A 1960s government program predicted civil disorder hotspots with 87 percent accuracy.

Evidence

Throughout the 1960s, Robbin developed programs for the Office of Economic Development. One such program includes “The Index of Susceptibility of Civil Disorder,” which predicted cities that would likely experience riots. Ultimately, the model achieved 87 percent accuracy. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1409

Categorization

• QUESTION: What exactly did the 87 percent accuracy predict — timing, location, or likelihood? And did this feed into the same geodemographic modeling Robbin later sold to marketers?
• SEED: The lineage from counterinsurgency-era prediction models to commercial marketing segmentation is an angle worth pursuing.