The branches of the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank were highly geographically concentrated -- but perhaps not where one might suppose: one-third of the bank's locations were in the Boston area (a huge biotech hub) and roughly one-quarter were in the Los Angeles metro area.

The statistics in this article from The New York Times Magazine are rather stunning, as is its conclusion about the cause of Britain's precipitous decline: "In December, as many as 500 patients per week were dying in Britain because of E.R. waits, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, a figure rivaling (and perhaps surpassing) the death toll from Covid-19. ... By the end of next year, the average British family will be less well off than the average Slovenian one, according to a recent analysis by John Burn-Murdoch at The Financial Times; by the end of this decade, the average British family will have a lower standard of living than the average Polish one." www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/uk-economic-decline-nhs.html

This map, based on U.S. Department of Transportation data, shows train derailments over the last 47 years.  (Map from www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/ohio-train-derailment-safety-regulation.html.)

Over the last two decades, China's economic influence in Africa has grown enormously, as a lender, as a buyer of raw materials, and, as this map shows, as a primary source of imported goods. www.statista.com/chart/26668/main-import-countries-sources-africa

Chicago is hoping to further its ambitions of becoming a tech hub by attracting tech workers laid off by firms in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to the Windy City.  Specifically, Chicago is trying to make itself a destination for holders of H-1B visas.  H-1B visas, which are reserved for in-demand occupations, require employer sponsorship; when holders of H-1B visas are laid off, they have only 60 days to find a new employer willing to sponsor their visa or they must leave the country. (Roughly 40% of software engineers working in the U.S. were born outside the country.) A consortium of Chicago employers and civic groups is trying to target laid off H-1B visa holders to fill job openings, keep tech talent in the U.S., and promote Chicago as a destination for top tech talent.  www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-25/chicago-seeks-to-lure-foreign-workers-laid-off-by-tech-giants

As this article from Foreign Policy makes clear, FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried were not based in the Bahamas just because of the pleasant weather.  Instead, the Bahamas was chosen for its crypto-friendly regulatory framework, the most recent banking initiative of an island nation that has frequently found ways to take advantage of interstices in the global economy. foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/15/the-hidden-history-of-the-worlds-top-offshore-cryptocurrency-tourist-trap

This geo-graphic from Statista looks at "land grabs" in the developing world, defined as "the buying, leasing or concession land use for commercial purposes by companies from abroad, affecting land that had previously been used communally, by small-scale shareholders or was natural environment." (Until 2019, the country experiencing the most land grabs was Peru, but Peru is not on this list because it has been reclassified as an upper-middle income country.) cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/19044.jpeg

According to an analysis by Good Jobs First, a not-for-profit that tracks agreements between Amazon and state and local governments, Amazon has received more than $5 billion in government subsidies. This data visualization, published in Quartz, shows which states have been most generous to Amazon (from https://qz.com/emails/daily-brief/1849825382/chinese-protests-ripple-effect).

Where are people most likely to be feeling the crypto meltdown? This geo-graphic from Statista looks at cryptocurrency use in a sampling of countries and finds widespread and growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies in India, Brazil, and South Africa: www.statista.com/chart/27070/cryptocurrency-use-selected-countries-over-time/

The series of geo-graphics in this article from The New York Times show how international trade with Russia has changed since February: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/30/business/economy/russia-trade-ukraine-war.html

California, by itself, is on the verge of becoming the world's 4th biggest economy, expected to pass Germany when the state's new figures come out in 2023. The world's biggest national economies, by GDP, are the U.S., China, and Japan, followed by Germany and the U.K.  www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-10-24/california-poised-to-overtake-germany-as-world-s-no-4-economy

When young adults move away from home in the U.S., where do they go? It turns out that the top destinations vary by ethnicity and parental income.  New York City attracts the richest quintile of young adults, for example, but Black young adults are most likely to move to Atlanta regardless of income level. Los Angeles is the most popular destination for all but the top income quintile of White and Asian young adults and for Hispanic young adults regardless of parental income. Hispanic young adults are most likely to move to cities in the Southwest (e.g., Phoenix, San Antonio) whereas Asian young adults are most likely to move to cities in California (e.g., San Francisco, San Diego). Affluent White young adults are the only group to include Chicago among the their top five destinations. www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/states-teachers-paddle/

The Chinese government has become one of the world's biggest lenders, especially to countries in the developing world and those associated with its Belt and Road Initiative. This map, from Statista based on World Bank data, shows which countries are most indebted to China: www.statista.com/chart/19642/external-loan-debt-to-china-by-country/

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has released data showing the impact of the first year of the COVID pandemic on arts employment, by state: www.bea.gov/system/files/inline-images/acpsa0322d.png

I was cleaning out some old papers in my office and came across this rather stunning map I had saved from 2014 showing that, as of 2013, median household income in the U.S. had peaked at least 15 years earlier in 81 percent of U.S. counties. The interactive map at The Washington Post website allows users to mouse over counties for specific data: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/business/income/index.html

In the U.S., there are about 150,000 traditional gas stations and only about 6,000 fast-charging electric vehicle stations, despite the sale of more than 400,000 electric vehicles in 2021. This map, from MIT Technology Review, shows the geographic distribution of the fast-charging EV stations:  www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/28/1053908/electric-vehicle-charging-stations/

El Salvador not only made Bitcoin legal tender in September 2021, it is also planning Bitcoin City, a geothermally powered, tax-free city to be funded by Bitcoin-backed bonds at the base of a volcano in the eastern part of the country. According to this recent article from Fortune, Bitcoin City is only one of several initiatives being pitched to Latin American governments by crypto enthusiasts and libertarians advocating for the creation of private, corporate-run city-states to operate outside the legal structure of the nation-state. fortune.com/2022/04/22/crypto-millionaires-building-tax-free-cities-central-america/

Shanghai is the world's busiest container port -- handling about 3x the container traffic of #2 Rotterdam -- and China's ongoing COVID lockdown of Shanghai is further gumming up global shipping. This map, based on live ship-tracking data, shows the backlog of ships earlier this week in the East China Sea, the mouth of the Yangtze River, and the Huangpu River waiting to be loaded and unloaded. cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27343.jpeg

Unionizing efforts at Amazon and Starbucks have made headlines recently. In the 1970s, one in four U.S. workers was a member of a labor union. Today, the figure is roughly one in 10. This interactive map from Business Insider shows 2021 union membership by state: www.businessinsider.com/map-of-what-union-membership-looks-like-in-us-2022-1

Federal income taxes are due today. This map identifies those states that contribute the most to federal coffers. Although there is clearly a high degree of correlation with population, some states contribute significantly more than would be expected based on population alone, due to higher average wages and overall economic activity.  California contributes 50% more than #2 NY, but New York is only the 4th biggest state by population.  New Jersey is #11 by population but #8 by contribution to federal revenue.  Massachusetts is #16 by population but #9 by federal revenue, and Minnesota is #10 by federal revenue but only #22 by population.

Even though continued labor shortages are giving employees the best leverage in a generation to raise their wages, the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 per hour, meaning that many employees, especially in specific parts of the country, are still making less than $15 per hour and are particularly vulnerable to inflation driving up the costs of food and fuel. This interactive map from the British anti-poverty organization Oxfam shows the fraction of each state's labor force earning less than $15 per hour and allows users to also slice stats by race, gender, age, and marital status. www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/countries/united-states/poverty-in-the-us/low-wage-map-2022/

Historically, spring has been a busy time for home sale listings. Does the name of your street matter in terms of resale value?  A recent study by a finance professor at Emory University analyzed nearly 6,000 home sales across 35 states from 2001-2020, comparing houses sold on streets with Confederate names (e.g., Jefferson Davis, Dixie) with comparable houses sold on streets without the Confederate association. The economic geography was striking in two ways. First, in the 11 states of the former Confederacy, the difference in sales prices was not statistically significant, but in the other 24 states, houses on Confederate-named streets sold for an average of 4% less -- a loss of $10,000 on a $250,000 house, for example.  Second, in areas with higher shares of college educated, Democratic-voting, or Black residents, houses on Confederate-named streets sold at a bigger discount and were more likely to be slow to sell. This map shows Confederate street names in New Orleans, for example, where the city council is reconsidering place names with Confederate associations: bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/nola.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/ab/fab4b190-acfc-11ea-b1a5-f38812a04d2a/5ee436e73a7b7.image.jpg?resize=1333%2C1294. (Map from NOLA.com; study data from www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/confederate-street-names-can-bring-lower-home-prices.)

This pair of maps, prepared by Statista based on World Bank data, shows the impact of smartphones on internet access in Africa: www.statista.com/chart/26781/internet-penetration-africa-progress/

Not surprisingly, Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, with nearly 6,000 different sanctions targeting individuals and/or governmental entities. This geo-graphic from Statista looks at the countries with the most international sanctions. cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27015.jpeg

Tulips, as both bulbs and cut flowers, are strongly associated with the Netherlands. But the Netherlands' dominance in floriculture extends far beyond tulips. In fact, the Aalsmeer Flower Market, southwest of Amsterdam, oversees the distribution of 43 million cut flowers every day! Flowers are flown into Aalsmeer from all over the world, sorted, graded, auctioned, and rapidly distributed across Europe. The building in which the flower auction is held is the fourth largest building in the world by footprint, roughly the size of 200 soccer fields. www.visitaalsmeer.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/RoyalHolland-Flower-Auction-Aalsmeer-1-1920x1440.jpg