Rorschach Urbanism

Oop! After yesterday's post, I thought of another question.

What's the biggest city in the United States — New York? Los Angeles? How about ... Anchorage! After spending an evening exploring the politics of metropolitan annexation and city–county mergers, I made a quick series of maps of the inkblot patterns of municipal limits — all in comparison to Rhode Island, naturally.

I've also been interested in the contrast in identity-space between the geographically large cities of Texas, Arizona, or Southern California and geographically small cities like San Francisco, Boston, or Washington DC. The contrasts can often be striking: only 8% of the residents of the Boston metro area actually live in Boston proper, while almost two-thirds of the metro residents of San Antonio live within the city limits. Do geographically larger cities enjoy more civic-mindedness, in addition to a wider tax base? My gut says yes, but I'm afraid I don't have any actual evidence yet.

Midwestern States, Midwestern Family, Global Food

Happy spring! It's a beautiful day for maps. I have three questions for you.

1. Where's the Midwest? I went searching, and the results are in.

2. Where's my family from? After a few months of getting dorky with old governmental records, I have some answers.

3. What's for lunch? Animals? Plants? Fungi? Algae? It's a cornucopia of Darwinian delights. (I suppose these aren't really maps in the geographic sense. But perhaps we can see them as maps of time?)