Racial Diversity in the Hartford Area (2009-2010)
Racial Segregation in the Hartford Area (2009-2010)
Explanation:
The first map, which includes a variety of rainbow-colored districts, presents Hartford and its surrounding suburbs as racially diverse. This image of racial diversity was achieved by increasing the number of buckets used to divide the data, readjusting each bucket’s data range, and selecting a rainbow color theme. Using eight different buckets implies that the entire set of data is diverse and is better understood when broken down into smaller parts. Also, because each individual bucket represents a different range of data – the red bucket covers a 0.3 range while the magenta bucket covers a 0.19 range – I was able to make it appear as though only a few suburbs are extremely segregated. Finally, the rainbow color theme, as opposed to a gradient theme, makes it more difficult to compare levels of racial segregation without directly consulting the legend. The second map, which presents Hartford as racially segregated, displays the data using only two buckets and two colors in order to imply stark racial differences between Hartford and the surrounding suburbs. By oversimplifying the data into two ranges – 0 to 0.5 and 0.5 to 1.0 – it appears as though the majority of white citizens and minority citizens are sharply divided.