Spending on WPA projects as a function of state population. Mainly for fun, and so I could learn me some graphical commands in R, but I thought y’all might like to see it.
Suggestions about improving the presentation are, as ever, welcome.
If you want to pursue the question of where New Deal money went overall, you might look at
Wallis, John Joseph. “The Political Economy of New Deal Spending Revisited, Again: With and without Nevada.” Explorations in Economic History 35, no. 2 (April 1998): 140-170.
Also, more generally on the allocation of public works expenditures,
Smith, Jason Scott. Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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4 comments
January 17, 2009 at 3:54 pm
jazzbumpa
Delighted to see Ohio above the line. From a placard at the Toledo Zoo:
“Federal and local projects provided two high school stadiums, nine elementary schools, park shelter houses, highways, and an architectural landmark, the Toledo Public Library.”
http://www.oll.state.oh.us/your_state/remarkable_ohio/marker_details.cfm?marker_id=205&file_id=5699
Along with several buildings at the zoo, and the “Glass Bowl” stadium at the University of Toledo. That’s make-work that I can believe in!
January 17, 2009 at 5:09 pm
grackle
I’d have thought that a purpose of these sorts of graphs is being able to read the data. As it is, it seems like the data is that there were a bunch of little-states-population-wise that shared small expenditures. Pretty egalitarian, but it would be nice to be able to identify them somehow, unless the tangle of names is for dramatic intent?
January 17, 2009 at 6:51 pm
jazzbumpa
Hmm. What is the intent of the graph? If you simply want to show that expenditures are linear with population, you could just use unlabeled data points.
As is, it does show who did relatively better and worse, once you get away from the jumble at the bottom. TX, NC, VA – not so much.
But the jumble – it’s kind of a mess.
January 17, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Brad
I would suggest showing per capita expenditures. That should be close to flat, which is the point, isn’t it?
I do like the color labels by geography, but then I am not red-green color blind….