density: the world and us

Sometime ago, The Royal Gazette published a satellite picture of Bermuda that was quite startling in its depiction of Bermuda's state of development. It was fascinating, too, to see the long dormant volcano that underlies the island. 

As it happens, Fathom Information Design undertook the project, Dencity, that answered the question "What does seven billion people look like?" And, scrolling through the images, you will see that, despite the relatively small scale of the mapping, Bermuda is visible in the Atlantic Ocean. In the context of the project being about density, this is not necessarily a good thing, as the "smaller brighter circles highlight crowded cities". Bermuda is a small bright bit of yellow in the ocean to the right in the New York City image. That the island is so densely populated you can actually see it is slightly unnerving.

The images (courtesy of Fathom Information Design) are here in a slideshow but you should follow the Dencity link where you can see them at a larger scale and learn more about the world we live in.

Of course, there is always the question of balance: density vs. open space? But that's another journal entry.