The Connected States of America

The Connected States of America illustrates the emerging communities based on the social interactions through the use of anonymized mobile phone data.

Investigating the interaction network of people reveals interesting facets on how people utilize space. Cities attract their citizens from all walks of life, from nearby and from distant areas across the country. This constant flux of people commuting, migrating, and travelling across the country establishes connections which are dominated by large cities. The social connections woven across the United States can be used to define communities, where the glue that holds a community together is a stronger relationship with other members of the same community compared to members of other communities. Naturally, one can ask whether the communities defined purely by social interactions coincide with the administrative boundaries, for example state boundaries? Remarkably, this is not always the case!

See http://senseable.mit.edu/csa for more visualizations and information.

Team
MIT senseable city lab
Carlo Ratti group director
Franscesco Calabrese project leader
Dominik Dahlem
Xiaoji Chen


ATT Labs - Research
Alexandre Gerber
DeDe Paul
Christoper Rath
James Rowland

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• mobile
• cellphone
• map
• community
• america
• states

[solidkingcobra]

the 0 dislikes are from the people of Montana and Dakotas... who are obviously not connected.

[WindyCityNovelties]

I hereby claim that giant space out west where apparently no one is connecting with anyone.

[matias2309]

What band is this? (music)

[DrRadmanthys]

When did these "new communities" begin to form? In the nineteenth century when people started using telephones. There is nothing new about people calling each other. The fact that these are mobile phone calls means nothing in terms of historical significance of people calling other people in other states. And in any case, it is simply ignorant to claim this is a new phenomenon without comparing it to land-line call patterns from previous decades.

[maucomim]

Fantastic video!!!

Is is possible to do this across the world? I guess it will take working with way too many operators, but it would be interesting to know which areas are best connected with which ones...

[Caramelman007]

How about one for Canada?

[bluemoonrising26]

@DXCoRunner

You, sir, are a paradox. How does that feel?

[wetweasel56]

@mastinotje...spoken like a person mad with jealousy. LOL!

[MRtagalong03]

That big giant empty gap is mine. ALL MINE!!! bwahahaha! Bow Down to your king....

[IncubusGrauen]

that why people dont need boundaries

[13SmokeAlot]

@mastinotje we still got nukes and shit load of cole haha

[DoYaLoveMeh89]

@eLLriDe420 Technically, if you want to be an ass about it, you described TWO continents, South America being it's own. When someone says "America", they are implying the USA. Stop being a dick, thumbs down'ed.