Mapping Local Culture

Part of being a designer is knowing how to create a sense of place in your design, or at least not mess up the sense of place already there. Part of an area's sense of place is its local culture. Wouldn't it be great if you could find a map showing you the culture of a particular place?

I understand that culture is too complex to be clearly mapped, but you could map certain little pieces of culture.

For example, here is a map of where particular college fanbases are concentrated (and also a big part of how I shape my worldview):

commoncensus.org

This next map may be a little more useful, and shows the spheres of influence of particular cities in the US. In other words, when people in a certain part of the US think about going "to the city," this map shows where they most likely would go:

 

commoncensus.org

But back to the fun maps--this next one maps Major League Baseball fans. I would say Starkville is pretty solid Braves country:

 

commoncensus.org
And here is the map for NFL. It looks a little unclear for Starkville, but my guess is that we lean toward the Saints.

 

 

commoncensus.org

The original maps can be found at the Common Census Map Project's web site. If you're having trouble making out the maps on my blog, the maps on the original web site will let you zoom in on them.

http://www.commoncensus.org/index.php