnyvale, buying part of Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas and starting a wheat farm. In 1860, the San Francisco and San Jose railroad ran through that land & established Murphy Station on it.
#Covidville

In the 1870s fruit orchards started to replace wheat farming. In 1871 Dr James Dawson and his wife Eloise opened the first cannery in Santa Clara County. Refrigerated railcars soon added to the value of the fruit agriculture.
#Covidville

In 1897, Walter Crossman bought 200 acres and started selling real estate. He called the area "Beautiful Murphy" and then "The City of Destiny". The same year the first school, Encina School, opened in the town.
#Covidville

In 1901 due to name conflicts with other California cities, Murphy was renamed Sunnyvale, referring to its sunny region but adjacent to areas that get more fog.
#Covidville

Dried fruit production started in 1904. In 1906 Libby, McNeill & Libby, formerly a meatpacking company in Chicago, added a fruitpacking factory in Sunnyvale.
#Covidville

Later that year, the Joshua Hendy Iron Works relocated from San Francisco after its former site was destroyed in the earthquake and fire.Hendy later switched from mining equipment manufacture to marine steam engines.
#Covidville

In 1930 the US Congress placed the West Coast dirigible base in Sunnyvale. The naval airfield later became Moffett Naval Air Station, then Moffett Federal Airfield. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronatics opened Ames Laboratory nextdoor in 1939.
#Covidville

In the second world war, the transition to heavier industry and technology from agriculture moved more quickly. Hendy built steam engines for ships, naval guns, and rocket launchers.
#Covidville

The war industry led to a farm labor shortage. Mexican immigrants were widely hired to staff the farms.
#Covidville

After the war, the transition away from agriculture continued, replaced with residential and industrial facilities. In 1956, Lockheed moved its headquarters to Sunnyvale, adjacent to Moffett Field. The area became a technology leader.
#Covidville

Companies such as Advanced Micro Devices, Apple, and Yahoo are or were headquartered in Sunnyvale. By the 2010s, additional tech companies such as Google, LinkedIn, Walmart Labs, and 23andMe were in Sunnyvale.
#Covidville

As of 2018, the top employers were Google, Juniper Networks, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Apple, Yahoo, LinkedIn, NetApp, Amazon, medical and technology contracting companies.
#Covidville

Sunnyvale is the largest city in the US that uses consolidated public safety officers in a single fire, police, and emergency medical department. Officers are cross trained across all job types.
#Covidville

The Lockheed Space Systems site built the Hubble Space Telescope, and generations of Air Force / NRO spy satellites. Today, much of the site is now owned by Google, Amazon, and Juniper Networks.
#Covidville

The far end of the facility also built all of the US submarine launched nuclear ballistic missiles until very recently. Had they ever dropped one of those missile motors, Yahoo might have needed a new headquarters buildings.
#Covidville

The former Hendy Iron Works are still in use today, part of Northrop Grumman Marine Systems. They now build nuclear power turbines for the US Navy and missile tubes for Navy submarines.
#Covidville

Major freeways in Sunnyvale are Interstate 280, US 101, State Route 85 and State Route 237. Route 82, El Camino Real, is a multilane surface street. Caltrain commuter trains and the VTA light rail system also serve Sunnyvale.
#Covidville

My consulting company has semi-regularly held social events at restaurants on South Murphy Avenue, near the train station in Sunnyvale. Most of those are closed right now, but fondly remembered.
#Covidville

Fry's Electronics on Arques, where I spent untold tens of thousands of dollars of client money on urgent datacenter and computer center buildout hardware that we didn't have time to get quotes for.
#Covidville

If the COVID-19 pandemic were concentrated in Sunnyvale, that would all just be gone. I can't imagine what the Bay Area would have been like without Sunnyvale.
#Covidville

The second city passed on Friday was Kansas City, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas is the third largest city in Kansas, and the third largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, including the parts in Missouri.
#Covidville

Kansas City, Kansas was first incorporated in 1872, and reincorporated including several surrounding communities in 1886. From the 1890s through the 1930s, streetcar lines to Kansas City, Missouri led to strong residential growth.
#Covidville

Top employers in Kansas City, Kansas include two hospitals, General Motors, the school district, BNSF Railroad, Cerner, city/county government, Associaed Wholesale Grocers, another hospital, and Nebraska Furniture Mart.
#Covidville

The Google Fiber project brought high speed fiber internet to large parts of the Kansas City region in the 2010s, starting with the Piper neighborhood.
#Covidville

Kansas City, Kansas has two private colleges (Donnelly College and Kansas Christian College) and two public colleges (Kansas City Kansas Community College and University of Kansas Medical Center).
#Covidville

River transportation is why the regionw as first settled, but in modern times US Interstate 35 and Interstate 70 freeways cross through Kansas City, Kansas.
#Covidville

The city has a major league soccer franchise, the Sporting Kansas City, a minor league baseball team, the Kansas City T-Bones, and NASAR auto racing track Kansas Speedway.
#Covidville

Current musician Janelle Monae was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and the late Jazz musician Charlie Parker was as well. Actor Ed Asner was born in Kansas City, Missouri but grew up in Kansas City, Kansas.
#Covidville

The Google / Yelp combination shows a bunch of restaurants & bars and nightclubs in the city. Many searches include or are for the Kansas City, Missouri side of the area, but mapping things shows a bunch of interesting looking places to visit in Kansas City, Kansas.
#Covidville

Honestly, the online resources on culture are a bit thin, but I did find The New Theatre & Restaurant. As with the restaurant and nightlife searches, KS Missouri listings tend to swamp out neighboring KS Kansas.
#Covidville

Kansas City Kansas seems like a nice enough place, but what's online isn't giving that much of a personal level feeling for it. Perhaps someone who lives there can tell us about it.
#Covidville

To be honest, Sunnyvale had more in its Wikipedia article but it didn't tell enough about the town character as it stands now either. I know Sunnyvale... I could fill that in.
#Covidville

I'm not finding enough to fill in the gaps for Kansas City, Kansas.
#Covidville

So these were our two Covidville cities for July 31, 2020. A suburb with a lot of tech and industry, and a suburb which I'm left unsatisifed in how well I could describe it.
#Covidville

The point of the Covidville project is that we're putting the pandemic deaths in context but looking at the cities that it grows larger than. I can't exactly fly to Kansas City, Kansas and explore in person right now given the pandemic.
#Covidville

But as a memorial project for the pandemic victims, I wish I had more to go on for this comparison.
#Covidville

Sunnyvale is the 170th largest city in the United States, and Kansas City, KS the 169th largest.
#Covidville

If the COVID-19 deaths all happened in Kansas City, KS, from downtown you'd have to walk 4 miles south or 6 miles and across the state line into Missouri to find another living person.
#Covidville

If they happened in Sunnyvale, it would be about the same distance.
#Covidville

I think most of us have problems visualizing 152,000 people. If you said their names out loud including their birthdate and city of residence, that would be about 1.5 million seconds, 25,000 minutes, 417 hours, 17 days.
#Covidville

Assuming you can speak for 12 hours a day, that's 34 days, more than a month. And in that month, another around 25,000 people will die, giving anoter 6 days or so to go. And a few more while you're doing that.
#Covidville

I think that disasters go from tragedies to statistics when you can't reasonably name all the dead individually. In that sense the COVID pandemic has moved into the statistics category.
#Covidville

That doesn't mean that we should become deadened to what's happening. We can't. The people who are denying this and can't accept what we've done to ourselves are dead inside. Don't be dead. Don't be soulless. Live.
#Covidville

Keep yourself healthy. Stay in your house or residence as much as possible. Don't go inside where you can avoid it. Don't eat inside restaurants or bars, specifically. The virus spreads like crazy there.
#Covidville

Wear masks, always. Ignore people who object or try to make fun of you. Those people are likely going to catch the disease this year and many of them are going to die. Don't be one of them.
#Covidville

Wash your hands, use hand sanitizer. Think, watch, be safe. Be smart. Be a survivor, so we can tell the next generation not to let anyone do this to them again.
#Covidville

I wanted to add one more thing. Earlier today, I posted this responding to a CDC report that they expect over 180,000 deaths in the next 3 weeks or so.
#Covidville

Those numbers are probably right. Those numbers are wrong. Don't get infected. Don't accept others getting infected.

Goodnight.
#Covidville

This is the #Covidville update for Saturday, August 1st, 2020. This has been a long week.

Our pandemic death tolls in the US for today are:
CDC: 152,870 (AM, 1,371)
NYT: 154,909 (12:18 PM Aug 2, +1,059)
NPR: 153,315 (4:35 AM, +1,259)

(statistics as of 11:26pm, Sat Aug 1)
#Covidville

Extending the CDC number forwards gives us around 153,900 dead at tthe end of Saturday; the CDC is now around 1,000 behind the same-time-aligned NYT and NPR counts. Still using the CDC for now.
#Covidville

The two cities that the #Covidville city of the pandemic dead has passed today are Macon, Georgia (population 153,159), and Springfield, Massachusetts (population 153,606).
#Covidville

Again, these are using estimated population in 2019 from Wikipedia, which are derived from US Census estimates. See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U…
#Covidville

Macon is a unified city and county in central Georgia, about 85 miles south of Atlanta, with about 153,159 residents as of 2019.
#Covidville

Before european arrival, the area around Macon was inhabited first by the very early native americans, then the Mississippian Culture around 950-1100 AD, finally by the Creek Indians.
#Covidville

The specific site chosen for Macon was the Ocmulgee Old Mounds, site of Mississippian mounds and near the Fall Line of the Ocmulgee river, the furthest inland riverboats could easily trael.
#Covidville

Fort Benjamin Hawkins was built on the site in 1809. Fort Hawkins also guarded the Lower Creek Pathway, later the US Federal Road from Washington DC to Mobile and New Orleans.
#Covidville

The area was renamed Newtown as european settlers started to live nearby. Bibb County was organized in 1822, with Newton named the county seat in 1823 and renamed Macon at that point. It was named after North Carolina statesman Nathaniel Macon.
#Covidville

The city thrived as a shipping location. Cotton was the regions and Macon's primary trading good. Steamboats and in 1843 a railroad line increased transportation interconnections.
#Covidville

The cotton agriculture and trade extensively used slave labor, which bears repeating and emphasizing. Macon doesn't seem to have been a major center of slave trade, but they were key to local agriculture and business.
#Covidville

In 1836, the Methodist Episcopal Church founded Wesleyan College in Macon, the first college in the United States chartered to grant degrees to women.
#Covidville

During the Civil War, Macon produced percussion caps, primers, and pressed bullets for the Confederacy. Camp Oglethorpe in Macon was a prisoner of war camp for Union soldiers.
#Covidville

Sherman's March to the Sea passed by Macon without damaging the city. The city lost many of its men in the war; it sent 23 companies of soldiers to the war and only got the equivalent of 5 surviving back.
#Covidville

By 1871 Mercer University relocated to Macon, where it still remains. By 1880 telephone service was operating in Macon. In 1884 the Academy of Music was built.
#Covidville

Macon grew into a statewide transportation hub by the 1900s. In 1895 the New York Times had named Macon "The Central City".
#Covidville

The city started building levees on the Ocmulgee river in 1906. In 1917 the Cox Capitol Theatre, now the Hargray Capitol Theater, opened downtown.
#Covidville

In 1919, Paul Jones was lynched by a mob in Macon after allegedly attacking a white woman about 2 miles outside town.
#Covidville

Macon became known for music; James Brown recorded his first single "Please Please Please" at the WIBB radio studio in Macon in 1955. Otis Redding lived in Macon until his death in 1967.
#Covidville

Other musicans and acts associated with Macon include Emmett Miller, the Allman Brothers, Randy Crawford, Little Richard, and many others. Capricorn Records made Macon a southern rock hub in the late 1960s & 70s.
#Covidville

Macon has a Symphony Orchestra, a youth symphony, and the Middle Georgia Concert Band all playing at the Grand Opera House in downtown.
#Covidville

IN 1994, Tropical Storm Alberto dropped 24 inches of rain and brought significant flooding to Macon and other nearby communities. In 2008, an EF2 tornado landed outside town, moved through Macon and further communities.
#Covidville

Macon and Bibb County merged governments in 2014 after approval in an election in 2012. In 2013, Middle Georgia College and Macon State College merged into Middle Georgia State University.
#Covidville

Macon as of 2010 was heavily african amerian, about 68% african american, 28% white, 2.5% hispanic, less than 1% asian and about 2% mixed or other races. (Rounded slightly)
#Covidville

Macon is home to a number of festivals including its International Cherry Blossom Festival, Mulberry Street Festival arts and crafts fair, Juneteenth Freedom Festival celebrating the end of slavery...
#Covidville

...the Ocmulgee Indian Celebration in September, and numerous other cultural, music, and film festivals. It also has several music, ethnic, history, sports, and science museums.
#Covidville

Macon has two minor league sports teams, the Macon Bacon baseball team and the Macon Mayhem ice hockey team. In 1974 and 1996-2002 the minor league ice hockey team "Macon Whoopee" were based there.
#Covidville

Macon has a number of newspapers, unusual for a city that size.
#Covidville

Transportation wise, Interstate 75 and Interstate 16 run through Macon, as do a number of Georgia state routes and Interstate 475. Several railroads run through Macon.
#Covidville

Rail passenger service ended in 1971. The currently proposed Georgia Rail Passenger Program service includes Macon. Macon has a local bus transit system and a small tourist trolley system.
#Covidville

Again going with online services, Macon has extensive clubs, bars, and restaurants giving a significant nightlife.
#Covidville

I think my impression at a distance is that Macon is a city with history and character. The culture comes through online; I may be wrong, but I want to visit and see.
#Covidville

Next up, Springfield Massachusetts.
#Covidville

Springfield is a city in west-central Massachusetts near the southern border with Connecticut. It's located on the Connecticut River.
#Covidville

Springfield is the center of the second major metropolitan area in Massachusetts. The city itself had 153,606 estimated residents in 2019, the metropolitan area a total of 693,000.
#Covidville

Springfield was founded in 1636 as "Agawam Plantation", by Puritan William Pynchon, renamed Springfield in 1641. That was the first Springfield named city in the new world.
#Covidville

The original settlement is now downtown Springfield, atop bluffs at the confluence of the Westfield, Chicopee, Mill, and Connecticut rivers.
#Covidville

The settlement was mostly burned to the ground by native americans in 1675 during King Phillip's War. Most of the residents survived in John Pynchon's brick house, which did not burn and was defended.
#Covidville

In 1777, George Washington and Henry Knox established the United States' first national armory at Springfield. It produce the first American mass produced muskets starting in 1794.
#Covidville

The armory later produced the Springfield Rifle among many others. It was in continuous production until the Vietnam War. The armory caused the city to be a focus area for precision manufacturing.
#Covidville

As a manufacturing and innovation center, Springfield produced the Merriam-Webster dictionary (1805), the first interchangeable parts and assembly line (1819, Thomas Blanchard), first American horseless car (1825, Blanchard), ...
#Covidville

...mass produced Vulcanized rubber (1844, Charles Goodyear), the first American gasoline powered car (1893, Duryea Brothers), first successful motorcycle company (1901, Indian), ...
#Covidville

... one of the first commercial radio stations (1921, WBZ), and Basketball (1891, Dr James Naismith).
#Covidville

Machine and arms production included the Smith & Wesson firewarms company. Watson Manufacturing made railcars, up to 100 per day. Many other diverse industries sprang up in Springfield.
#Covidville

Springfield had a decline after the 1969 closure of the armory, and other causes including (according to Wikipedia) poor city planning, I-91's location along the riverfront, and overall industrial decline in the Northeast US.
#Covidville

In the 2000s, Springfield started revitalization projects including intercity rail to Connecticut and a major casino.
#Covidville

June 1, 2011, the second largest tornado to hit Massachusetts hit Springfield, with 160 mph winds killing 3 and injuring hundreds. 500 people were left homeless, with hundreeds of millions of dollars damage.
#Covidville

Springfield's Metro Center district is reasonably flat, though further east the city climbs up hills.
#Covidville

Top employers in Springfield include the Baystate Medical center, Smith & Wesson, General Dynamics, MassMutual, Mercy Medical center, the USPS, Big Y Foods, courts, Springfield Republican newspaper, and Springfield College.
#Covidville

Springfield is part of the Knowledge Corridor, running through Hartford, with 32 universities and colleges in the general area, six within Springfield proper.
#Covidville

Companies headquartered in Springfield include MassMutual, Smith & Wesson, Merriam Webster, and the American Hockey League HQ.
#Covidville

Entertainment in and around Springfield includes two amusement parks just outside town: Six Flags New England, and Eastern States Exposition ("The Big E").
#Covidville

Local restaurants and entertainment include Theodore's Blues, Booze, & BBQ, Chef Wayne's Big Mamou, Italian, Lebanese, Greek, Jamaican, Mexian, and Vietnamese restaurants.
#Covidville

The Wikipedia page entries for festivals runs around 14 entries, including Hoop City Jazz Festival, Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Weekend, Armory Big Band Concerts, Springfield Gay Pride Week, ...
#Covidville

...Our Lady of Mount Carmel Society Festival, Stearns Square Concert Series and Bike Nights, Mattoon Street Arts Festival, Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival, the St Patrick's Day Parade, ...
#Covidville

... World's Largest Pancake Breakfast, Star Spangled Springfield, Caribbean Festival, The Parade of Big Balloons, and Bright Lights. Springfield has a lot going on.
#Covidville

Springfield has five museums and the city library at its Quadrangle, just west of the Armory: Museum of Fine Arts, George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, Springfield Science Museum, Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, and Museum of Springfield History.
#Covidville

Separately, the Titanic Museum with RMS Titanic artifacts is located in the Indian Orchard neighborhood.
#Covidville

Springfield has the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. Blues musician Taj Mahal grew up near Springfield, Staind is from Springfield, Linda Perry and Dave Brubek Quartet member Joe Morello were born there.
#Covidville

The Springfield Club Quarter has around 60 clubs, bars, and music venues. It's located in and around Sterns Square in the Metro Center district.
#Covidville

Universities in Springfield proper include Western New England University, Springfield College, American International College, and the UMass Amherst Urban Design Center, plus Springfield Technical Community College.
#Covidville

Around 28 more are within the Knowledge Corridor reaching from Amherst in the north down into Connecticut.
#Covidville

Springfield has extensive broadcast and print media in the area, including 7 television stations, 16 FM and 7 AM radio stations,
#Covidville

Transportation wise, Interstate highway I-91 runs along the river in Springfield. Union Station, in the Metro Center district, is a train stop for numerous Amtrak lines and the CTRail Hartford Line.
#Covidville

Bus service of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority uses Union Station as a hub as well, and its Springfield service area covers the city and cities as far as Holyoke. Transfers are available to the northern service area including Amherst.
#Covidville

Bradley International Airport in Connecticut is about 12 miles south of downtown Springfield. Boston's Logan Airport is about 80 miles northeast.
#Covidville

Notable people from Springfield include General Creighton Abrams (after whom the tank is named), computer scientist Alan Kay, and actor Kurt Russell.
#Covidville

I didn't expect as much evident culture and variety in Springfield; I've never been there, and now I'm regretting that. I do want to visit when the pandemic is over.
#Covidville

Tonight we've seen two cities with a lot of character and variety. Both have deep music traditions. Both have deep history. Both have had long manufacturing traditions and both were armories.
#Covidville

In a sense, I'm enjoying getting to highlight the good in the cities I'm profiling. I hate that I'm doing that to put context on the pandemic deaths.
#Covidville

As we roll into Sunday morning, I wonder how many more cities I'm going to have to profile before the pandemic is over. Please help make that number as small as possible.
#Covidville

Don't minimize the risk that the pandemic poses to you, your loved ones, your communities. It's a threat to everyone in the country and world as a whole. Keep yourselves safe.
#Covidville

Don't go to indoors locations which are crowded such as bars or restaurants. Wear a mask, all the time you're outside your house. Stay home as much as possible. Wash hands and use sanitizer.
#Covidville

Also, understand the strain that this is putting on us all. For some this is financial, people are losing houses & appartments. For everyone it's mental, as we lose touch with people and things we can't safely participate in now.
#Covidville

Understand and acknowledge what that stress is doing to you, to your family, to your friends, your neighbors. It's doing that to everyone. Take time to be kind to people, and to yourself.
#Covidville

Remember that for everyone dying of Covid dozens are sickened and facing sometimes long recoveries and possibly lifelong medical issues. We don't understand that enough yet. We're going to have to support people.
#Covidville

Stay safe, be kind to yourself. Goodnight.
#Covidville

This is the #Covidville update for Sunday night, August 2, 2020. Our pandemic death totals today are:
CDC: 154,002 (AM; +1,132)
NYT: 155,323 (10:50pm ET; +414)
NPR: 154,442 (5:32am ET; +1,133)
#Covidville

The NYT count shows the usual decline we've seen Sunday and Monday, most likely reflecting slower updates to recordkeeping over the weekend.
#Covidville

Sticking with extrapolation from the CDC number to end of day, we're probably looking at around 154,450 deaths by end of the day. That adds one more city to our list that the population of Covidville has surpassed: Hollywood, Florida.
#Covidville

Palmdale, California is likely tomorrow.
#Covidville

Hollywood Florida is a city in Florida, in the Fort Lauderdale / Miami area, on the Atlantic coast just south of Fort Lauderdale. It lies in Broward County. Estimated population in 2019 was 154,817.
#Covidville

Hollywood was founded in 1921 by Joseph Young, who wanted to create a designed "Dream City in Florida". His wanted to add manmade lakes, roads, parks, schools, churches, golf courses, integrating the Intracoastal waterway... all the modern luxury amenities.
#Covidville

The city was incorporated in 1925 and he was elected its first mayor. He had a similar development going in New York state.
#Covidville

Hollywood was severely damaged in the 1926 Miami hurricane. In 1928, Port Everglades was opened just north of Hollywood. By 1930, the Hollywood Hills Inn was open and permanent population was 2,589.
#Covidville

In 1947, the Fort Lauderdale Hurricane struck and did significant damage from winds and flooding.
#Covidville

Hotels and resorts as well as normal residential housing kept increasing. By 1970 the population had passed 106,000. By 2010 it was over 140,000, on its way to the estimated 154,000 plus today.
#Covidville

The top local employer as of 2011 was the largest local healthcare system, followed by a hotel group, the city, another hotel group, another hospital, a retail company, aerospace and electronics company HEICO's headquarters and call center.
#Covidville

Hollywood only hosts one community college, Sheridan Technical College.
#Covidville

Musician Joe Trohman was born in Hollywood, Florida.
#Covidville

Hollywood is semi imfamous for being the city in which young Adam Walsh was kidnapped and murdered in 1981. His father John Walsh has been a victims advocate and anti-crime activist since soon after the event.
#Covidville

Road transportation through Hollywood includes the east coast US 1, Interstate-95, and Florida's Turnpike. Broward County buses run through the city. South Florida's Tri-rail runs through and has two stops within Hollywood.
#Covidville

The nearest airport is Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, just north of the city in Fort Lauderdale.
#Covidville

Hollywood has an Art and Culture center, including a 500 seat theatre and art galleries. It has three additional theatre/concert spaces, the Hollywood Beach Theatre, the Boulevard Heights Ampitheater, and ArtsPark Ampitheater. The city also lists nearly 60 parks.
#Covidville

Two clusters of bars and restaurants on the beach north of Hollywood Boulevard andthe Young Circle area, on Hollywood Boulevard east of US 1 seem to have some good opportunities. Nightclubs seem clustered in the area around the Young Circle.
#Covidville

For some reason the Runas Peruvian restaurant strikes me as interesting; I've only been to a couple of Peruvian restaurants before and liked them both in different ways. I think this one in Hollywood Florida sounds interesting.
#Covidville

There's a lot about the schools and charter schools in Hollywood in its web pages and Wikipedia article, along with basic civic culture stuff.
#Covidville

I get the feeling there are two cities, a residential city that's maybe not gotten enough culture, and a tourist city that maybe isn't big enough. I don't know how they work together in practice.
#Covidville

I've been to Florida several times before, but usually to nearer Cape Canaveral. I think that if I spend time in south Florida / Miami areas, I would like to stop and visit Hollywood.
#Covidville

I want to find out if my impression at a distance of the two cities is accurate or not. After the pandemic.
#Covidville

I want to say something profound each day, but I'm tired. The NY Times total of pandemic dead passed 155,000 today, only four days after it passed 150,000. Experts suggested we were in for several weeks of 6-7,000 deaths per week.
#Covidville

Be careful. Don't be the next victim. Wear your masks, stay home as much as possible, don't spend time indoors in crowds, wash your hands and sanitize. Talk to your doctor and get tested if you feel ill.
#Covidville

Take this seriously and be safe. Be good to the people around you. The objective is for as many of us to survive this as possible. Be one of the survivors.
Goodnight.
#Covidville

This is tonight's #Covidville update for Monday night August 3, 2020, and our pandemic deaths in the US totals tonight are:
CDC: 154,471 (AM, +469)
NYT: 155,935 (12:26am 8-4; +612)
NPR: 154,855 (AM, +413)

The cities that the pandemic deaths count has passed tonigth are Palmdale, California, population 155,079, and Salinas, California, population 155,465. In a day or two the count will pass Lancaster, California, then Lakewood, Colorado. But not tonight.
#Covidville

Slightly amusingly, Palmdale and Lancaster are neighboring cities in the Mojave desert. If this were another context we could make some sort of joke.
#Covidville

Palmdale is in the north of Los Angeles County, in what's called Antelope Valley. Realistically, it's the southern edge of the Mojave desert, about 30 miles due south of the town of Mojave itself.
#Covidville

The Antelope Valley was populated by native americans for around 11,000 years. It was a trade route between California's coast and Arizona and New Mexico further inland.
#Covidville

Spanish explorer Capitan Pedro Fages explored the area in 1772. After native americans left the valley as europeans moved in, Spanish and Mexican immigrants established cattle ranches.
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By the 1880s immigrants from Germany, France, and Nebraska broke the ranches into smaller homesteads. The first settlement per se was "Palmenthal", established by midwesterners of German and Swiss origins.
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They'd been told that they'd know they were near the ocean when they saw palm trees. They had never actually seen palm trees, and apparently mistook Joshua trees for Palms, hence the name. A post office opened in 1888.
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By the 1890s the town migrated closer to railroad tracks and centered itself around a railroad station at the site of the present day civic center. The town was renamed Palmdale.
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By 1913 the Mullholland water system bringing water to Los Angeles was operating, and Palmdale was a beneficiary. Farming intensified, including apples, pears, and alfalfa. In 1915, the Palmdale Post newspaper was publishing.
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By 1921 the first major road to Los Angeles opened. In 1924, a new dam and reservoir helped manage the water supplies for agriculture and residents.
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Agriculture dominated until World War 2. In 1933, the US Government opened Muroc Air Base about ten miles northeast of Palmdale, now known as Edwards Air Force Base.
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In 1952, Palmdale Airport was purchased for government use, and Air Force Plant 42 established.
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In 1956, the city was victimized during the Battle of Palmdale, when Air Force interceptors trying to stop an out of control Navy drone dropped over 200 rockets on Palmdale and the surrounding desert, unsuccessfully.
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Fortunately nobody was killed, but several homes and garages were hit, a car driving along was narrowly missed, and a truck destroyed right after its occupants got out.
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By 1962, the town of Palmdale incorporated into the city of Palmdale, initially about 2 square miles around the present day civic center. In 1964, the Antelope valley Freeway, Highway 14, was completed to LA.
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By 1965, there was significant talk about a large possibly intercontinental airport, and the city annexed another 20 square miles. Land speculation was running rampant.
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The city of Los Angeles bought almost 30 square miles of land east of Palmdale planning to build a large airport. However, the plans were taken slowly after the Air Force objected.
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In 1977, Palmdale built its first municipal building, the city library. The same year, Lancaster just to the north incorporated as a city; Lancaster was becoming the larger economic and residential community.
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In the 1980s, the population grew rapidly due to the relative affordability of homes in Palmdale compared to Los Angeles. Many residents commuted to LA. In 1980 the population was 12,000; by 1990 it was 68,000.
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The 2000s brought continued growth, to near current levels by 2010. It became the sixth largest city in Los Angleles County by population. The city added bus and train commuter service, and numerous civic buildings.
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Palmdale's biggest industry is aerospace; other manufacturing has moved there as well. The Space Shuttles, SR-71, U-2, B-2 bomber, F-117 Nighthawk figher and many other aircraft were built in Palmdale.
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Even today, the US next generation B-21 bomber prototypes are coming together in a factory in Palmdale.
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Railcars have been built in Palmdale, along with numerous other industries including lithium batteries and lightpoles and building protective barriers.
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Private university University of Antelope Valley is the only university headquartered in Palmdale, but satellite campuses of CSU Bakersfield, DeVry, Brandman, University of Phoenix, and University of La Verne.
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I've driven through Palmdale and stopped for gas, but not explored or eaten there. Online searches all seem to agree two restaurants are worthwhile checking out, Lee Esther's Creole and Cajun Cooking, and Baracoa Cuban Restaurant.
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There seems to be a good variety of other restaurants as well, from Armenian to Ramen to Thai and others.
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The demographics of Palmdale seem to be very majority minority and have been for some time; I think that the city variety shows through in the businesses.
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Local entertainment includes a waterpark, air park or museum, city ampitheater, library, playhouse, public art program, and several commercial entertainment centers.
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I guess that Palmdale is the answer for what happens when you mix a bedroom community, diverse multicultural community, and secret stealth bomber and drone factory community together and stir.
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I want to visit and look around more sometime. Perhaps I will extend a future post-COVID trip to Mojave and rocket stuff down to Palmdale.
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Next up: Salinas, California.
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Salinas is a town I travel through several times a year, but haven't explored as much as I might. It's in Monterey County, California; inland from the ocean, distinctly south of the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Salinas is the county seat for Monterey County, has a climate influenced by the ocean which has made it an agricultural center, and is known as 'Salad Bowl of the World'.
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Native american history in Salinas is relatively recent; the Esselen people are believed to have lived there before 200 AD; between 200 and 500 AD the Rumsen Ohlone displaced them, and were the natives when the Spanish arrived in the 1700s.
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The Spanish gave land grants to the Missions, and as bonuses to soldier-colonizers. The Ranho Las Salinas was one, and cattle ranching and cattle hide trade were a major part of the economy.
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Salinas was involved in the battles and disputes leading up to California becoming part of the United States. John Fremont flew an American flag on a nearby mountain; Fremont Peak is named after that.
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In the 1850s two stage coach routes crossed in the area now known as Salinas. A small settlment formed, and when a post office opened the area was named Salinas, probably after the land grant name.
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The street grid was laid out in 1867, and the town inorporated in 1874. Grazing land shifted towards agriculture simultaneously as the railroad arrived. Salinas agricultural crops were diverse.
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Chinese immigration for farm labor made it a relatively large part of the community.
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Sadly, Salinas played a role as a temporary detention camp during World War 2 for Jamanese Americans going into internment camps.
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The city crew and urbanized, turning bordering cropland into housing, in the 1950s and 60s and again in the 1990s and 2000s.
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Writer John Steinbeck was born and lived much of his life in Salinas. Mnay of his stories are set in the city or area. The library of his works and house he grew up in are museums now.
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Salinas was known for street gangs and had a violent crime spike in the 2000s, but levels have fallen about 75% since the 2015 peak of violence.
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The major employers in Salinas are balanced between agricultural companies (food production or packing) and healthcare. with the county government behind those sectors.
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Salinas has varied arts events and venues; pre-Covid, there were First Fridays Art Walk. There are several arts galleries. There are several theatre companies in Salinas, and two venues.
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Festivals include El Grito, Founders Day, Ciclovia Salinas, California Rodeo Salinas, and Salinas Arts Festival.
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Hartnell College is the only college based in Salinas, but California State University Monterey Bay has a satellite campus.
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US Route 101 goes north to south through Salinas. California 68 goes west to Monterey, California 183 east to Castroville. Amtrak's Coast Starlight stops in Salinas en route from Seattle to Los Angeles.
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Salinas has a municipal airport, which is general aviation not scheduled passenger flights.
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Beyond John Steinbeck, some notable Salinas natives include actress Vanessa Hudgens and rocker Sammy Hagar.
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Salinas' cuisine may suffer a bit in comparison to the tourist focus and elegance found in the Monterey and Carmel area a few miles towards the coast. But I've heard people rave about Salinas City BBQ.
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I think that when the pandemic is over, I'm going to stop in Salinas rather than drive through the next time. Let's see what I find.
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These two cities are the 165th and 164th largest in the United States. Today, our memorial city of the pandemic dead has surpassed both.
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Imagining what the world would be like without either. No Steinbeck? No Sammy? No Space Shuttle or B-2 Bomber? ... Maybe we could have done without the B-2.
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We've been seeing repeated themes here with Covidville. Parts of our world that we implicitly assume and are part of the lexicon and shared history are the places that the pandemic death toll are passing.
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I mentioned a few days ago that a tragedy morphed to statistics when you couldn't name all the dead anymore. But beyond statistics you find a new gulf of loss - elements and icons of common culture gone.
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I mentioned a few days ago that a tragedy morphed to statistics when you couldn't name all the dead anymore. But beyond statistics you find a new gulf of loss - elements and icons of common culture gone.
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I don't know if Steinbeck, Sammy, Vanessa, or the Space Shuttle speak more to you personally. But we've covered a lot of my friends and acquaintences interests somewhere in that set.
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A friend of mine who does music media recording and broadcast stuff knows Sammy. I among many others grew up reading Steinbeck. At times I would have given anything for a Space Shuttle flight.
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nd I'm too old to be paying undue attention to Ms Hudgens, though I do appreciate her talent.
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As I've been saying, #Covidville isn't actually focused in any one of our communities. It's taking from us all. But this project is a what if ... it did. What would we lose, if we lost these places and people.
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Several weeks ago, I asked people to go outside if you lived in any city with less than the then-current death toll, and look around, and imagine everyone in sight all gone.
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And everyone that they knew, everyone at all the businesses you frequent and restaurants and bars and theaters, all of them gone.
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Four million known cases in the US and approaching 160,000 dead. We need to stop this, to slow it first. We aren't doing that yet. Everyone needs to.
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Protect your community and your friends and family by protecting yourself. Don't go out if you don't have to. Stay home. Wear a mask if you go out. Wash hands and use hand sanitizer.
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Think about all we're losing, but look to the future and what we'll do next. Do your part to survive and be part of what's next. Be good to yourself in this crisis.
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And spare a moment to give thanks for the people who are doing the jobs that need to be done; deliveries, groceries, restaurants for takeout and delivery, keeping lights on and streets safe.
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They're more at risk than anyone else and we're not giving them enough credit and recognition. We're also not getting them enough masks and sanitizer. Work to change that.
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Goodnight. Be safe.
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