One can quibble about the best way to display county-level unemployment data on a map, since a small, populous county gets much less visual weight than a large, sparsely populated one. Even so, I think we can agree that this animated map by LaToya Egwuekwe is pretty cool. It says it shows the unemployment rate by county, as a function of time, but anyone with even the slightest knowledge of what happens during a zombie attack will recognize it for what it is.
Nebraska never looked so appealing: anatomy of a zombie attack. Oops, I mean a recession.
Sir, that is an absolutely brilliant observation.
Nebraska is the ultimate safe haven from the zombie horde.
Impressive, looks like an oil spill… As scary as one, too!
Depends on your definition of zombie.
Do you have a preferred representation of county-level data? One that reflects population size and relates at least a little bit to location?
Frank, good question. The short answer is No, although I don't love the current display I don't have a better idea for something like unemployment rate.
For some purposes, I think dots can work: (1)one dot per county, size of dot proportional to population, or (2) each dot represents, say, 100,000 people, with different colors representing different characteristics. But neither of those would work well here, I think, although it might be worth trying option 1.
Sometimes there's no good solution, maybe this is one of them. This movie makes a nice graphical display, and shows that the unemployment increase started on the coasts and propagated inland…maybe that's enough.
D'oh! I should have looked more closely. The unemployment/zombie hoard starts on the West Coast and the Mississippi Valley, not the East Coast.
Not an oil spill . . . an oil leak. Or, more accurately, a leaky bucket being pushed down into some water.