Visualizing changing social structure from a census.

Abstract

"In this paper it is shown how new visualization techniques are being used to analyze the first results of the British 1991 Census and other large data sets." The focus is on new ways to show how localities develop over time. The author suggests that this cannot be done effectively using traditional quantitative techniques. "Pictures are needed to show how different processes occur in different places, and holistic patterns need also to be seen without generalizing out the detail. Neither traditional thematic mapping nor commercial geographic information systems can do this well. Spatial visualization is an alternative approach in which the researchers choose what they wish to see and how they wish to view it. Many problems require new methods of visualization for their exploration. A new census presents us not only with new statistics, but also with the opportunity and impetus to develop radically different ways of envisioning information to reveal more fully the human facts contained within a mass of social statistics."