maps maps maps maps maps

[topaz]

The current meme going around seems to be electoral maps. We've all seen the state-by-state electoral breakdown, but here are some of the more interesting versions I've seen:

At http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm, a map of Democratic and Republican votes, broken down by county rather than by state:


At http://www.electoral-vote.com/carto/nov04c.html, a "cartogram," which is apparently a map scaled to population rather than area:


From http://www.boingboing.net. This map describes just the margin of victory. Each state is colored a shade of purple depending on how many Republican (red) or Democrat (blue) votes it got. This gives a much better idea of how mixed the vote was:


moominmolly and claudia_ each posted a purple cartogram, combining the last two ideas. I think they did this independently, but I'm not sure. claudia_ posted her version here:


And moominmolly's is here:


I think this one is my favorite. A purple map drawn by county rather than by state. From KieranHealy.org.


Kieran links to a really huge version of this one: 1547x1053, 400KB.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

See, I've never bought the contention that exposure necessarily breeds tolerance. In fact, I can think of many counterexamples. For instance, I knew someone in high school whose father grew up in a community where there were many Hispanics. As a result, he was very prejudiced against them, but had no particular prejudices against Blacks. In the small segregrated town I lived in, however, I ran into a lot of anti-Black prejudice among my schoolmates. But when Hispanics moved into the community for the first time, they were met with something like fascination (being from LA and up on all the trends).

Another thing: Given the history of Chicago--solidly Democratic since its origins--I don't see that "Democrat" correlates very well with "liberal" or "tolerant". That's why I'm more inclined to assume that urban environments attract more liberals rather then that living in a city makes you less conservative.