January 27, 2009

The Walmart Virus Map

Steve Carlson from the Iraq Moratorium's national core group crashed with me while he was in town to attend his first UFPJ steering committee meeting. During his stay he told me about his part in a near picture-perfect campaign that recently kept a Walmart from being built in Spooner, WI .

I showed Steve my current favorite bit of data visualization:



Metastasization, much?

I posted a comment on the FlowingData site (where there's a better version of the visualization that, alas, I can't figure out how to embed) for the guy who did it, Nathan Yau. I wrote, wistfully

Wouldn’t it be cool to map in all the places where community opposition has blocked Walmart’s expansion plans (a couple of hundred so far, I understand)? It’d be nice to watch how the spreading infection sparks the development of anti-bodies in the country…

2 comments:

bendygirl said...

It'd also be cool to see how the virus attacks the communities in which they are built. Like my hometown. They built Wal-Mart right next to the mall, but will not permit a connecting road between the mall and Wal-Mart. They are literally within 200 yards of each other, building edge to building edge, and yet, if you want (who really wants to?) to go to Wal-Mart, you have to leave the Mall to get to it. It's just another way they drive down competition. They really suck, don't they?

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