This map from The Atlantic shows home foreclosures by county across the United States. It compares the percentage of foreclosures in housing unit stock from county to county, and it’s an interesting graphic, no doubt. However it paints a slightly skewed picture by over-representing geographic area and under-representing population (or let’s say housing unit count).

It seems intuitive that larger foreclosure rates will have a larger economic impact on a county, regardless of population or housing stock. And the metropolitan areas that appear to suffer the worst don’t surprise either. Florida, I heard long ago, was prime territory for house flipping (looks like the whole peninsula is in foreclosure now).


The greater Mid-Atlantic Northeastern corridor looks relatively unscathed despite its population density and presumed large housing stock. Is that a function of having much older housing stock? Of a different economy? Or maybe skewed visualization?