Patchwork Nation

I'm not usually a reader of the Christian Science Monitor, but they have developed a really interesting angle on the 2008 U.S. election through the 'Patchwork Nation' site. What it does is divide up the various counties and populations of the United States into 11 categories, and have a person blog about how the campaign is being viewed in a city or county that is representative of the whole.

The eleven categories, which have roughly proportionate shares of the U.S. population, are:

1. Minority Central;
2. Service Worker Centre;
3. Monied 'Burbs;
4. Industrial metropolis;
5. Emptying Nests;
6. Boom Towns;
7. Tractor Country;
8. Military Bastions;
9. Immigrant Nation;
10. Campus and Careers;
11. Evangelical Epicentres.

Project director Dante Chinni explains the project here.

Users can check where they sit by entering their own postcode, and can take a survey to see how they match up with others in the community type.