Unequal World

Johnny Miller / Unequal Scenes

Compare inflections

Assemble 2–4 turning points — sourced policy stories, global events, or algorithmically-detected bends — and read what they share. Every point traces back to its Data360 indicator.

0 / 4 selected

Compare countries on World Bank Data360

Pick up to four economies. Each cell is verifiable against its WDI indicator on Data360.

What's Your Brain Age?

Your environment shapes your brain more than you think.
Enter your city to discover how where you live affects your brain's biological age.

About Unequal World

Unequal World turns World Bank Data360 into a living atlas of global inequality: an interactive globe where every indicator is geolocated, time-aware, and one click from its authoritative source. The ambition is to make it the single place to see, compare and verify the world's inequality and development data.

It stands on authoritative data from the World Bank, IMF and UNICEF (via Data360), ESA and NASA satellites, and 25+ national census offices, and was built end-to-end with AI. Every value on the globe is one click from its authoritative Data360 source.

On that foundation it goes beyond national charts with city-level maps we built ourselves: 100 m "development burden" exposome grids and 1937 redlining boundaries laid over today's census income, alongside original Unequal Scenes aerial photography. It also surfaces Brain age, our platform-derived estimate of how a place's environment (air, water, green space, inequality, infrastructure) accelerates brain aging, built on the science of Legaz et al. (2026, Nature Medicine), developed with the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College Dublin and supported by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and other research partners (a research collaboration, not a formal endorsement).

The four lenses

Health — leads with Brain age, our derived estimate of environmental brain aging (Legaz et al. 2026, Nature Medicine), plus life expectancy, water, literacy.
Economy — Gini, poverty, GDP/capita, internet; toggle financial flows for animated ODA / remittances / FDI / climate-debt arcs.
Urbanization — urban population, slum share, electricity, internet access.
Planet — CO₂ per capita, forest area, renewable electricity.

Where we use AI

Cross-referencing insight engine — reads across the World Bank series to generate NEW, source-sealed claims a single-indicator chart can't: peer anomalies (click any country → "how it defies its income + region peers", robust median + MAD, sample size disclosed) and divergences (teal "↑↓" pins on the time-slider globe — where two indicators that usually move together broke apart; click one to graph both series). Correlation, not causation; every claim carries a Data360 verify chip.
Inflection detection — an algorithm scans every World Bank time-series for statistically significant trend reversals (5-year rolling slope change > 1.5σ). Detected bends are colour-coded improvement / decline / catastrophe, and 187 carry an AI-researched, source-linked cause.
The tool itself — assembled by one person using generative AI as the primary engine, from satellite data, 25+ census offices, and the World Bank API.

Aligned to Data360's five focus areas

Data360 organises its ~10,000 indicators into five areas. Our tabs map directly onto them, so the platform reads as a focused lens on the World Bank's own taxonomy:

People → our Health tab (life expectancy, water, literacy, brain age).
Prosperity → our Economy tab (Gini, poverty, GDP/capita, flows).
Infrastructure → our Urbanization tab (urban & slum share, electricity).
Planet → our Planet tab (CO₂, forest, renewable electricity).
Digital → partially covered today (internet access on Economy & Urbanization); a dedicated Digital tab (broadband, mobile) is the next tab on the roadmap.

Data & provenance

World Bank Data360 / WDI — every country indicator; one-click "Verify on Data360" on each value.
Federated Data360 sources — beyond WDI, the country panel pulls real values from IMF (World Economic Outlook, current account) and UNICEF (child underweight), proving cross-database reach. Each carries its own Data360 verify chip.
Satellite — ESA Sentinel-2 (vegetation), Sentinel-5P (NO₂), NASA VIIRS (night lights), EU JRC GHSL (built-up + population).
Neighbourhood wealth — 25+ national census offices (IBGE setor, US ACS tract, UK IMD LSOA, Bogotá estratos, etc.); Meta RWI / NASA GRDI where census is unavailable.
Future — IIASA Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (post-2024 projections).

Honesty about method

Measured — WB indicators, satellite measurements: rendered as-is, source-linked.
Derived — Brain age maps our exposome score onto the Legaz brain-age-gap range (Legaz et al. 2026, Nature Medicine), developed with the Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin and supported by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (a research collaboration, not a formal endorsement). A population-level estimate, not a clinical or individual prediction.
Flagged — known measurement artifacts (e.g. a synchronized 2016 slum-data reporting change) are suppressed rather than shown as events.

Free for newsrooms & non-profits (commercial project). Hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Photography © Johnny Miller / Unequal Scenes (CC BY-NC 4.0). Built with Claude Code. Full methodology: SUBMISSION.md in the repository.