Mapping the demographics of America by city and block

Over at the New York Times, Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Alan Mclean have used their skills to let people visualize demographic information from US Census Data.  There are multiple maps across four topics, including race and ethnicity, income, education, and housing and families.

The map above, which shows the distribution of racial and ethnic groups, might be the most fascinating of all the maps.  It uses Bill Rankin’s Dot Method.  Completely zoomed out each dot represents 25,000 people, while zoomed in each dot represents 25 people.  Also, each dot is color coded by race and ethnicity.  The authors point out that “because these figures are based on samples, they are subject to a margin of error, particularly in places with a low population, and are best regarded as estimates.”

As with other interactive maps from the New York Times, the more you zoom in the more you get.  The map below shows the change in medan household income since 2000.