Recession Geography story in NYTimes dated March 3rd

All of often we are fed statistics at too high a level. For example, unemployement in December 2008 stood at 7.1%. That's one statistic, but put the unemployment data on a county-level map, and you'll quickly see patterns across hundreds of counties in the US. Hardest-hit areas like California, the rustbelt, and parts of the South are highlighted in deep reds, whereas areas that are doing pretty well, like the North East and Mid section of the country are light orange.

The Times' story points out that areas that saw a boom in housing are seeing a bust in unemployement. The story is here and the county level map is here.

New googlemap mashup

This is a pretty good mixture of google maps with apartment rental data. The map aspect of the tool let's you search within a radius of a chosen point. I'm surprised it took so long for someone to develop this when the most important thing in real estate is, location, location, location. 

http://www.myapartmentmap.com/rentaldata/pa/doylestown/