Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Follow the Money: Human Mobility Networks



This video was created by two graduate students at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University and it won the 2009 Visualization Challenge sponsored by National Science Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

7 Comments:

At 5/11/2010 6:29 AM, Anonymous DIY Investor said...

Interesting. I had just mentioned the "Where's George" website to my intro to macro class. They will be interested in this video. Thanks!

 
At 5/11/2010 7:39 AM, Anonymous DrTorch said...

Very well done.

 
At 5/11/2010 7:47 AM, Blogger David said...

Really interesting.

 
At 5/11/2010 9:57 AM, Anonymous gettingrational said...

We now know the mobility network for George but what about Tom?

The two dollar bill run on the Dallas Federal Reserve revealed an interesting destination for the Jefferson: Baby Dolls Dallas.

This was first noticed in 2007 and by now a whole mapping of live adult entertainment in the U.S. could be mapped -- for educational research purposes!

 
At 5/11/2010 11:33 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Follow the money?

O.K.

Follow The Money app for blog or website...

 
At 5/20/2010 2:23 PM, Blogger jacob said...

This is very intereting but two things I wonder about:

People don't give money to each other as much as they do to stores, banks, whatever...how does the way the bills are tracked account for the difference between 'human mobility' and the movement of cash through institutions?

Related to this, the fact that not everyone who gets a bill will note it on the website (I've had a few) will alter the density of the way it tracks movement. Factor in the different access to the internet and interest in this sort of project that certain sub-populations will have over others and it makes you wonder what/who is actually being accounted for.

It also seems like a round about way of coming to the conclusion that the major cultural areas/dense communities in the US are basically south east, south, west, north west, plains, mid atlantic, and north east and that political boundaries and geography have some bearing on these...

still pretty interesting.

 
At 5/21/2010 3:15 AM, Anonymous Dave said...

To build on Jacob's caveats, the role of bank notes is not playing equally between different groups. Some groups rely more on cash than others, e.g. credit cards, and some shops are more willing to take cards than others.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home