While the world is captivated by the 2012 US presidential election and the debate sometimes drifts to “is Obama a socialist?”, well… the French already elected a “socialist” President a few months ago. Socialism equals to “social democracy” in European jargon, not to be – totally – confused with communism. Inspired by the “List of Excess Properties” published by the White House back in 2011, I decided to look at France’s Real Estate Inventory under a left-wing President in office, and have a crack at deconstructing the "scary socialist” myth. Hopefully, this Viz will help you to make your own opinion.
As a fortunate coincidence, it turns out the French government launched its open data portal end of 2011 following the European Commission's Open Data Strategy program. All in all, that is good news for data enthusiasts like me, as some other EU Member States the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands have already launched their open data portals recently. So, this Viz is mapping all the 23,593 Items (lands and real estates) disclosed in December 2011 along with the corresponding Regions' debt ratios and current market Property prices.
Critical Analysis: a gently satirical look at France, “mon doux pays”
Let’s start by a trivia. Who do you think owns the following items:
- 10,466 wastelands or abandoned lands;
- 9,443 buildings;
- 470 beaches;
- 454 lighthouses;
- 240 prison buildings;
- 92 cathedrals, 14 chapels, 4 churches, 1 basilica and 1 temple;
- 70 bodies of water;
- 15 archaeological repositories and 3 unexcavated archaeological sites;
- 12 prehistoric caves;
- 7 spas;
- and 4 barns, among other things?
The Viz: an interactive dashboard to explore a highly political topic
On top of mapping 23,593 properties owned by France located in 7,286 different cities, this dashboard is comparing the number of properties per region with the respective areas’ Debt per Inhabitant and average current market Per Sq. M. Price of regular local properties. So it adds an interesting aspect in analyzing what France could potentially dispose of and to what extent it would affect regional deficits. It is also good to know that the newly elected socialist government is even starting to dispose of some of these assets.
I mainly used the custom geocoding capability of Tableau version 7 and the calculated fields in the tooltips to design original aspects of this Viz. Built-in custom filters help you to examine the data with different angles: Property Category, Region or Ministry in charge. You can also search for property by typing words in the search bar and then by pressing enter. Try searching for lighthouse, cathedral or even cave for instance. For more details on each real estate, roll your mouse over the map dots to reveal more information.
Feel free to explore what strange items the French Republic owns, you will be certainly surprised! If interested to buy, go there. Please help us to finance our social security...
Sources:
Real Estate Inventory – Inventaire du patrimoine immobilier de l'Etat, extrait au 09/2012, www.data.gouv.fr
Real Estate Prices – Le Figaro Newspaper Group Study, Figaro Classifields, www.immobilier.com
Debt per Region – Ministère de l’Intérieur, Direction Générale des Collectivités Locales, www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr
Note: Overseas properties are not included in this analysis, this Viz only displays items in Metropolitan France.
About me: French professional and happy globe-trotter, interested in data driven investigations in the field of politics and social trends. Currently expat in London and working for a major American litigation and financial investigations consulting firm, dealing with large data sets and visualisation tools for international clients and corporations.
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