Friday, January 24, 2014

They keep coming!




Data visualisations with a twist!

Great visualisations just keep on coming as I trawl the Internet via Scoop.it and curating my Spatial Literacy Scoop.it site. Here are just a few.

This is a fascinating data visualization site worth a look. Some of the visualizations makes one wonder their use or veracity (porn searches) but they all provide some great talking points, demonstrating the power of spatial technology.  Here are just three of the ones I found most interesting.

Personal space How much space each person has in some of the world's major cities? The interactive shows 20 countries and each is represented by a circle sized by average square feet per person. Of course, as with population density, this data is broad with land distribution and usage to consider, but it's informative from a general viewpoint.

The map shows a sample of locations across the country, and line length represents distance to the nearest store. For example, in areas with a lot of lines headed to one spot is an area with fewer grocery stores. In contrast, mostly small line segments mean more grocery stores, and therefore less distance to travel to buy groceries.
Places where residents have limited access to grocery stores are called food deserts.

For a country that features the word United so prominently in its name, the U.S. is a pretty fractious place. The country is split along fault lines of income, education, religion, race, hyphenated origin, age and politics. Then too there’s temperament. We’re coarse or courtly, traditionalist or rebel, amped up or laid-back. And it’s no secret that a lot of that seems to be determined by — or at least associated with — where we live.
Now a multinational team of researchers led by psychologist and American expat Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in the U.K. has sought to draw the regional lines more clearly, literally mapping the American mood, with state-by-state ratings of personality and temperament.




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