Author: Brendan Barry

  • Home Vacancies in Kensington and Chelsea

    I added Chelsea to make doubly certain for my Philadelphia audience that you did not think I was referring to Philly’s Kensington. Why? Because today’s piece comes from the Guardian and refers to the neighbourhood where the Grenfell Tower caught fire and the inferno killed dozens of people. This is not the most complex piece,…

  • Shifting Temperatures

    This past weekend, I came upon a neat little graphic in the New York Times supporting an article about the impact of climate change on temperatures. The article basically lays out the argument that summers are getting hotter. And as a cold-weather person, that is dreadful news. But the good news is the graphic was…

  • Blue Dog Democrats

    Last week I mentioned that it appeared Politico was running with articles featuring data visualisation. Just this morning I stumbled upon another article, this one about the Blue Dog Democrats. For those that do not know, Blue Dogs are basically a more conservative Democrat and were the remnants of the Democratic south. But in 2010,…

  • Why the Internet Will Not Load on my Mobile

    Happy Friday, all. We made it. Enjoy this oddly very true graphic from xkcd. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

  • Comparing the US Healthcare System to the World

    Spoiler, we don’t look so great. In this piece from the Guardian, we have one of my favourite types of charts. But, the piece begins with a chart I wonder about. We have a timeline of countries creating universal healthcare coverage, according to the WHO definition—of which there are only 32 countries. But we then plot…

  • Brexit’s Impact on Irish Shipping

    Today’s post is, I think, the first time I’ve featured the Politico on my blog. Politico is, I confess, a regular part of my daily media diet. But I never thought of it as a great publication for data visualisation. Maybe that is changing? Anyway, today’s post highlights an article on how the Irish shipping/logistics industry…

  • Bus Transit in Philadelphia

    I have lived in Philadelphia for almost ten months now and that time can be split into two different residences. For the first, I took the El to and from Centre City. For the second, I walk to and from work. I look for living spaces near transit lines. In Chicago I took the El…

  • Education and Eatery Preferences

    Last week the Economist posted an intriguing article about the relationship between culinary choices/preferences and education and income. It began with an article by David Brooks in the Times, which I have not read, talking about how culture can create inequality as much as economics or government policy. The Economist then conducted a survey looking…

  • Stabby Stabby Sexy Sexy Stabby Stabby

    Happy Friday, all. This past Sunday Series Seven of Game of Thrones began. And, no spoilers here, but it basically served as an episode to set the table for this series and its plot lines. But this piece from the Washington Post does a good job of summarising the deaths in the show over the…

  • London in Small Multiple Form

    You all know that I love small multiples. And we have been seeing them more often as representations of the United States. But today we look at a small multiple map of London. The piece comes from the Economist and looks at the declining numbers of pubs in London. With the exception of the borough…