Gerrymandering the EU for Funds and Profit

There's a good article in The Pudding showing how countries like Hungary have been able to increase their share of European Union development funds by splitting the most economically developed regions. This creates "have not" regions within the "have" regions that are more likely to meet the threshold for aid.

In the map above the entire Budapest region is shaded in green (above average development) whereas the rest of the country is shaded pink for below average development. By making a tight ring around Budapest and calling the rest of the region "Pest", the country now has one more below average region that can receive aid, while Budapest has a more concentrated (greener) level of development.

This is a similar process to the gerrymandering so familiar in the United States. Lithuania and Poland have also done similar splits. The maps below illustrate nicely the difference between development at a larger scale (country wide) and at a regional scale.

You can really see how one or a few cities can change the balance, most notably in France. The article does this great "scrollytelling" bit that shifts between these two maps and then with further scrolling send each region flying over to its position on a graph.

To get the full effect and see much more go here and scroll away.