5 ms·
Income inequality, as seen from space
- fleitz 14y agoSubsistence farming sites should look pretty well off from space.
- flogic 14y agoRural areas probably have different tell tale signs. Probably roof size and geometry.
- bluekeybox 14y agoIn Europe at least, a good way to tell is to look at which material the roofs are covered with. Noticed that while flying from over Switzerland to over Silesia. The percentage of red clay rooftop tiles (which also stand out among green trees) decreases as you move east, until everything starts looking very drab and gray.
- dmlorenzetti 14y agoNot if they free-range their livestock. I used to live in Botswana, right on the border with South Africa, and the border was easy to spot. The South African side, with its managed farms, was always much greener than the Botswana side, where cattle and goats wander around at will. You can get a sense of this from this satellite picture: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mmathubudukwane,+Kgatleng,+Botswana&hl=en&sll=37.269174,-119.306607&sspn=10.048247,14.963379&oq=mmathu&hnear=Mmathubudukwane,+Kgatleng,+Botswana&t=h&z=10 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mmathubudukwane,+Kgatleng,+Bo...
- lumberjack 14y agoActually they'd look barren. You can't have a lawn and a plowed and planted plot at the same time. I engage in subsistence farming myself.
- brooksbp 14y agorich people and their trees...
- ot86 14y agoThe same site has a nice write-up on how trees reveal the income disparity: http://persquaremile.com/2012/05/17/urban-trees-reveal-income-inequality/ http://persquaremile.com/2012/05/17/urban-trees-reveal-incom...
- sliverstorm 14y agoYou say that like trees are a bad thing.
- Turing_Machine 14y agoDowntown Pyongyang, where "income equality" is king: http://goo.gl/M4TfV http://goo.gl/M4TfV
- aneth4 14y agoYeah, I'm not really sure of the political message of the comparison. It's not surprising that wealthier people live in nicer areas with more greenspace.... Income inequality is not the enemy - in fact it is what incentivizes our economy and ultimately builds wealth for everyone. Corruption, lack of opportunity, abject poverty - those are the problems.
- dmlorenzetti 14y agoI'm not really sure of the political message of the comparison. The linked page doesn't overtly make a political point. It simply shows the photos, as evidence that greenspace varies by wealth. Maybe the rest of the site is into politics-- I haven't looked-- but I think any politics on this page are something the reader brings to the table.
- FaceKicker 14y agoHe may have thought so because the phrase "income inequality" is usually used in the context of describing it negatively (in the US at least). I guarantee you that the phrase "income inequality" is used by Democrats in the Senate/House 10x as much as Republicans. No Republican is ever going to say their tax cuts for the wealthy "increase income inequality", they'll say it "helps the job creators create jobs". Edits: Wow, I need to learn to make sure I reread sentences in full when I go back and reword something.
- aneth4 14y agoYes and political messages are not always overt. The phrase "income inequality" is politically loaded and implies that equality is better.
- _delirium 14y agoNorth Korea is one of the most unequal countries on the planet, so that's not a very good example. In fact they aren't even officially committed to equality, never mind how it works in practice. They dropped any leftist rhetoric in the 1990s, and now are a country based on the "Juche Idea" (a kind of idiosyncratic religion) combined with the "Military First" economic principle (that resources should be unequally divided, with the majority going to people connected with the military).
- lotharbot 14y agoIs this "income inequality" or "wealth inequality"? They're correlated, but not the same thing.
- _delirium 14y agoInteresting question. The answer might actually vary from country to country. In countries such as the U.S., where mortgages are the norm for all but the richest people, where you live is fairly strongly tied to current income, which dictates how large a mortgage you can qualify for. In other countries, if housing is primarily financed out of accumulated wealth rather than loans tied to current income, it might be more strongly determined by wealth.
- Swizec 14y agoAccording to this, Ljubljana is a super rich city ... https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Ljubljana,+%E3%83%AA%E3%83%A5%E3%83%96%E3%83%AA%E3%83%A3%E3%83%8A,+Slovenia&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=46.053756,14.505901&spn=0.039075,0.073214&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=45.418852,74.970703&oq=ljubljana&t=h&hnear=Ljubljana,+Slovenia&z=14 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Ljubljana,+%E3%83%AA%E3%83%A5... There are trees everywhere. It's impossible to find a neighborhood or street that doesn't have plenty of trees.
- Dn_Ab 14y agoMaybe ratio of green to gray would be a better metric. Too much green or grey not good? Still, seems pretty tenuous until a country is beyond a certain level of development.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- marquis 14y agoIt's a very old, very small and well-preserved city, the poorer people tend to live in the villages (which are also very green, as it's rural and well-watered thanks to the mountains). Further, it doesn't have a large industrial economy.
- JamesLeonis 14y agoHe compared two parts of the same city as a judge of income inequality. It's a relative measure, rather than an absolute measure.
- reefoctopus 14y agoI'm inclined to believe this article is the result of confirmation bias. I'm currently looking for housing in charlotte, and tree cover tells me nothing about whether I want to live in a particular neighborhood. Like Ljubljana, trees are everywhere.
- jmillikin 14y agoIn a follow-up, the author posts similar images submitted by readers. http://persquaremile.com/2012/06/13/your-images-of-income-inequality-from-space/ http://persquaremile.com/2012/06/13/your-images-of-income-in... Two of these images show a border between rich and poor areas. The visual effect is striking.
- arscan 14y agoHmmm, looks from outer space can be deceiving. The rent I pay for my one bedroom apartment in Ball Square is obscene.
- smallblacksun 14y agoI think that this image (http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/12/19/northkoreamap_620x350.jpg http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/12/19/northkoreamap_62...) of Korea is the most striking representation of image equality. It is visible from space with the naked eye.
- Evbn 14y agoThat is a naked-eye approximating image? Seems unlikely to have that much non-diffused light from city to space.
- smallblacksun 14y agoIt is similar, at least. Here is another one showing South Korea that is taken using a regular camera from the ISS that shows similar light patterns (https://plus.google.com/117789022459699674254/posts https://plus.google.com/117789022459699674254/posts). It's hard to see North Korea because of the angle and the clouds.
- AgentConundrum 14y agoThat link just goes to someone's (yours?) G+ page. I think you wanted to link to this specifically: https://plus.google.com/117789022459699674254/posts/YsnRsCCBmuN https://plus.google.com/117789022459699674254/posts/YsnRsCCB...
- gus_massa 14y agoIt looks like a zoom of an image from the project "Earth's City Lights": http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=55167 http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=55167 . In this project, they don't show a real image, but a reconstruction of multiple images to remove the clouds and other problems. The images that are linked at the bottom of that page (for example http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/55000/55167/earth_lights_lrg.jpg http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/55000/5516... ) are incredible interesting. For example you can see your own country and find the big cities and the gaps where there are almost no cities.
- guard-of-terra 14y agoThis is only relevant for suburban (or village) style settlements. For example, most of ex-USSR cities are built in huge 5-, 9- or 15-floor apartment blocks with lots of trees around them. In this case, trees tell you nothing: there might be few trees because the part of the city is newly-built; there are no trees in historic inner city but it's usually the best and most expensive place. If there's a plenty of trees, it still tells you nothing.
- brazzy 14y agoEven in Western Europe there was a period in the 1950s and 60s when city planners constructed high-rise satellite towns with lots of trees between the apartment blocks, pretty much all of which are mainly populated by poor people to this day.
- Someone 14y agoAn example: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.318875,4.976646&spn=0.00623,0.011094 http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.318875,4.976646&spn=0.... #trees per person probably is a better metric. Band-filtered population density, as that filters out high frequencies due to local peaks and low frequencies that denote average wealth of a larger neighborhood, may be an even better one. I guess that might even work for extremely high-rise building as in Dubai. Firstly, the lower floors in such buildings typically are offices, and secondly, I guess the really high buildings will stand less close to other high buildings than the lower skyscrapers that surround it.
- guard-of-terra 14y agoCity center might have very low trees per person. Old, crumbling, partially deserted housing might have high trees per person.
- kalleboo 14y agoExactly. I think this blog post is an example where you can find whatever you want as long as you look for it. Here's from Sweden. Rosengård, one of the poorest areas in Sweden: http://imgb.mp/izU.jpg http://imgb.mp/izU.jpg Västra hamnen, full of expensive "eco-friendly" model apartments: http://imgb.mp/izV.jpg http://imgb.mp/izV.jpg
- sp332 14y agoNew Hampshire has the 6th highest rate of millionaires per capita, and 9th highest income per person overall. We often top CQ's "Most livable states" list (which looks at schools, job growth etc.) We also have the highest percentage of tree cover in the nation. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/08/06/new.hampshire.leads.nation.percent.tree.cover http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/08/06/new.hampshire.le...
- carterschonwald 14y agoAlso not urban in any meaningful way :-)
- alanfang 14y agoThe huge amount of tree cover in New Hampshire historically speaking is also a pretty recent event. 100+ years ago NH was mostly farmland with little to no tree cover.
- sp332 14y agoYeah it's a little complicated historically. We used to have a nice "old growth" forest, with big oak trees etc. Nothing like the amount of cover we have now, but a lot. Then the British took basically all of the nice oaks for ships, and farming and so on cleared a lot of the rest. ~100 years ago people started feeling nostalgic about all the trees (plus farming in the area plummeted when soldiers from the Civil War returned with stories of real topsoil! and land you didn't have to remove rocks from every spring!) and a reforestation effort started. Unfortunately there is also an infestation of bugs that eat the tips off of trees so now we're stuck with tons of crappy pines with a few oaks and maples finally showing up.
- chimeracoder 14y agoMost of this is due to a relatively new phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crabgrass_Frontier:_The_Suburbanization_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crabgrass_Frontier:_The_Suburba... The concept of a 'front lawn', or even of easy access to nature in general, has not always been as popular as it is today. As Jackson notes, a front lawn is rather useless except as a status symbol (unlike a back lawn, people rarely use the front lawn for barbecues, etc.), and they can cut the amount of available space in a neighborhood by 50% or more, making them a truly luxury expense. But this popularity wasn't always so widespread - and n fact, it isn't even so commonplace in some parts of the world today (though the Westernization of global cultures has changed this somewhat). For those who are interested, the most expensive zip codes in New York are 10014 (by real estate) and 10128 (by income). The poorest would probably be 10451 (South Bronx). Contrast those both to 10025 and 10027, the border of Harlem (poor, but rapidly gentrifying, historically black) and the Upper West Side (historically well-off for several decades, also a large Jewish community).
- kcl 14y ago> The concept of a 'front lawn', or even of easy access to nature in general, has not always been as popular as it is today. The divide between city and country living is ancient. I find most of your assertions based on Jackson hard to swallow. We were almost exclusively agrarian before industrialization. Your article gives the fraction of people living in cities as 1/3 in 1890 in the US. It's more than that today. It seems like lawns and easy access to nature have been around for a long time. If they are more in demand today, maybe it's because there is a natural need that's going unfilled. (If anyone has a good chart of US city vs. non-city dwelling over time, please share.) > As Jackson notes, a front lawn is rather useless except as a status symbol A status symbol? Only if you are looking at it from the perspective of an apartment dweller. Suburban neighborhoods don't think of people in terms of their front yard. They don't think of front yards much at all, except when it comes time to cut them. If your front yard is messy, that might reflect badly on you, but that sort of information will be conveyed in other ways. The front yard won't have much to do with it. I suppose a more accurate way to phrase your argument would be "ornamentation". Even then, a front yard is not useless. People like to have space between them and their neighbors. It is a buffer between you and the road, and a place for your children to play. People like to have a space that's theirs. I think it is much more likely that the size of yards is a function of what people find comfortable to have between them and their neighbors, with other factors like cost coming into play second. Why, for instance, do New Yorkers buy their second homes in the surrounding rural areas? Why not another apartment? When I lived in the city I felt cramped. Apartment living taxed my well-being. It's possible this is because of how I grew up. I think it's more likely it's a physical attribute of how I am. Suburbanites are probably the same way. Open up Google Earth and pan over America. Are you suggesting all the front yards you see are equivalent to gold chains, and not some fundamental property of how people want to live? > and they can cut the amount of available space in a neighborhood by 50% or more, making them a truly luxury expense. Again, this could only come from a city perspective. Front yards are easy to get. Everyone who wants one has one. The objective function of a suburban area is not to maximize space efficiency. By the end of your comment you steer the discussion back towards cities in particular---but Jackson is an argument on actual suburbanization, not "intra-city" suburbanization. So if you aren't talking about these concepts in general, why predicate your comment on Jackson's book/phenomenon?
- magoon 14y agoFalse. This is all based on the assumption that income is directly proportional to the footprint of a dwelling
- richcollins 14y agoWeird I was just discussing this while walking through Piedmont. I wondered if it was a viscous / virtuous cycle thing. The areas with nice trees attracted those with wealth who protected them with disposable income while those with fewer trees cost less to live in, attracted lower income residents who couldn't afford to protect them.
- stretchwithme 14y agoThat makes sense. Because the same qualities that lead to higher incomes are required to care about things around you. For example, building skills and wealth take a long term view and the ability to make sacrifices, deferring enjoyment now for the possibility of future enjoyment. And a tree takes short term sacrifice of time for something that will have take years to materialize.
- smbwrs 14y agoThis is sarcasm, right?
- vacri 14y ago'pay for' is not the same as 'care for'. A poor person can care a heap about -foo-, but if they can't afford it, it won't happen.
- stretchwithme 14y agoHow much does a seed cost?
- dublinclontarf 14y agoIt's also a part of city planning, take for example Canberra Australia (the capital city), except for the more recent sections of the city (which seems to be suburban sprawls) almost the entire city is tree covered. Certain areas with high rise and high density don't have room for trees.