Rachel Franklin 🦚
banner
rsfrankl.bsky.social
Rachel Franklin 🦚
@rsfrankl.bsky.social
Population Geographer | Spatial Demographer.
Partial to words like orthogonal + heterodox.
Also very partial to shoes.

rachelfranklin.org + rachelfranklin.substack.com
Pinned
Day 10 #30DayMapChallenge (pen and paper) is my feeble back-of-the-envelope attempt to understand the route Billy Joel’s Downeaster Alexa is taking—especially how she can be en route to the Vineyard from Block Island Sound but tonight be Nantucket bound. Makes no sense. #geosky
Some days you get the map and other days the map gets you. 😔

#30DayMapChallenge — Day 10 — Air.
November 11, 2025 at 2:57 AM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
Paris and urban history and map geekery, h/t @lanrickbennett.bsky.social
Nothing like a nice long flight for catching up on #30DayMapChallenge 🤪.

Here's Day 8 — urban — right on time. A map of Paris buildings by age of construction. A real beauty if I do say so myself. 😍
November 9, 2025 at 4:11 AM
No #30DayMapChallenge for Rachel today until she gets all her work done 😞
November 10, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
How about we shut down the government for this very popular and specific goal and then, hear me out, we hold out for like a month and a half and then, ok this part is important, after a watershed election where we ran the table, ONLY THEN, fold and don't get the one thing we said we wanted.
November 10, 2025 at 2:31 AM
It’s a map of the US made out of Kashi cereal.

Turns out Kashi is about as much fun for map-making as it is for eating. Who would have guessed it. Anyway here’s Day 9 (analog) of #30DayMapChallenge
November 9, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
I just stumbled across it after seeing this stunner posted by @rsfrankl.bsky.social Feeling bad I don’t get on to this #30DayMapChallenge days ago.

Might need to bank some tomorrow and continue on for the rest of the month🤞🏾📢 bsky.app/profile/rsfr...
Nothing like a nice long flight for catching up on #30DayMapChallenge 🤪.

Here's Day 8 — urban — right on time. A map of Paris buildings by age of construction. A real beauty if I do say so myself. 😍
November 9, 2025 at 4:13 AM
Nothing like a nice long flight for catching up on #30DayMapChallenge 🤪.

Here's Day 8 — urban — right on time. A map of Paris buildings by age of construction. A real beauty if I do say so myself. 😍
November 9, 2025 at 12:53 AM
I'm nothing if not committed to the bit. Late to Day 7 — accessibility — of #30DayMapChallenge because job. Shout out to my preferred mode of transportation (after walking) and to my new home T station, which does NOT have the longest escalator in North American even if it totally feels like it.
November 8, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Honestly a talk title I'm so proud of I might have to put it on repeat.
November 8, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
Great American panics
November 8, 2025 at 4:04 AM
My favorite maps are the ones that take like 3 applications to finish.

Kidding.

Here's my Day 6 ("dimensions") of #30DayMapChallenge: a joy or ridgeline plot of kids in the US in 2020. Thanks @ipums.bsky.social (NHGIS), QGIS, R, Adobe Illustrator, and especially @helenmakesmaps.bsky.social
November 6, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
I almost forgot the best thing about November! But it’s not too late to enjoy the #30DayMapChallenge
Happy #30DayMapChallenge to all those who celebrate!

Day 1 is points and mine is a love letter to all the international undergraduate students who choose the United States for their studies. Thanks for being here!

#30DayMapChallenge2025 #points
November 6, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Good news is Microsoft Outlook actively trying to help me not ruin my workplace further by removing all my !!!! and other lady language stuff
I like to think that I personally ruined the workplace.
many people are saying!
November 6, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
women, are they bitches?
the question nobody with a soul is asking, answered by people nobody wants to hear from
November 6, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Naming no names but someone and some newspaper can fuck right off
November 6, 2025 at 11:39 AM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
I think the important lesson is that young men are unreliable
November 5, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
The detail on these is gonna get destroyed by the image compression on this app but it was fun to make them, especially putting the subway lines in.
November 5, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Day 5 of #30DayMapChallenge is "earth." I did places to get out and, you know, touch grass.

Parks and open space in my new adopted home, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

#30DayMapChallenge2025 #day5
November 5, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
Took me a while but I got there. Day 4 of the #30DayMapChallenge is "my data"—even if Strava makes it super fiddly to extract usable data that is mine, mine, mine.

This is all my runs in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts, since moving here in March. Brighter yellow indicates higher frequency.
November 5, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Took me a while but I got there. Day 4 of the #30DayMapChallenge is "my data"—even if Strava makes it super fiddly to extract usable data that is mine, mine, mine.

This is all my runs in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts, since moving here in March. Brighter yellow indicates higher frequency.
November 5, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Fourth fuel: spite
Academia runs on three fuels: caffeine, impostor syndrome, and poorly documented code from 2017
November 4, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Thought this was a #30DayMapChallenge entry for polygons at first
NEW: I predicted the results of the New York City mayoral election BLOCK by BLOCK.

🚨Spoiler Alert🚨 Zohran Mamdani is going to win

2,000,000+ Votes, 120,000+ Blocks, 350 Neighborhoods, 5 Boroughs, 3 Candidates

ONLY 1 PREDICTION:
www.michaellange.nyc/p/predicting...
Predicting Every Block of the 2025 NYC Mayoral Election
Spoiler Alert: Zohran Mamdani is going to win
www.michaellange.nyc
November 3, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Grim up North. But also very opposite-of-grim. Newcastle (decidedly northern & awesome city) has some of the most deprived areas in all England, but also many that are among the least deprived, according to 2025 IMD.

Have I mentioned it's an amazing city?

Day 3 (polygons) of #30DayMapChallenge
November 3, 2025 at 1:42 PM
#30DayMapChallenge is like childbirth. In between I completely forget how much effort it was, get excited to do it all over again, and then am like holy shit this takes forever.
Thank god it's the weekend.

Day 2 of the #30DayMapChallenge — lines! State-level flows of domestic first-year undergraduate students to Harvard in 2023. Flows are proportion of US total, with largest flows from big states (CA and TX), nearby states (MA and NJ), and big nearby states (NY).
November 2, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Thank god it's the weekend.

Day 2 of the #30DayMapChallenge — lines! State-level flows of domestic first-year undergraduate students to Harvard in 2023. Flows are proportion of US total, with largest flows from big states (CA and TX), nearby states (MA and NJ), and big nearby states (NY).
November 2, 2025 at 8:48 PM