Monday, August 29, 2011

American Enclaves App is Live!

IDV's just posted a Visual Fusion application called American Enclaves, based on some arbitrarily chalkboard-themed visuals posted here in the past.  Try it out for yourself, I implore you...

Like the previous static illustrations, this interactive application considers an enclave as any census tract where the proportion of Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, or White Americans is far greater than the national average (>2 standard deviations).  The result is an interesting distribution of relatively-intense-settlement patterns that puts 300 years of immigration and migration into view.  More info and a huge poster on the national distribution here and some insets of pretty interesting US cities here.

Here are some snapshots from around the demo, which, by the way, was made almost exclusively by the fierce pack of roving interns here at IDV (Steve Dougherty, bits and bytes major at UofM, on dev, configuration, and connections; Maha Thulasi, mapaholic grad student at MSU, on data)...










Check it out, and let us know what you think!

4 comments:

  1. I expected to see more Black enclaves in parts of Minneapolis, MN. Do you have full data for that area? (Hennepin County, Ramsey County.

    Peter

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  2. I suppose I would have expected that, as well. American Enclaves certainly has the full data for that area, and after double-checking the source, it's correct. Our qualifier for enclave membership in the case of Black / African American is approximately 71%. Only one tract in Hennepin and Ramsey counties meets that criteria. I've posted a small map for your reference showing all tracts in those counties, by black percentage here:

    https://skydrive.live.com/#!/?cid=2eb6aaf6c3ac1ebe&sc=photos&uc=1&id=2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE%212011!cid=2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE&id=2EB6AAF6C3AC1EBE%212264&sc=photos

    There are two things to consider, however. The first is that this map focuses on census tracts and the good old modifiable areal unit problem tells me we could get something quite different at the county enumeration. Secondly, the app is only as good as its data -and it's possible that the census could have under-counted various folks in that area (though I have no good reason to assume one way or the other).

    Thanks for checking it out, Peter!

    -John

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  3. John - thanks for making this.

    Link to the map goes to a sign-in page for me.

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  4. Oh, thanks. Try this, Peter:
    https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/RPf6wrHIQYUGmlrL1wECtD7SOZu9IJMVoEGlhR-wuzY?feat=directlink

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