Matthew Yglesias lets us peek behind the curtain of those viral maps that reveal difference between states. Hiding behind these maps is a dirty little secret about how little variation there is in America.
Maps make good viral content, acknowledges Yglesias, "[but] of course for maps to be interesting, they need to show difference. And that means that at times the quest to devise appealing maps obscures one of the fundamental facts of American life — for a great big country, we actually don't have that much regional variation."
Yglesias goes on to detail how maps like the "Most Popular Job In Every State" got so interesting. The boring truth behind that process, according to Yglesias, reveals "the real story of America."
Read the full story: What viral maps get wrong about America
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