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Experts: Obama crowd smaller than reported
By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
January 22, 2009
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| Experts are questioning the report that 1.8 million people attended Tuesday’s inauguration. (Getty Images) |
An estimate using satellite imagery produced Wednesday by intelligence publishing company Jane’s Information Group counted between 1.3 million and 1.7 million in and around the Mall and parade route.
Clark McPhail, an expert in crowd counting and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, said that 1.5 million people spread from the west lawn of the Capitol to the far end of the reflecting pool would have a consistent density equivalent to packing nearly 2,000 people on a basketball court.
Maggie Daniels, a George Mason University professor of tourism and events management who has conducted research on crowded Mall festivities, said the 1.8 million figure seems too big, but precise analyses remain to be completed.
“I tend to think it’s closer to about 1 million” on the Mall, she said.
Laurie Harmon, a George Mason professor who works with Daniels and who attended the swearing-in, said that where she stood, people were packed. But upon watching aerial footage later in the day, she noticed “several areas along the Mall with very low population.”
“The National Park Service does not contest” the reported estimate of 1.8 million people, said spokesman Bill Line. “And we will use the figure of 1.8 million visitors when we refer to the inaugural figure.”
Line’s cautious statement alludes to troubles the Park Service and other agencies have faced in the past. In 1995, when Park Service estimates for Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March came in well under 1 million men, organizers blamed racism.
Congress took up the issue in 1997 and actually prohibited the Park Service from conducting crowd estimates. So this year, because Tuesday’s “events were historic in nature to our nation,” Line said, his agency would use the figure ascertained by someone else. That reported figure, Line said, came from the Washington Post, which reported on Wednesday “a crowd that some estimates put at nearly 1.8 million.” And that report, according to the paper, came from an unsourced official.
