

New map of the US based on how dollar bills move - RougeFemme
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681677/a-new-map-of-the-us-created-by-how-our-dollar-bills-move#1

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chimeracoder
This is incredibly similar to a map of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts -
so similar, in fact, that at first I thought that's what they were displaying:
<http://www.federalreserve.gov/otherfrb.htm>

Note in particular the split in Pennsylvania, which represents the Appalachian
divide - a divide that is both geographical and economic in nature.

~~~
skwirl
That isn't a coincidence. The federal reserve district banks distribute the
notes to commercial banks in their districts, and, as worded on wikipedia: "A
Federal Reserve Bank can retire notes that return from circulation by
exchanging them for collateral that the bank posted for an earlier issue.
Retired notes in good condition are held in the bank's vault for future
issues."

He effectively came up with a way to reverse engineer the district boundaries.

~~~
agwa
So in other words, the movement of dollar bills is caused mainly by the
federal reserve district banks redistributing them, and not by traveling
individuals? That sure makes this map useless. I thought that dark line
between New York and New England was fishy...

~~~
TheCoelacanth
It's not completely useless. For instance, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and NYC
are grouped together with only a faint line on the border of districts 3 and 5
and no line of the border of districts 2 and 3, with much stronger lines
separating DC and Baltimore from the rest of district 5 and NYC from the rest
of district 2.

Also, note the strong separation between Virginia and West Virginia, which are
part of the same district, but no separation between West Virginia and any
part of district 4.

You can definitely see the effect of the Federal Reserve districts on the map,
but there are clearly other important factors.

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buss
Click. Click. Ad. Click. Ad. Click. Click. Ad. ugh.

~~~
chadillac83
Running ad block, was confused why every 3 slides there was just this generic
black and grey wavy pattern.

tl;dr install ad block

~~~
chrischen
Sometimes ads are useful. In this case you still have the blank pages except
they're blank, instead of being filled with a potentially useful ad.

~~~
jlarocco
No, they're not.

If I wanted to buy something right now, I wouldn't be reading HN, I'd be
browsing Amazon or whatever site sells what I needed to buy.

~~~
IanCal
It does, however, help pay for the content you're consuming.

~~~
jlarocco
I already covered that in another post:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5459646>

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mjmahone17
The researcher's explanation of his research:
<http://rocs.northwestern.edu/research/wgstory.html>

Edit: this link doesn't explain this specific set of maps, but it does explain
a little about how he got the idea of using wheresgeorge.com and what it
allowed him to do (as of ~2009).

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avyfain
I do research with professor Brockmann at Northwestern University, not on
human mobility, but investment networks.

If you want a quick overview of the idea behind this mapping of the US and the
algorithms used, you should watch this video
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn32vavZqvg>

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gus_massa
It´s very strange that Memphis is over one of the boundaries. It's the only
big named city over a border.

I looked in the map, because I don't know the zone. (I hope I readed the map
correctly.)

Memphis is in south west corner of Tennessee state but the city continues
informally but smoothly to the south in the Mississippi state. On the west
side the city is the Mississippi river, and crossing the river is the Arkansas
state. This area has much more green fields and few building zones.

So Memphis is not on the border, it is just right next to the east side of
that border.

Map:
[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=memphis&hl=en&ll=35.01...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=memphis&hl=en&ll=35.019875,-90.078278&spn=0.537587,0.977783&hnear=Memphis,+Shelby,+Tennessee&t=h&z=10)

~~~
coldtea
Aren't there technically two cities, called "East" and "West" Memphis
respectively?

~~~
gus_massa
At least in the map, West Memphis is much smaller than East Memphis.

Population from Wikipedia:

(East) Memphis: 672,277 (2011)

West Memphis: 26,245 (2010)

Memphis metropolitan: 1,316,100 (2010) (includes both)

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mkross
The red linkage graphs would be much more comprehensible with edge
bundling[1]. As it is, you get a ton of red lines that are hard to decipher.
In order to show emphasis, some of the lines are orange.

[1] Something akin to
[https://www.evernote.com/shard/s9/res/11fab8e3-d623-4b58-a8d...](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s9/res/11fab8e3-d623-4b58-a8dd-
aaf24ac83edd.pdf). I'm sure there are libraries out that that will do this for
you, but the algorithm in that paper isn't too hard to implement. :)

~~~
Andy_Keller
Your link yields "Access denied."

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LancerSykera
>normally someone in the audience says, 'Oh, this makes perfect sense."

This is exactly what I was thinking when I saw Pennsylvania cut in half
(actually, I said "well no shit"). Those of us on the eastern side of that
line generally regard western PA as a whole different state.

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RobotCaleb
The northwest region reminded me of Cascadia/Cascadiopolis from Metatropolis.

[http://io9.com/5169857/metatropolis-is-the-best-kind-of-
urba...](http://io9.com/5169857/metatropolis-is-the-best-kind-of-urban-
renewal)

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pnathan
It's fascinating; in the areas I am familiar with, you can see the Portland-
Seattle corridor and the Deseret region.

Reminds me of the cultural maps of the US.

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fghh45sdfhr3
This only tracks _paper_ currency, so it is an odd measure.

~~~
thatthatis
Paper currency generally travels on a person from place to place (as opposed
to being mailed), egro the oddness is exactly what makes it a surprisingly
good data source for this kind of work -- paper currency is a proxy for human
movement.

~~~
electromagnetic
Actually, assuming this is using only dollar bills, this is likely following
the movement of _poor_ humans. Credit and debit and large bills are typically
in the hands of the middle to upper class.

To me this is an excellent map of how "trapped" people are in the situations
they are in. The motility of the poor is something that has been restricted
for thousands of years, and something we're supposed to be improving.

I understand this likely resembles a map of how far people will travel from
major economic centres, but having grown up in an area of extremely high
unemployment in the UK and having moved to an area of extremely low
unemployment, making the poor willing to move has recognizable economic
benefits. I know in Canada, where I now live, EI (unemployment) will pay
moving expenses for someone to move to a lower unemployment area.

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sp332
What's the deal with Pennsylvania being cut in half?

~~~
dubfan
Pittsburgh is closer in proximity and culture to Ohio than it is to
Philadelphia. The Appalachian Mountains bisect the state, and the areas
outside the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia metro areas have low population
density. This area is sometimes called "Pennsyltucky"

~~~
sp332
Oh man, I forgot about the mountains. Most of the other non-state-border
boundaries seem to be rivers, but I forgot mountains!

~~~
rory096
The border also roughly follows the path of I-81.

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futhey
Proof of Cascadia

