Social Explorer: US Census Maps

The Social Explorer gives a map interface to the 2000 census data. It's beautiful and really interesting--for example, you can chart the density of lesbian and gay partners across the country and discover that the distribution is uniform except for the central one-state wide strip from North Dakota to Texas and the lone splot of Utah. When you chart the changing density of blacks and whites in NYC, you get a feel for the sudden post-war boom in projects in Queens and Kings. It sure is nice to have these GIS-type tools in the hands of civilians like myself, which is basically the theme of Where.