Dataviz by Sunlight

Occupying Wall Street: Places and Spaces of Political Action

For nine weeks last fall crowds gathered every evening at the eastern end of Zuccotti Park, where a shallow crescent of stairs creates a modest amphitheater, to form the New York City General Assembly. A facilitator reviewed rules for prioritizing speakers and gestures by which participants could signal agreement or dissent. Over two hours or more, they worked through issues of common concern — every word repeated by the assembly, which formed a human microphone amplifying the speaker’s voice — until they reached consensus.

Top RBS bankster’s compensation in visual context

RBS boss Stephen Hester has accepted his bonus of £963,000 on top of his annual salary of £1.2 million. RBS is 80% owned by the UK taxpayer. This image represents his annual income as 2.2 million pixels, comparing it in ‘income parade’ style with other taxpayer-employed workers.

On FIRE: How the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Sector Drove the Growth of the Political One Percent of the One Percent

An analysis of campaign contribution records by the Sunlight Foundation reveals that the number of donors in the FIRE sector giving at least $10,000 (in 2010 dollars) per cycle to political candidates, parties, and independent expenditure groups has increased from 1,091 in 1990 to 5,510 in 2010 (a 405% increase). These elite FIRE sector donors’ combined contributions have increased even more dramatically, growing by $162.8 million (a 700% increase, controlling for inflation) to $178.2 million in 2010.

The Biggest Needs Of The ‘Occupy’ Demonstrators

The Occupy movement is in need. What that means, exactly, depends on where you look.

The Top 1 Percent: What Jobs Do They Have?

Explore the occupations and industries of the nation’s wealthiest households.

What percent you are in

Accompanying an article on the variations of the wealthiest one percent, The New York Times provides this interactive map to see what percent you’re in. Simply enter your household income and see how you compare in metropolitan areas with over 50,000 households.

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Map: How Occupy Wall Street Chose Zuccotti Park

This week in the magazine, Mattathias Schwartz writes about the origins of Occupy Wall Street, including an explanation of how New York’s general assembly decided on Zuccotti Park as the site of original encampment. After discussing possible sites at the G.A.’s weekly Tompkins Square Park meetings, the decision was ultimately left to a small group known as the Tactical Committee, who narrowed the choice down to eight candidates. During the week leading up to the protest, the Tactical Committee scouted the remaining sites. On the afternoon of September 17th, three of the committee’s members decided on Zuccotti Park, which they then called Location Two.

Above, a copy of the map that the Tactical Committee distributed at Bowling Green. Click through to see the notes of one member of Tactical Committee on the locations’ advantages and disadvantages: http://nyr.kr/tAM8Z6

Occupywallstreet Twitter network mentions and reply edges highlighted with labels

These are the connections among the Twitter users who recently tweeted the word occupywallstreet when queried on November 15, 2011, scaled by numbers of followers (with outliers thresholded). Connections created when users reply, mention or follow one another. Relies and mentions edges are highlighted in blue, follows connections are grey. The data set starts on 11/15/2011 23:08 and ends on 11/15/2011 23:34 UTC, a total of 26 minutes of traffic.

Public Opinion and the Occupy Movement

The Occupy Wall Street protests continue to spread around the country, highlighting grievances some Americans have about banks, income inequality and a sense that the poor and middle class have been disenfranchised. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that almost half of the public thinks the sentiments at the root of the movement generally reflect the views of most Americans. What are your thoughts about the movement? Do you agree with the protesters’ methods? Please note you must be logged in to post a comment.

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Graphic: Follow the tweets of the Occupy movement
The Occupy movement began with a single tweet from Adbusters and has grown to more than 550,000 Twitter posts from around the world. Take a look to see where the hotspots are.

Surface dedicated in Newspapers front pages vs. Twitter about Occupy Wall Street

It looks like the after the arrests in occupy Boston, The Boston Globe is covering it in its front page everyday.

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Mother Jones put together an interactive map of Zuccotti Park, aka Liberty Park, aka “home” to hundreds of protesters taking part in Occupy Wall Street. This element of city planning is quite impressive. However, the one thing that may hold them back from implementing such a plan is the vacate order that’s been given for this Friday, as the city hopes to send in sanitation workers to clear the park of trash—and people.