Data Vis Dispatch, August 20

The best of last week’s big and small data visualizations

Welcome back to the 156th edition of the Data Vis Dispatch! Every week, we publish a collection of the best small and large data visualizations we find, especially from news organizations — to celebrate data journalism, data visualization, simple charts, elaborate maps, and their creators.

Recurring topics this week include crime, books, and natural disasters.

We love a good bar or column chart, but we love them even more with a pictographic twist:

Bloomberg: Hollywood’s Next Marvel Moment Is Romantasy, August 19 Interesting Take
theeuropeancorrespondent: “With summer in full swing, it’s a great time to dive into a good book—though not everyone is equally inclined. […] Created by Paula Lago,” August 17 (Instagram Post)
Gênero e Número: Creches e pré-escolas integrais falham em atender população negra do Rio de Janeiro [Full-time daycare centers and preschools fail to serve the black population of Rio de Janeiro], August 14

What we don’t love — natural disasters:

SBS News: 일본에서 곧 대지진이 일어날 수 있다고? [Could a major earthquake hit Japan soon?], August 15
Reuters: Washed Away, August 16

Heat leads to drought, drought leads to fire:

The New York Times: Half Their Land Burned in a Decade: The California Counties Constantly on Fire, August 15
InfoAmazonia: Nove em cada 10 terras indígenas da Amazônia enfrentam seca, levando à falta de alimentos e água [Nine out of 10 indigenous lands in the Amazon face drought, leading to food and water shortages], August 15
Panorama.ro: Valurile de căldură ne schimbă viața. Cum arată dimensiunea încălzirii care cuprinde și România [Heat waves are changing our lives. How the scale of the warming is spreading to Romania], August 16

Some places will become riskier to live in. They’ll be more prone to fires or floods:

maps.com: Where Do Communities Border Wildlands?, August 15 (Article, Map Viewer)
El Mundo: Consulta el mapa de las playas y puntos de la costa de España en riesgo de desaparecer por la subida del nivel del mar [Check out the map of beaches and coastal areas in Spain at risk of disappearing due to rising sea levels], August 13 More Maps!

We conclude the environmental section with a look at how technology companies manipulate emissions measures and how renewable energy could create jobs in Indonesia:

Financial Times: Big Tech’s bid to rewrite the rules on net zero, August 14
Ember: Indonesia’s expansion of clean power can spur growth and equality, August 14

Cost of living struggles are real — at least in some places. This week’s focus is on single, childless people:

Átlátszó: Budapesten az átlagfizetés harmadát, Bécsben csak a tizedét viszi el az albérlet [In Budapest, the sublet takes a third of the average salary, in Vienna only a tenth], August 13
The Economist: Our Carrie Bradshaw index: where Americans can afford to live solo in 2024, August 14

Now to a category of data visualization that is not covered as often here, even though it’s very common: surveys:

The Straits Times: Are Gen Zs and millennials happy with their pay?, August 13
Ipsos: Immigration seen as the biggest issue facing Britain while concern about crime surges, August 16
FlowingData: See How Your Weight Compares, August 14

A topic we unfortunately cover more regularly: war and destruction:

The Washington Post: Israel is redrawing the West Bank, cutting into a prospective Palestinian state, August 15
Bloomberg: Gaza Reduced to 42 Million Tonnes of Rubble. What Will It Take to Rebuild?, August 15

And what we’re talking about even more, because there’s no getting around it this year: elections. Or, more specifically for today: upcoming elections. Brazil is holding local elections in October and the deadline for candidate registration has come and gone, Harris and Trump are battling for swing states, and Germany is watching potential outcomes of upcoming local elections:

Folha de S.Paulo: Eleição tem 103 mil candidatos a menos que em 2020, uma queda de 18% [Election has 103 thousand fewer candidates compared to 2020, dropping 18%], August 16
Nexo Jornal: Homens predominam entre os candidatos mais velhos em 2024 [Men predominate among older candidates in 2024], August 16
The New York Times: Tracking the Swing States for Harris and Trump, August 14
The New York Times: Recent Voter Registration Data Offers Hint of Enthusiasm for Democrats, August 13
The Washington Post: Pro-Harris groups embrace identity to fundraise via Zoom, August 17
Der Spiegel: Wie bleibt Ostdeutschland regierbar? [How can Eastern Germany remain governable?], August 16

Today’s crime scenes: prisons and banks:

Bloomberg: Big Banks Watched as Con Men Wiped Out a Widow’s Life Savings, August 18
Financial Times: How ‘sentencing inflation’ fuelled England’s prisons crisis, August 19

Drum roll for our final piece: If you think cities are growing wider and wider, a great visualization from the Economist this week will prove you wrong:

The Economist: Cities used to sprawl. Now they’re growing taller, August 16

What else we found interesting


Jonathan Markwell: “‘If you run a site, it’s a good way to make you feel extra tiny’,” August 19 (Tweet, Project)
The New York Times: How ‘Deepfake Elon Musk’ Became the Internet’s Biggest Scammer, August 14
Diario Sur: 50 años del cubo de Rubik: paso a paso de cómo resolverlo [50 years of the Rubik’s cube: step by step on how to solve it], August 15

Applications are open for…


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