Honeycomb structure - The Visualization of Spatial Social Structure - page 94

4
Honeycomb structure
Detail cumulates into larger coherent structures; those thousands of
tiny windows, when seen at a distance, gray into surfaces to form
a whole building. Simplicity of reading derives from the context of
detailed and complex information, properly arranged. A most uncon-
ventional design strategy is revealed: to clarify, add detail.
(Tufte, 1990, p. 37)
4.1 Viewing society
Britain is a small piece of land upon which, by the early years of the twenty-first
century, not much more than sixty million people lived. It was probably about
five million fewer when the first draft of this text was written. The five million
is a net change. Far more were born, far more died, far more came and far more
went from Britain's shores than five million. Five million is just the difference
of the difference between these numbers. It is births less deaths, plus ins less
outs (Figure 4.1).
Sixty million is a high number compared with most other European countries.
It is a low number compared to two other large countries in which many people
speak English: India and the USA. Why study this net number, less than a single
percentage of the world's population? Why study what it looked like back when
it ranged between 55 and 56 million, between the spring 1971 census and autumn
1989 housing crash?
The British state is a convenient unit of analysis; consistent national statis-
tics are collected on many subjects at regular intervals about all its constituent