Little Ghana: Where each World Cup team's fans are in New York City
The Wall Street Journal has a great map feature today in its New York section showing where each World Cup country's nationals live in New York City. The map to the left shows the Ghanaians in New York in green. Morris Heights in The Bronx seems to lay the strongest claim to a Little Ghana, although there are also outposts in the Lower East Side, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. The soccer balls show where there are bars or restaurants showing the World Cup -- looks like not manysuch bars available in Little Ghana.
The map below shows where a big Cup favorite's fans live: Brazil (in yellow). Apparently there are both wealthy Brazilians on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, and poorer ones in Harlem and Queens. Maybe class differences are one reason Brazilian New Yorkers complain about the lack of any community spirit among themselves.
Of course, Aid Watch must draw at least 3 major development insights from all this, which is that
(1) nationals are remarkably concentrated, which may be both a strength (helping new immigrants adapt) and a weakness (persistent segregation prevents economic assimilation) not to mention blah, blah, and blah,
(2) too bad the soccer bars are so unequally distributed, moreover blah, blah, and blah, and
(3) forget all that and enjoy the World Cup, the event that unites all development folks, even soccer-challenged Americans.