Maps don't just show you a picture of the land. They can give new ways of viewing the world. A perfect example is this new look at the megaregions of the United States out of the University of Sheffield and Darmouth. Looking at over four million commuter patterns gives a sense of how interconnected these regions are.

Among the other things Garret Dash Nelson and Alasdair Rae were studying was if megaregions, and regionalization, even existed in the United States. "The detection of recognizable communities through this computational analysis suggests that human geography, "they say, "does in fact display statistically-significant patterns of structured regionalization."

Commutes of 50 miles or less in the Bay Area Garrett Dash Nelson and Alasdair Rae

The Eastern Kentucky region. Garrett Dash Nelson and Alasdair Rae

The maps reveal an America that is a mosaic, the authors say, but also "a set of overlapping, interconnected cogs which, working together, constitute the functional economy of the nation."

Source: An Economic Geography of the United States via Wired

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