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

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I don't think suburban communities are that similar to metropolitan ones. People largely move to the suburbs in order to get away from the closely clustered people without having to leave their jobs in the city. Socially I think it's more closely related to the small rural community model that reesi talked about.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Really? Let's compare those two (admittedly idealised) models again:

In small rural communities:

1. "People tend to define 'us' as the group surrounding them."
2. "Your 'us' is a small community, often built around churches as a community organization, and large extended families."
3. "If anyone in their community needs help, they take care of them."
4. "If someone needs help, people know it."

Whereas in big cities:

1. "Your 'us' group has to encompass more people than you can personally know."
2. "The personal support net has a looser weave."
3. "And not everyone belongs to the same church, and in fact not everyone even belongs to a church."
4. "And the population is more mobile, so the extended family unit is missing too."
5. "So people in big cities are used to passing the charity duty off to the government, because otherwise there is no one there to help."

Do you know a lot of suburbs built around churches? Where families are sendentary and extended rather than nuclear and mobile? Where everyone knows everyone else and helps take care of them rather than expecting the government to step in? You say yourself that a lot of people move to them "in order to get away from the closely clustered people". Why would you expect those people to be quite significantly more involved in the lives of their neighbours than urban folk?

I've already pointed out elsewhere that many urban neighbourhoods are organised more like reesei's rural model than her urban one. I'm willing to bet, for instance, that all the dozens of extended Pakistani families in the Khan Associates-managed apartment building up the street from me know each other, know everyone's business, help each other, probably go to the same mosque, and don't expect much in the way of support from the government. Did they all vote Republican in that last election?