VISUALIZING CHANGING SOCIAL-STRUCTURE FROM A CENSUS

In this paper it is shown how new visualization techniques are being u sed to analyze the first results of the British 1991 Census and other large data sets. Of interest here are questions about how localities h ave developed over time; which neighbourhoods have experienced gentrif ication and in which places have the recessions of the previous decade s had their worst effects? Overall, do we see a picture of polarizatio n or a levelling out of social disparities either locally or nationall y? It is argued that these questions cannot be answered by conventiona l quantitative techniques because the answers are unlikely to be simpl e enough to be presentable in tables or by equations. Pictures are nee ded to show how different processes occur in different places, and hol istic patterns need also to be seen without generalizing out the detai l. Neither traditional thematic mapping nor commercial geographic info rmation systems can do this well. Spatial visualization is an alternat ive approach in which the researchers choose what they wish to see and how they wish to view it. Many problems require new methods of visual ization for their exploration. A new census presents us not only with new statistics, but also with the opportunity and impetus to develop r adically different ways of envisioning information to reveal more full y the human facts contained within a mass of social statistics.