Monday, July 23, 2018

Average Income by Metro Station

DataParis is a data visualization of Paris census data centered around the individual stations of the Paris Metro. The visualization allows you to explore information on the average wages, taxes paid, the unemployment rate (and lots of other social and economic data) by individual Parisians in neighborhoods around each Metro station.

DataParis is actually a few years old now and uses data from the 2009 census. Despite the slightly dated data the map is effective in visualizing some overall trends about the economic divide in Paris. For example for many of the metrics visualized there is a clear east-west split - with the west side of Paris being far wealthier than the east side.

In London the city's docks were sited in the East End. The Thames also flows eastwards, which means that sewage (and the associated smell) were also far worse in the East End than up river. It is therefore fairly obvious why London's East End became where the poor were able to afford to live. However, in Paris, the Seine flows in the opposite direction. Therefore the river presumably has had little impact on the economic divide in Paris.

I don't know the history of Paris well enough to know where and how its economic divisions developed geographically. Perhaps the economic divide in Paris was caused by the predominantly westerly wind, which would have blown smoke and pollution eastwards in the city, making it a less attractive place to live.

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