Apt Map Humor

Wasserman Boston Globe
Click to enlarge

I am always pleased to see maps in unexpected places. I particularly enjoyed yesterday's Wasserman cartoon in the Boston Globe, as it cleverly brings together two stories that have been in the news of late. I have commented extensively on the geography of Gerrymandering, an unseemly practice that was invented in my current home of Massachusetts and recently perfected in Texas, my former home. Politicians in both states will be deeply engaged in the practice this year, given recent shifts in population growth.

In this elegant graphic, Dan Wasserman cartographically links this ongoing story of political geography with a bit of cultural geography that emerges every year as the snow falls. City of Savers is just one of scores of recent articles and letters about the practice -- particularly entrenched in South Boston -- of saving shoveled-out parking spaces with chairs, carts, and other objects. The boundaries are often blurred among protecting one's investment of time, marking territory that is actually public, and littering. The debate on those questions is likely to more contentious than those regarding the political map!