Lying with Maps

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How to Lie with Maps:

Map Depicting Much Racial Diversity in Hartford School Districts, 09-10

Map Depicting Little Racial Diversity in Hartford School Districts, 09-10

Both of these maps display the same data; however, each graph tells an entirely different story. The first graph depicts a racially diverse neighborhood. In contrast, the second graph shows a huge disparity between segregated schools and non segregated areas. The way in which I was able to portray such a disparity, was by selecting different margins for the data. For example, the first graph utilizes over five different “buckets” as denoted on Google Fusion Tables. These “buckets” represent categories of change in terms of percentages. In the second graph, however, I only used two “buckets.” Therefore though the data is the same, the numbers are presented quite differently, giving what appears to be different results.