Mapping, Coronavirus Joshua Mullenite Mapping, Coronavirus Joshua Mullenite

Visualizing the American Nightmare

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to see the nightmare of living in the United States. From the lack of basic infrastructure, including running water, to the (as of this writing) 247,834 deaths resulting from COVID-19 it’s sitting in plain sight. The nightmare is uneven in who is affected by it, making it easier to overlook, dismiss, and turn into a political talking point rather than address with concrete actions. Recently, Zbigniew Grabowski of the Urban Systems Lab at the New School for Social Research created a simple visualization of rent-burdened households in the United States. The map presents a stark image of American life in which the majority of the country, in terms of both land area and population, have more than 50% of people spending more than 25% of their income on rent.

I couldn’t help but wonder what other basic facts of the American Nightmare look like mapped? What follows are a series of simple visualizations of data from the American Community Survey along with some brief thoughts on the matter. This isn’t meant to be rigorous academic analysis, but rather an articulation of what I see when I see “America”.

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There are 3,141 counties in the United States. Of these, nearly 7.5% have more than 25% of their population living below the federal poverty line ($21,720 for a three-person household.) These counties are concentrated in the US South (specifically the Black Belt and central Appalachia), the South Texas borderlands, and the same reservations experiencing plumbing poverty in the desert Southwest. Pockets appear elsewhere, but it’s not necessarily surprising that those experiencing the highest levels of poverty in the country are the people who have been targeted by US government policies focused on their extermination, removal, and subjugation. You could say it’s because it costs less to live in these areas, but they are also rent burdened.

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Over 44% of US counties have between 22.8 and 79.6% of households without internet access. This is, in the best instance, about 1 and 5 people. Again, the Black Belt, Appalachia, reservations, and borderlands are among the highest areas and its completely unsurprising that there is such a strong correlation with poverty levels. But, given the widespread shift to internet usage for remote working and learning since March it becomes clear why at least some people simply cannot deal with lockdowns. I’m not referring to the people not represented by this map, who use the internet to spread easily debunked claims and to dismiss the trauma experienced as part of partisan politics, but rather those for whom it was never an option. According to the CDC, Mississippi and Louisiana have the highest death rates in the South and are well represented on this map. To what extent were those deaths the result of a lack of an alternative? People forced to continue working through a deadly pandemic, probably without adequate access to healthcare or insurance…

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