23 August 2013

The "Racial Dot Map" of the United States

This map is an American snapshot; it provides an accessible visualization of geographic distribution, population density, and racial diversity of the American people in every neighborhood in the entire country. The map displays 308,745,538 dots, one for each person residing in the United States at the location they were counted during the 2010 Census. Each dot is color-coded by the individual's race and ethnicity. The map is presented in both black and white and full color versions. In the color version, each dot is color-coded by race.

All of the data displayed on the map are from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Summary File 1 dataset made publicly available through the National Historical Geographic Information System. The data is based on the "census block," the smallest area of geography for which data is collected (roughly equivalent to a city block in an urban area).

The map was created by Dustin Cable, a demographic researcher at the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Brandon Martin-Anderson from the MIT Media Lab deserves credit for the original inspiration for the project. This map builds on his work by adding the Census Bureau's racial data, and by correcting for mapping errors.
The embedded image is for the area where I now live (Madison, Wisconsin).  You can see your home area at The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, via Neatorama.

6 comments:

  1. Apply this to home values, and see how gerrymandering makes it to the next level.

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  2. Yet another club for racists. Your neighborhood isn't black/white/green enough so we'll force you do something about it! Utter nonsense.

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  3. Yep. America's as segregated as it ever was (consider class/race intersections and you'll get it). Nothing post-racial about this place.

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    1. I would disagree, because I think you're forgetting (or ignoring) the mixed-race status of many Americans. I am a member of a family that includes via marriage a wide variety of races and ethnicities - a situation which would not have been considered socially acceptable in my grandfather's day, when the marriage of a Norwegian Lutheran girl to a Swedish Lutheran man was considered problematical.

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  4. I hate to break it to you Norwegians are European descents of the Netherlands and Sweden is in the Netherlands..so therefore they are also Norwegians..so therefore let's say a woman from Norway marries a man from Sweden..they are both Norwegians and only difference is language spoken in there home country..so as it should be is acceptable..it would be no different than a new york woman of Irish descent marrying a Vermont man of Irish descent..their both same heritage..you should really study nationalities and ethnicity before you post uneducated and idiotic comments like you just did..lol

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    1. ***"only difference is language spoken in there home country..so as it should be is acceptable"

      Contrary to what you consider to be your well-informed opinion, in the early 1900s, the new immigrants of rural Goodhue County Minnesota made clear distinctions between "Swedes" and "Norskes." My grandfather was very upset that his daughter chose to marry a man whose ancestors were from what was then Sweden. Your ideal of what should genetically be "acceptable" was not in fact the social norm of that time.

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