A Tale of Two Cities: Visualizing Economic Disparities in Minneapolis-St. Paul

Graphicacy helped transform the Center’s economic indicators tool into an inspiring, interactive case for action

Across Minnesota’s Twin Cities’ region, exclusionary policies have historically limited economic opportunities for Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Hispanic residents. Tawanna Black founded the nonprofit Center for Economic Inclusion (the Center) to right this injustice.

In 2022, she and her team enlisted Graphicacy to transform their website’s Indicators for an Inclusive Regional Economy into a more dynamic catalyst for reform — one that inspires action among employers, policymakers, and others capable of moving the needle for greater inclusivity.

Increasing Engagement Around Vital Data

The Center’s original Indicators website featured information on business ownership, employment levels, and other topics parsed by race and ethnicity. The topics lived under one of four pillars: Inclusive Growth, Business Development, Human Capital, and Access to Opportunity.

Marshaling a pool of new data from national and regional sources, Graphicacy expanded the Indicators website into an interactive microsite with enhanced usability and notable new additions, including:

• Data disaggregated from broader race and ethnicity categories to include 10 cultural communities (such as Hmong, Mexican, and Somali residents)
• Indicators with unique insights around earning a living wage, mortgage discrimination, and access to public transit
• A fifth Indicator Pillar labeled Sense of Belonging to gauge how welcome residents feel in the region
• Narrative context explaining what the data for each Indicator means, why it matters, and what actions users can take
• An executive summary showing major highlights from all Pillars in one place
• An interactive Indicator Visualization on the landing page showing which Indicators are available for which communities (and where gaps still exist)

“This new platform is like our previous economic Indicators on steroids, times one thousand,” said Tawanna. “It does my heart good to see how Graphicacy brought our rich collection of data to life. We needed to show more of our region’s diversity with disaggregated data so that we were telling everyone’s story. That’s what promoting inclusion is about.”

“We designed the site so users could explore multiple layers depending on how deeply they want to dive in,” said Carni Klirs, Graphicacy Associate Creative Director and Lead Data Visualization Designer. “Once you arrive on an Indicator, you can skim pertinent data for various communities of color. Then a second layer lets you recontextualize the charts and compare data across cultural communities, see changes over time, and more.”

Custom insights are generated on the fly for users: by hovering over any bar, a small popup appears with a sentence description of the data being shown, along with any relevant comparisons.

“The new Indicators site provides incredible opportunities for exploration, comparison, and contextualization,” said Nathan Arnosti, the Center’s Director of Analytics. “Graphicacy came up with designs that blew us away. They were so adept at finding ways to make information concise and accessible, allowing us to supplement our quantitative data with qualitative storytelling to present a nuanced view of economic inclusion in our region.”

The Center won’t need on-staff engineers to update its core Indicators. Each one links to its own spreadsheet, where practically anyone on the Center’s team can make and post changes, as needed.

By the People, for the People

As Graphicacy honed the design and usability, the Center convened meetings with more than 50 local stakeholders to shape the direction of the project’s design, functionality, and narratives: leaders within advocacy organizations, representatives from local governments, and individual Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Asian residents.

“There’s a person behind every number, story, and label,” said Tawanna. “We’re making sure no one gets lost. One member of our community told us that the disaggregated data finally made her feel seen.”

Most important to the Center and the region’s cultural communities, all of the Indicator data is actionable. Housing advocates can build a strong case for state policymakers. Employers, businesses, banks, and others can clearly grasp where they fit into the problem and the solution to level the economic playing field.

A Model for Progress

Both the Center and Graphicacy see potential for Indicator tools like this one to create impact beyond the Twin Cities. “People do better when they know better,” said Tawanna.

“We hope this can be a model for every region and every organization aiming to improve racial and economic inclusivity,” said Tawanna.

Graphicacy partners with clients to tell engaging stories with data. Graphicacy’s team combines storytelling, thoughtful human-centered design, and deep technical capabilities to build and deploy strategic, data-rich digital projects. Graphicacy has created data visualizations and infographics for top-tier organizations and companies, domestically and internationally, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the World Bank, the Center for American Progress, the Anti-Defamation League, and many others.