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

[reesei.livejournal.com]

I'd always thought of suburbs as being rather like Iowa, actually. At least the "citified" part of Iowa where I grew up (where city is defined as 80,000 person town).

- Emphasis on quality education overwhelming almost everything else, because the main point of moving to the suburbs is family life
- Not quite having the culture of the big cities, not quite having the community of a small town, but trying hard for both
- Being slightly afraid that "city problems" - drugs, gangs - will invade and make your idyllic community much less so
- Strip-mall economy ;)

Iowa has been split right down the middle in voting for the past few elections. I don't know how the suburbs usually fare, but I'd always assumed they were the "soccer moms and nascar dads" that make up the middle both sides were chasing.

Again, I am not a sociologist - I don't necessarily have the facts to back any of this up; just my impression based on the variety of places I've lived and the prevalent attitudes there.