Referenced by 5 other explainers
Downscaling moves ABS cultural diversity counts from the smallest published area down to a small area. Place Forecast uses its general tessellation method to do this. Cultural diversity markers count people. So the tessellation weight is total resident population in each mesh block.
This spreads out small groups that cluster in a few streets. Say a group shares a language or place of birth, but lives in just two streets. The chart spreads that group across the wider area. It shows the wider area's pattern, not where the group really lives. ABS perturbation adds a small shift on top.
Per-group LGA totals are still fixed to ABS through LGA anchoring.
For service choices about a group, read the small-area figures as patterns, not exact counts. Validate against on-the-ground knowledge from community organisations before drawing conclusions.