5 ms·

Mapping the Census: A Dot for Every Person

92 points by japhyr 14y ago

ars 14y ago
The pattern of dots connecting larger cities in the middle of the country is really impressive - and a bit suspicious how straight the lines are.
- japhyr 14y ago
  Have you traveled that part of the country? There are large areas where every road is east-west or north-south, and the towns are evenly spaced for very long distances. I don't see anything suspicious about it at all. Is there something I'm missing?
  - Stratoscope 14y ago
    Sounds right to me. Here's an example: https://maps.google.com/?ll=39.505841,-95.443857&spn=0.474159,0.971603&t=u&z=11 https://maps.google.com/?ll=39.505841,-95.443857&spn=0.4...
    - _delirium 14y ago
      There's some information on the origins of those remarkably regular (and recursive) grid roads in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- jspaur 14y ago
  I imagine these correspond to highways. I did a similar thing a while back with postal codes and their density. I don't know why I was so blown away, but I was. Take the West Coast for example: http://i.imgur.com/WBzWG.png http://i.imgur.com/WBzWG.png
- tedunangst 14y ago
  I have also heard that the regular spacing of towns east-west is how far a steam locomotive could go before it needed water, but have no idea as to the accuracy of that claim.
  - jspthrowaway2 14y ago
    I've heard the same as authoritative from a postgrad studying U.S. history; I'm with you, though, that's just as anecdotal as far as the HN standard of truth goes. I wish my own U.S. History course would have covered ground like this instead of starting in the early 20th century with the plight of immigrants. No independence, no civil war, nada. I felt cheated by that (high school) course and I've been meaning to fill in the gaps.
    - chimeracoder 14y ago
      > No independence, no civil war, nada. To be honest, most schools that do cover those do an even worse job than not teaching anything at all. If you're interested in filling in the gaps on your own: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-About-History-Anniversary/dp/0061960543 http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-About-History-Anniversary/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281 http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/074...
      - jspthrowaway2 14y ago
        Thank you for the recommendations.
mixmastamyk 14y ago
Minneapolis looks a lot larger than I'd have guessed.
CKKim 14y ago
The increasingly magnified images remind me of playing with fractal-viewing programs, with one major difference: here the zooming in leads to distinct patterns at specific resolutions, rather than repetition of one at a different scale. Once you get to the clearly visible "blocks" of Detroit and LA you're learning something completely different. Fascinating.
bwooce 14y ago
Neat. I've often thought about setting up an installation with one pixel per person...in the world. With HDTV's it's not too extravagant either - about 3345 panels. A lot (of drivers too) but doable. Any support for it? I was thinking that a circular dome ring of panels would be an amazing visualization tool. Ideas: 1. current age of every person, represented by color 2. Language 3. Religion 4. State (health, nourishment, etc) But then I run out - but I think it would be an incredible tool for a variety of data sets. You could start smaller too (country level) Has anyone done this yet? I'm aware there are no new ideas on the Internet.
- leephillips 14y ago
  "I've often thought about setting up an installation with one pixel per person" The problem with this kind of simple scatterplot is that there is an maximum density that you can represent, when the dots start to overlap. And you can't tell what that maximum density is by looking at the map, so it in effect misrepresents the data. The example in the article compensates for this by allowing zooming, but the problem is still there at most zoom levels. To avoid this you need to use one of the techniques that tessellates the plane and colors each tile according to the average value in the tile.
  - reddit_clone 14y ago
    Yep. That's what I thought too. The more number on a pixel, the darker (or brighter) it gets. But I don't know how far that can be pushed.
  - Thrymr 14y ago
    I read bwooce's comment to mean one pixel per person literally (not in map projection). If you're not trying to represent geography at the same time you don't have that problem. You could still sort the data representing individuals by two variables if you want, e.g. latitude and longitude, and map them to x and y, but it wouldn't be a map.
    - leephillips 14y ago
sputknick 14y ago
I zoomed in on my neighborhood. My question is... I live on the edge of a national park, and I see a number of dots (roughly 50) within that national park. How is that possible?
- sammyo 14y ago
  Hermits in treehouses?
- BrokenEnso 14y ago
  From my understanding in a lot (at least a few) National Parks not all of the land is owned by the park. There are spots of land in the parks that are privately owned; and, some people have decided to build homes on that private land in the National Parks. CBS Sunday morning had a piece [1] on the whole deal with people building homes in national parks. [1]http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57530300/national-parks-landscape-changing-as-private-land-developed/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57530300/national-par...
- LoganCale 14y ago
  Same, I live near a National Forest boundary and it's showing a substantial number of dots inside that boundary in places where there are most definitely no homes. There are occasional chunks of private land within the boundary, but not where these dots are showing—they are, in fact, often within a designated wilderness boundary which allows no permanent residents or active buildings.
  - Thrymr 14y ago
    The dots are not placed to exact addresses, but roughly evenly distributed within census blocks. The number inside the block should be correct, not the exact placement.
oofabz 14y ago
I was hoping for a downloadable single-image version but he doesn't have one. I made one myself by compositing his tiles. Image: http://frammish.org/dots.png http://frammish.org/dots.png Code: http://pastie.org/5602534 http://pastie.org/5602534
- reddit_clone 14y ago
  Your first link crashed my Safari Browser.
  - sp332 14y ago
    It caused a spike in Firefox's memory usage of over 1 extra gigabyte.
lylemckeany 14y ago
I like how you can toggle between the normal Google map and the census dots. It's fun to try to guess what the large white spots are in areas I'm familiar with, such as the Crystal Springs Reservoir near San Mateo, CA.

92 points by japhyr 14y ago

ars 14y ago

The pattern of dots connecting larger cities in the middle of the country is really impressive - and a bit suspicious how straight the lines are.

japhyr 14y ago
Have you traveled that part of the country? There are large areas where every road is east-west or north-south, and the towns are evenly spaced for very long distances. I don't see anything suspicious about it at all. Is there something I'm missing?
- Stratoscope 14y ago
  Sounds right to me. Here's an example: https://maps.google.com/?ll=39.505841,-95.443857&spn=0.474159,0.971603&t=u&z=11 https://maps.google.com/?ll=39.505841,-95.443857&spn=0.4...
  - _delirium 14y ago
    There's some information on the origins of those remarkably regular (and recursive) grid roads in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jspaur 14y ago
I imagine these correspond to highways. I did a similar thing a while back with postal codes and their density. I don't know why I was so blown away, but I was. Take the West Coast for example: http://i.imgur.com/WBzWG.png http://i.imgur.com/WBzWG.png
tedunangst 14y ago
I have also heard that the regular spacing of towns east-west is how far a steam locomotive could go before it needed water, but have no idea as to the accuracy of that claim.
- jspthrowaway2 14y ago
  I've heard the same as authoritative from a postgrad studying U.S. history; I'm with you, though, that's just as anecdotal as far as the HN standard of truth goes. I wish my own U.S. History course would have covered ground like this instead of starting in the early 20th century with the plight of immigrants. No independence, no civil war, nada. I felt cheated by that (high school) course and I've been meaning to fill in the gaps.
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    > No independence, no civil war, nada. To be honest, most schools that do cover those do an even worse job than not teaching anything at all. If you're interested in filling in the gaps on your own: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-About-History-Anniversary/dp/0061960543 http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-About-History-Anniversary/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281 http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/074...
    - jspthrowaway2 14y ago
      Thank you for the recommendations.

mixmastamyk 14y ago

Minneapolis looks a lot larger than I'd have guessed.

CKKim 14y ago

The increasingly magnified images remind me of playing with fractal-viewing programs, with one major difference: here the zooming in leads to distinct patterns at specific resolutions, rather than repetition of one at a different scale. Once you get to the clearly visible "blocks" of Detroit and LA you're learning something completely different. Fascinating.

bwooce 14y ago

Neat. I've often thought about setting up an installation with one pixel per person...in the world. With HDTV's it's not too extravagant either - about 3345 panels. A lot (of drivers too) but doable. Any support for it? I was thinking that a circular dome ring of panels would be an amazing visualization tool. Ideas: 1. current age of every person, represented by color 2. Language 3. Religion 4. State (health, nourishment, etc) But then I run out - but I think it would be an incredible tool for a variety of data sets. You could start smaller too (country level) Has anyone done this yet? I'm aware there are no new ideas on the Internet.

leephillips 14y ago
"I've often thought about setting up an installation with one pixel per person" The problem with this kind of simple scatterplot is that there is an maximum density that you can represent, when the dots start to overlap. And you can't tell what that maximum density is by looking at the map, so it in effect misrepresents the data. The example in the article compensates for this by allowing zooming, but the problem is still there at most zoom levels. To avoid this you need to use one of the techniques that tessellates the plane and colors each tile according to the average value in the tile.
- reddit_clone 14y ago
  Yep. That's what I thought too. The more number on a pixel, the darker (or brighter) it gets. But I don't know how far that can be pushed.
- Thrymr 14y ago
  I read bwooce's comment to mean one pixel per person literally (not in map projection). If you're not trying to represent geography at the same time you don't have that problem. You could still sort the data representing individuals by two variables if you want, e.g. latitude and longitude, and map them to x and y, but it wouldn't be a map.
  - leephillips 14y ago

sputknick 14y ago

I zoomed in on my neighborhood. My question is... I live on the edge of a national park, and I see a number of dots (roughly 50) within that national park. How is that possible?

sammyo 14y ago
Hermits in treehouses?
BrokenEnso 14y ago
From my understanding in a lot (at least a few) National Parks not all of the land is owned by the park. There are spots of land in the parks that are privately owned; and, some people have decided to build homes on that private land in the National Parks. CBS Sunday morning had a piece [1] on the whole deal with people building homes in national parks. [1]http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57530300/national-parks-landscape-changing-as-private-land-developed/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57530300/national-par...
LoganCale 14y ago
Same, I live near a National Forest boundary and it's showing a substantial number of dots inside that boundary in places where there are most definitely no homes. There are occasional chunks of private land within the boundary, but not where these dots are showing—they are, in fact, often within a designated wilderness boundary which allows no permanent residents or active buildings.
- Thrymr 14y ago
  The dots are not placed to exact addresses, but roughly evenly distributed within census blocks. The number inside the block should be correct, not the exact placement.

oofabz 14y ago

I was hoping for a downloadable single-image version but he doesn't have one. I made one myself by compositing his tiles. Image: http://frammish.org/dots.png http://frammish.org/dots.png Code: http://pastie.org/5602534 http://pastie.org/5602534

reddit_clone 14y ago
Your first link crashed my Safari Browser.
- sp332 14y ago
  It caused a spike in Firefox's memory usage of over 1 extra gigabyte.

lylemckeany 14y ago

I like how you can toggle between the normal Google map and the census dots. It's fun to try to guess what the large white spots are in areas I'm familiar with, such as the Crystal Springs Reservoir near San Mateo, CA.