Map Hawk

The New York Times has created a map of foreclosures in the New York region and found that they are highest where high minority populations exist. An interactive slider bar allows you to see the results from past years and you can zoom it to see the results by Census Tract. Dots on the map represent the location of foreclosures or multiple foreclosures. The basemap is by Google Maps and the data is from multiple sources. The region of coverage includes not just the boroughs of New York but also several counties in New Jersey as well as Suffolk County, N.Y. north of the city and the New Haven, CT area.

The May 11th issue of Time Magazine is dedicated to the 100 most influential people in the world. You may have missed the map of "where they are from" as it is hidden in the double page fold-out section just after page 42. You won't find the map online unfortunately but it is quite a compilation of information because it maps all 553 of its Time 100 from this year as well as past years. I wouldn't say there are any patterns other than the geographic distribution is not a surprise. The state of New York has the most of any followed by California. The UK has more than any other European country; China has the most in Asia/Pacific. So, forget looking for a pattern...just enjoy browsing the fold out map and finding out more about those who touch our world in unique ways.

Several publications this week noted the closing of hundreds of car dealerships across the United States. Once the backbone of the American dream, the auto industry is drastically paring its dealerships. CNNMoney.com provided a map (at right) of the Chysler dealerships closing their doors, nearly 800 or one-quarter of the total number. Meanwhile, GM announced that 2600 dealerships were being eliminated. The closings will have a near immediate ripple effect across the country as many lose their jobs and communities will feal the impact of additional unemployment.

Need to know where your favorite entertainers are and when? The Washington Post has created an interactive map to show in both time and space (or is that time & spatial?) the location of photos, video, and news articles about celebrities. You can navigate the map by date and a slider bar at the bottom of the map can help you to narrow the time window when the images were taken. The technology uses Google Maps.

MSNBC has created an " Adversity Index " map of 381 metro areas in the U. S. In conjunction with Moody's.com , the maps displays a thematic map of whether a state is either in "recession," "at risk," "recovery," or "expansion." By clicking on each state a table will be displayed showing the largest metros and the economic indicators for each such as "employment," "single family housing starts," "housing prices," and "industrial production." Hover the mouse over each state and it will show you the aggregate indicators for each. The map also has a slider bar that will allow you to move along a time line from 1995 to present to thematically display the conditions at any particular time. This is an extremely good representation of the data that is highly useful to any company looking at moving into or expanding existing operations in any given region.

There has been an unprecedented decline in the publishing business as a result of declining advertising sales due to the sluggish US economy. So hard hit has the publishing industry been that such stalwarts of the business like the Rocky Mountain News have closed shop while others cancelled their print editions entirely, slashed staff or moved to an online-only version. This map by the Wall Street Journal chronicles the bad news. This only tells part of the story as the remainder of the publishing business has not been without equal or worse devastation. Entire magazines have been discontinued and publishing companies like Taunton Press have gone so far as to eliminate the job of "publisher" and has reorganized staff into "content," "sales," or "marketing" with everyone reporting to a vice president.