Data link roundup (week of July 19, 2013)

The week's top data analysis links...
This week's theme: Maps! Cartography! GIS!


HOW NOT TO MAP YOUR DATA

While generally one of my favorite daily reads, The Atlantic WIRE gets their map analysis of murders in America all wrong.

Source: The Atlantic WIRE

The problem?

TAW maps total number of murders, but does not control for population size, and then highlights that California and Florida are always at the top of the list.

News flash to the murder map analysts: Those are two of the nation's most populous states!

Is it any wonder that California is always highest, followed by Texas, Florida, and New York? At this stage in the cartography game, we shouldn't have to say this, but when comparing trends by state:

Map per capita, people!
Per capita!


HOW DIVERSE IS YOUR CITY?

Starting with the 2000 Census, Eric Fischer developed a series of dot-density maps to display racial distribution patterns within U.S. metropolitan areas. Fisher updated the demographic dot map series for the 2010 Census.

Source: Eric Fischer

AFFORDABILITY: HOUSING AND TRANSPORTATION

The two largest components of the average American household budget are: housing and transportation, but most analysis focuses on just the housing part of "affordability" when comparing U.S. metro areas. The H + T index combines both in a web-based mapping application.
(Thanks to MC for passing this link along!)


JUST FOR FUN

And a few maps just for fun...

• Do you call your footwear "sneakers" or "tennis shoes?" Map of regional dialect in the United States.
• In what language do you Tweet? (More Eric Fischer maps via Nathan Yau)
• Mapping the rise of craft beer in the United States.
• Where do you do your grocery shopping? (Maps of regional grocery store chain concentrations.)

BEST CHART VISUALIZATION TOOL OF THE WEEK

Special thanks to my friend RC for pointing me to the Urban Observatory, an online visualization tool that allows users to compare socio-economic and environmental characteristics quickly across major world cities. Take, for example, population density in New York, Tokyo, and Mumbai...

Source: Urban Observatory

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

Now that Google Reader is gone, if you're not following on Twitter, you should be. I post fact-checked links and interesting data insights (nearly) every day.

Data link roundup (week of May 3, 2013)

The week's top data analysis links...
... a geography lesson.

FREE (GIS) LUNCH

The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2011.
Now you know what you'll be doing on your lunch-hour this week...


BEST CHART MAP OF THE WEEK

The United States may be divided by state, county, city, and township boundaries, but our patterns of social activity rarely follow political jurisdiction lines.

Dick Brockman tracked currency interactions (following the paths individually-tracked dollar bills on "Where's George") to see how Americans flow -- or at least how their currency does -- across the country. Dark blue lines represent "neighborhoods" in which people have close, in-person financial interactions with one another.

Source: NPR via Dick Brockman

Influenza

In case you had not noticed the coughing and sneezing of your neighbors (or the complaints of fever and chills posted by friends on Facebook), CDC confirms that flu season is upon us...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitor and report on influenza through the Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet). In addition, CDC staff collect data from state health departments report. The maps below show data from the state-level reporting.

Influenza activity in early December...

Source: CDC

... and at the end of December.

Source: CDC

The maps are based on:

...the estimated level of geographic spread of influenza activity in their states each week through the State and Territorial Epidemiologists Reports. States report geographic spread of influenza activity as no activity, sporadic, local, regional, or widespread. These levels are defined as follows:
No Activity: No laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza and no reported increase in the number of cases of ILI.
Sporadic: Small numbers of laboratory-confirmed influenza cases or a single laboratory-confirmed influenza outbreak has been reported, but there is no increase in cases of ILI.
Local: Outbreaks of influenza or increases in ILI cases and recent laboratory-confirmed influenza in a single region of the state.
Regional: Outbreaks of influenza or increases in ILI and recent laboratory confirmed influenza in at least two but less than half the regions of the state with recent laboratory evidence of influenza in those regions.
Widespread: Outbreaks of influenza or increases in ILI cases and recent laboratory-confirmed influenza in at least half the regions of the state with recent laboratory evidence of influenza in the state.

According to the most recent information, flu virus is active in every one of the contiguous states and in Alaska. Hawaii is reporting only sporadic flu activity.

CDC cautions, however, that the maps reflect the "geographic spread of influenza viruses, but does not measure the severity of influenza activity."

For more information CDC also provides an interactive mapping tool, Flu View.

Test your geography knowledge

This week we'll be celebrating Geography Awareness Week by highlighting unique spatial visualizations of data.

In honor of GIS Day, the highlight of Geography Awareness Week, I have a three geography games to share:

Test your knowledge of the states in the United States by placing them (correctly) on the national map:

Or go abroad and play one of the many geography games at Lizard Point maps which range from naming European capitals to identifying the provinces in Afghanistan and identifying the nations in South America.

And last, but not least, is The World's Geo Quiz Challenge from Public Radio International.

Please feel free to share your score(s) in the comment section!

Happy GIS Day!

Go West, Americans! (Or maybe South?)

Since the Census Bureau started keeping score in 1790, the nation's population has grown fastest in the western and southern regions, shifting the nation's "mean center of population" in a steady march across the continent.

According to the Census Bureau:

The center is determined as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight.

Tracking the mean center of population tells a story of the nation's growth, conflicts, and social change. This interactive map from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the shifting mean center of population over time:


Today's mean center is in Texas County, Missouri - more than 1,000 miles from the first recorded center in Kent County, Maryland (1790). Some of the biggest shifts over time show the nation's development, and at times, growing pains.

Major shifts over time:
1790: First mean center is calculated as falling about 23 miles east of Baltimore, MD.

1810: The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled the land area of the nation, and the mean center shifted into Virginia.

1860: The center shifted by more than 80 miles (biggest shift on record) thanks to rapid growth in the nation's western states, driven in large part by the Gold Rush.

1870: Just ten years later the mean center of population experienced it's biggest shift to the north, as Northeastern and Midwestern cities experienced rapid post-Civil War growth as people fled the war-ravaged South. Also during this time Alaska became a U.S. territory (1867).

1920: The smallest shift on record was between 1910 and 1920. The nation's current territory had already been acquired, slowing the rate of westward expansion. The Northeast and Midwest saw large inflows of international migrants. And last, but certainly not least, there was substantial migration of black/African American population out of the South and into the Northeast and Midwest, precipitated by the intense racism that spawned the Jim Crow laws.

1950: After six decades in Indiana (the longest in any one state), the center finally crossed state lines into Illinois.

2010: The center has its biggest recorded shift to the south, as Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas record rapid population growth.