Parallel Peorias
Which places on Earth are built like Peoria?
The question
City limits are drawn by politics, so comparing one city with another usually compares two sets of borders. In 2025 the United Nations redrew every settlement on Earth from a grid of one-kilometre squares, with the same rule everywhere. Under that rule, Peoria is a town.
Analyze
Every urban cluster that touches Illinois, 97 in all, is measured on the global grid: how many people, how tightly packed, how much land is built over per resident, and how many dense pieces it holds. Each one is matched to its nearest twins in four pools: the world, the United States, countries at the same income level, and everywhere else.
Present
A scrolling story opens on the grid itself, then lets a reader pick any Illinois place and see its twins drawn at the same scale, with lines running across the globe. It began as a talk at ILGISA 2026.