Tag: Philadelphia

  • Substandard Housing in Philadelphia

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    Brendan Barry
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    I took a holiday yesterday and headed down the street to the Philadelphia City Archives, which houses some of the oldest documents dating back to the founding of the colony. But I was there primarily to try and find deeds and property information for my ancestors as part of my genealogy work. When I walked…

  • Bodies Buried Under Spring Garden

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    Brendan Barry
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    Okay, technically not Spring Garden Street, but a strip mall along one of Philadelphia’s main arterial city streets. Luckily these aren’t some victims of a serial murderer, but rather the result of Philadelphia being an old city (for the United States). As this article from the Philadelphia Inquirer explains, the bodies were discovered during excavations…

  • Roundabouts in Philadelphia

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    Brendan Barry
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    This is a piece I’ve been sitting on for a little while now, okay half a year now. There isn’t too much to it as it’s an illustration overlay on a satellite photo. But the graphic supports an article about the construction of a new roundabout in Philadelphia, coincidentally where I used to live. That…

  • Yep, Still Hotter

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    Brendan Barry
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    Like I said yesterday, I wanted to compare cities, surprise, Philadelphia vs. Chicago. And so with some extra time I was able to finish this graphic that took the data from Climate Central to compare the two cities. What you can see below is that Philadelphia has seen more significant temperature growth in both summer…

  • You’re Not Crazy, It Is Getting Hotter

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    Brendan Barry
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    First, I should say that I don’t have a lot to say about this graphic because I went back to the source because I was interested in another city and I wanted to compare the two. In other words, expect a small graphic follow up to this maybe tomorrow. Anyways, over the last few years…

  • Can We Pop Our Political Bubbles?

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    Brendan Barry
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    It’s no secret that Americans—and likely at least Western communities more broadly—live in bubbles, one of which being our political bubbles. And so I want to thank one of my mates for sending me the link to this opinion piece about political bubbles from the New York Times. The piece is fairly short, but begins…

  • Choropleths and Colours

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    Brendan Barry
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    In many cities through the United States, real estate represents a hot commodity. It’s not difficult to understand why, as have covered before, Americans are saving a bit more. Coupled with stay-at-home orders in a pandemic, spending that cash on a home down payment makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. But…

  • Farewell, Cardboard Cutouts

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    Brendan Barry
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    In 2020, baseball did not permit fans to attend regular season matches. (They changed this for the playoffs.) Instead, many stadiums opted for cardboard cutouts: fans often paid a fee and submitted a picture that the team printed on cardboard cutouts. Like so many things we will say about 2020, it was surreal. But in…

  • Cheesesteaks and Politics

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    Brendan Barry
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    For those unaware, Pennsylvania matters in the 2020 election. And it has mattered for years as a perennial swing state. There are of course the visits to steel mill cities like Pittsburgh, deindustrialised places like Johnstown, and unions love visits to places in Lackawanna and Luzerne. (You can read more about Pennsylvania as a swing…

  • The Size of the California Wildfires Compared to Philly

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    Brendan Barry
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    The West Coast is a different scale than the East Coast. After all, California alone is almost the size of New England and parts of the Mid-Atlantic combined. So when we take that enormous size into consideration, how big are these fires on an East Coast scale? It can be difficult to imagine. Thankfully the…