Attempting to escape chain restaurants and big box stores in the US can seem like an impossible task. On a recent road trip, artist Stephen Von Worley noticed that they were popping up everywhere, even in the middle of formerly barren landscapes.
Curious to see just how rampant this problem had become, Von Worley gathered data showing the exact location of all 13,000 U.S. McDonalds. What resulted was a visualisation that draws a spot on map of the United States – and showed how pervasive the chain really is.
He explains the distribution:
As expected, McDonald’s cluster at the population centers and hug the highway grid. East of the Mississippi, there’s wall-to-wall coverage, except for a handful of meager gaps centered on the Adirondacks, inland Maine, the Everglades, and outlying West Virginia.
For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.
Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!
Weather Sealed: “Where The Buffalo Roamed”
[via The Food Section]
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I’m sorry to sound like a capitalist tool, but I’ve never understood the hatred of the big chains. Why is this described as a “problem?” I would think there are so many McDonald’s because people choose to spend their money there. They’ve been successful in building a brand and therefore people know what to expect. And no one’s forcing anyone to go there. It seems like we applaud small companies when they grow this way, but when they get too large, people love to hate them!
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Looks like Michigan’s Upper Penninsula is the place to go. I see one up there…?
September 24th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Jay the “problem” is not recognizing it’s a problem. Find out what cattle farming and the McDonaldses of the world do to your health, the planet, and the animals, then come back singing the “if they’re willing to buy it just give it to them” song. Ignorance is not an excuse.
September 24th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
big chains have killed craftmanship and creativity …
September 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
McDonalds does a great job at running a business and providing jobs. Perhaps in the near future we will see a firm sell franchises based on creativity and not revenue.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:59 am