Cool maps test 'donut' theory

<!-- ckey="361681DF" -->Any follower of Tufte appreciates clear, well-thought-out and aesthetically pleasing visualizations of information. Here's one, via News.com's Esoterica blog: City Income Donuts (caution: page loads slowly, at least at the time of this writing), a series of maps prepared by Bill Rankin.

Rankin wanted to test a long-standing theory of urban development:

"The goal was to test the 'donut' hypothesis -- the idea that a city will create concentric rings of wealth and poverty, with the rich both in the suburbs and in the 'revitalized' downtown, and the poor stuck in between."

As Rankin explains and the maps show, the theory bears out in some older cities, not so much in some newer cities. Rankin's cartography work should appeal to designers who, like me, love to see effective use of visual representations and metaphors to communicate ideas. This is the kind of stuff that puts the "arts" in "communication arts."