The Color of Wealth is a research series by the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School, examining racial and ethnic wealth disparities across seven American cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Tulsa, and Washington D.C. The project transforms decades of academic research into a public-facing digital platform — making 50-page city reports accessible to a general audience through scrollytelling and data visualization.

We were tasked by Graphicacy to implement the scalable multi-city platform, working from their designs and data provided by The New School Institute on race-power and political economy.

Scrollytelling at the scale of a research series

The core implementation challenge was building a scrollytelling experience that works across seven cities — each with its own racial and ethnic breakdowns, its own historical context, and its own data structure. Charts are animated into view in sequence reinforcing the narrative without overwhelming it. Interactivity helps the reader to dive into issues and explore specific inequalities.

The website is implemented to work across different screens and devices, with the scrollytelling, animations, and interactive elements adapted to preserve the narrative impact.

Built to grow

The platform is designed to expand as new city research is published. Each city follows a consistent structure that accommodates the variation in demographic groups across locations — Los Angeles covers twelve distinct groups, while Chicago covers five — without the underlying architecture needing to change.

The Color of Wealth was published in 2024.