To the editor:

Re: "Vancouver Special - Shaughnessy," Feb. 15.

Here are a couple of numbers to supplement your focus on Shaugh-nessy. Among the 22 Vancouver neighbourhoods, Shaughnessy owns the low-density end of the spectrum.

According to 2011 census figures, its 19.7 persons per hectare stands well below the 52.8 for Vancouver as a whole. Far more interesting, it is the only Vancouver neighbourhood to show a percentage decline in population for 1971-2011. An astonishing -15.1 per cent contrasts with +41.9 per cent for all of Vancouver.

A data cruncher word for this trend-bucking status is "outlier."

Joseph Jones, Vancouver