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The 12 States of America

The website for The Atlantic magazine has an interesting new map graphic visualizing the ways in which income inequality has fractured the nation over the past 30 years.  The graphic breaks the nation into 12 different ‘states’ – monied burbs, minority central, military bastions, evangelical epicenters, tractor country, campuses and careers, immigration nation, industrial metropolises, boom towns, service worker centers, emptying nests and mormon outposts – based on a variety of different demographic characteristics.

For example, the Boom Town state is defined as relatively wealthy U.S. counties that saw rapid growth and increasing minority populations prior to the last recession. Whereas Monied Burbs have higher than average family income and educational attainment and are closely divided politically.

See map samples for the Boom Town and Monied Burb states below. Click here to see the interactive map graphic on The Atlantic’s website. Thanks to Ben Marsh for the heads up about this graphic!

 

 

By Janine Glathar

Janine Glathar joined the Digital Pedagogy & Scholarship team in 2009 to fill the newly-created role of GIS Specialist at Bucknell. She has worked in the field of geospatial technologies for more than 15 years as research specialist, technical analyst and software trainer. Prior to joining L&IT at Bucknell, Janine spent seven years doing applied GIS research in Philadelphia’s non-profit social services sector as the GIS Senior Analyst for Philadelphia Safe & Sound and the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. Before transitioning to the social services research world, Janine worked for the GIS software company ESRI as a trainer and education/non-profit coordinator. She earned a B.A. in European History and Russian Language/Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. If you ask Janine where she’s from, she’ll tell you she’s a Navy brat and will probably offer to show you a map of all of the various places she’s lived over the years.

Areas of expertise:
ArcGIS, Digital Pedagogy, Digital Scholarship, GIS, Google Earth, Spatial Thinking