Infographic showing ethnic diversity in Austin, NYC and other cities

In 2009, Bill Rankin created an infographic of the ethnic distribution in Chicago. It was pretty awesome. Awesome enough that a couple of months ago Eric Fischer took the 2000 US Census Data and did the same thing for 40 other cities.

I love Chicago and spent a lot of time there between '04 & '08. It had always struck me with that city that you can walk across the street and literally feel like you are in a completely different place. Just on a level of race, Rankin's work seemed to support that notion.

Two of my other favorite cities in the world are listed below and they tell very different stories. Each dot represents 25 people. Pink is white, green is asian, yellow is hispanic and blue is black.

Austin

Austin is a great city. I haven't spent too much time there, but my girlfriend is from there and I feel like I know it pretty well. The population density is pretty low overall and there seems to be a pretty good mix of ethnic diversity within the various communities.

New York City

Not surprisingly the density of NYC is drastically different than Austin. Although Manhattan at street level has an incredible ethnic mix most of the time, it's hardly surprising that it's so white in terms of residents (except for Chinatown & Harlem).

It's really interesting to see other cities such as Washington, LA, Detroit and SF as well. I've also been watching a lot of The Wire lately, so seeing Baltimore was also pretty interesting.

Good Year For the NHL & Why I Love Chicago

It's only a slight coincidence that the NHL is starting to experience a resurgence in the same year that the Chicago Blackhawks win the Cup. After years of suffering under the ownership of Bill Wirtz, the Hawks have climbed back in to the conscience of a hockey-savvy town.

I've been to Chicago many times. It is one of my favorite cities in the world, without question.

I was at Grant Park on Nov 4, 2008 (the night Obama won the presidency) with 500,000 others - it was one of the most interesting, surreal and uplifting experiences I've been a part of. When the Chicago White Sox won the World Series pennant, there was another 500,000 people that showed up for that parade (I wasn't there, but grew up a Frank Thomas and Chicago White Sox fan, so was extremely pleased with that win).

For the Blackhawks' Stanley Cup parade? An estimated 2 million people. Wow!

Chicago is a town definitely knows how to party. If Edmonton won it, there would be 200,000 people lined up on Jasper Avenue and 10% of the attendees would get stabbed in the neck.*

*Disclaimer: I'm an Edmonton Oilers fan and am a proud native Edmontonian so I have the right to say disparaging things