There’s No Diversity in Baseball!

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Well, okay, actually there is. But the cultural reference would have made even less sense if I omitted the negative. Anyway, in honour of the two baseball games I am seeing this week—last night’s and tonight’s Red Sox games—here comes this piece from Pew Research Center.

It’s a simple but fairly clear graphic. We are looking at the ethnic breakdown of baseball since 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier. My only qualm, as ever, with this stacked area chart is that while you can see the clear trend upward in white share, it is a bit more difficult to see the directions the other ethnicities are moving.

Diversity in baseball

Diversity in baseball

Credit for the piece goes to Pew Research Council.

Tax Day and Income Inequality

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Tax Day for Americans seems like a great time to talk about income inequality. The article from which this chart comes talks about a recent book exploring the parallels of the 19th century’s inequality—as the article reminds us, the time of “Please, sir, may I have another?”—and the forecast for the 21st. Anyway, the graphic is a nice use of small multiples and highlights that despite the damage done to capital wealth by Great Depressions and two world wars, it is well on its way back to unequal levels.

Income inequality

Income inequality

Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.

Allergens of DC

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Good news and bad news, folks. The good news is that this chart does not apply to people living in Chicago, Philadelphia, or elsewhere. Unless—here’s the bad news—you live in Washington, D.C. In that case, well, prepare to die. You know, if you have allergies. The Washington Post has a nice graphic that outlines the arrival and peak seasons for different pollen allergens.

Allergens of DC

Allergens of DC

Credit for the piece goes to Bonnie Berkowitz and Patterson Clark.

Comparing Urban Statistics

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Sometimes when you are considering moving, you want to look at some broad statistics on the area in which you want to move. In Boston, the Boston Globe has put together a neat little application that does just that. Type in two settlements in the metro area and then get a quick comparison of the two.

Comparing Boston metro cities

Comparing Boston metro cities

Credit for the piece goes to Catherine Cloutier, Andrew Tran, Russell Goldenberg, Corinne Winthrop.

Chicago’s Disappearing Middle Class

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President Obama has made a big deal recently about income inequality. The story in short is that the rich in the country are getting rich; the poor are getting poorer; and the people in the middle are fewer in number. Here in Chicago, this has meant that over the last few decades, many of the former middle-class neighbourhoods have been gutted of, well, the middle class. Daniel Kay Hertz has created a series of maps to show just how drastic the change has been since 1970.

Chicago's disappearing middle class

Chicago’s disappearing middle class

Credit for the piece goes to Daniel Kay Hertz.

Motorcycle Helmet Laws

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Today’s piece does not involve any particularly crazy graphics or forms of data visualisation. Instead, the piece is a novel way of telling a story. People are increasingly familiar with what we might call here scrolling stories. Scroll down the page and suddenly you have glossy photos or high-definition videos. The New York Times, however, has taken this idea in a different direction for a story about motorcycle helmet laws.

Instead of glossy photos, we have clear and concise charts. Instead of lots of text blocks, we have just a few sentences. The story is told by the charts and the text offers the necessary context or background. Not all stories will have the data behind them to allow the story to be told—or shown—in such dramatic fashion. But, I can hope they do.

Motorcycle helmet laws

Motorcycle helmet laws

Credit for the piece goes to Alastair Dant and Hannah Fairfield.

Changing the Minimum Wage

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Here’s a piece from the New York Times where I have to quibble with some minor design decisions. The story behind the graphic is various state actions on the minimum wage compared to where President Obama wants the minimum wage raised. This is a good story and broadly I like the execution. But these arrows, these arrows pierce my design heart. (Too much of a metaphor?) Instead, I think a simple dot plot would have sufficed. But as I noted above, this is more of a quibble than a shame-on-you.

Changes to minimum wages at the state level

Changes to minimum wages at the state level

Credit for the piece goes to Alicia Parlapiano.

How to Write a Story

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Today’s post is hosted on Brain Pickings. It’s diagrams made by Kurt Vonnegut that describe how basic plot lines work along two axes. There is a short video you can watch that goes over a few of them. But my favourite is, of course, not there. You have to read a bit further along to find it. Or just look below. But if you don’t read it, you’ll miss the written context.

Sucks to be a cockroach

Sucks to be a cockroach

Credit for the piece goes to Kurt Vonnegut.