While news channels broadcast from the front door of Michael Jackson’s childhood home and the gate to the Neverland Ranch, Social Explorer lets you look around the neighborhood, and see who was living near Michael.

Indiana to California:

Born in 1958, Jackson spent his early years in Gary, Indiana. Living at 2300 Jackson Street (named after the former president, not his own family), he was raised in a suburb of Chicago. His father worked in the steel industry, a more robust sector at the time. The Jackson household had 11 members, making it larger than 90 percent of neighboring families (and larger than Jon and Kate and Plus 8).

Slideshow: Gary, IN % Black 1960 — 2000 census tract:

(Click on the maps to interact.)

After building up a following in the Midwest, Jackson and his family first moved to Los Angeles in 1968 with Motown Records. That year, the Jackson Five performed at Jack Hanson’s elite Beverly Hills nightclub the Daisy. The concert helped launch them onto the national record industry scene, and in 1969, Motown released their debut album “Diana Ross Presents the Jackson Five.”

Race and Space:

It may not matter if you’re black or white, when looking at demographics, it might. It is worth noting that Jackson has lived in communities of both homogenous extremes. His hometown in Gary was 99.4 percent black in 1960, and remains highly segregated today (97.8 percent black according to the 2000 Census). In California, Jackson lived in communities with a radically different racial makeup.

The Jackson family compound at 4641 Havenhurst Ave., Encino, California, is in a neighborhood with a black population that has been at or below one percent from 1980 to the present. Meanwhile, the Neverland Ranch at 5225 Figueroa Mountain Rd., Los Olivos, CA, is in a community that has been less than 1 percent black since Jackson first bought the property in 1987. (You can check these and other indicators for yourself. Just go to Social Explorer and click on “maps," and then try out the various addresses.)

In addition to a shift in racial diversity, the housing and density are completely different between Gary and Los Angeles. Public about his anxieties being surrounded by lots of people, Jackson moved from Gary where nearly 11,000 people shared one square mile of land, to Los Olivos, CA, where the population density remains less than 30 people per square mile.

(Click on the map to interact.)

Latest Home:

After courtroom controversies and years of living in Bahrain, Dubai and Ireland, Jackson moved to 100 North Carolwood Dr., in Holmby Hills, CA, earlier this year.

The $100,000 monthly rent of his mansion could have bought him three homes in Gary, Indiana, where the median home value is $37,100 (a figure that is low for both the county and the nation).

Back in the land of million-dollar-mansions (the median home value for the Holmby Hills area) and just miles away from his breakthrough Beverly Hills concert, Jackson was rehearsing for what could have been another pivotal concert in his career.

All data and demographic references are from Social Explorer maps and reports.

Additional Sources:

LA Times Obituary

NY Times Obituary

NY Times Article “Tricky Steps from Boy to Superstar”