The Map We Need if We Want to Think About how Global Living Conditions are Changing

Our World In Data | READ STORY

To show global data it is convenient to use a map. But despite the popularity and familiarity of world maps, they can mislead our understanding of how living conditions around the world are changing. They are made for a different purpose; geographical maps show us where the world’s land masses are and where country borders run. They don’t show us where the people are.

How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America?

The New York Times| READ STORY

America is often described as a place of great divides — between red and blue, big cities and rural towns, the coasts and the heartland. But our social lives are shaped by a much stronger force that ignores many of these lines: distance. 

Most Americans view unions favorably, though few workers belong to one

PEW Research | READ STORY

Americans like labor unions, at least in the abstract. A majority (55%) holds a favorable view of unions, versus 33% who hold an unfavorable view, according to a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. For most of the past three decades that the Center has asked that question, in fact, Americans have viewed unions at least somewhat more favorably than unfavorably.

Why Did America Give Up on Mass Transit? (Don't Blame Cars.)

City Lab | READ STORY

One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it is barely on life support. Even in New York City, subway ridership is well below its 1946 peak. Annual per capita transit trips in the U.S. plummeted from 115.8 in 1950 to 36.1 in 1970, where they have roughly remained since, even as population has grown.

Rural Childhood Contributes To Later Economic Success

Daily Yonder | READ STORY

The farther away from a city a person is raised, the more likely they are to climb the economic ladder, according to economists, who also found that community characteristics associated with upward mobility have different effects in rural and urban locations.