Dollar Street

Imagine the world as a street ordered by income. Everyone lives somewhere on the street. The poorest lives to the left and the richest to the right. Everybody else live somewhere in between. Welcome to visit all homes on Dollar Street!

Dollar Street is a Gapminder project – free for anyone to use. Today we feature more than 264 homes in 50 countries. In total we have more than 30 000 photos, and counting!

Background

Dollar Street was invented by Anna Rosling Rönnlund at Gapminder. For 15 years she spent her workdays making global public data easier to understand and use. Over time her frustration grew: carefully selecting data to present it in colorful and moving charts made overall global trends and patterns easier to understand. But it did not make everyday life on different income levels understandable. Especially not in places far from home. “People in other cultures are often portrayed as scary or exotic.” Anna explains: “This has to change. We want to show how people really live. It seemed natural to use photos as data so people can see for themselves what life looks like on different income levels. Dollar Street lets you visit many, many homes all over the world. Without travelling.”

A team of photographers have documented over 264 homes in 50 countries so far, and the list is growing. In each home the photographer spends a day taking photos of up to 135 objects, like the family’s toothbrushes or favorite pair of shoes. All photos are then tagged (household function, family name and income).

Dollar Street is developed by Gapminder. Gapminder is an independent Swedish foundation with no political, religious or economic affiliations. We fight devastating misconceptions about global development with a fact-based worldview everyone can understand. We produce free teaching-resources based on reliable statistics. We collaborate with universities, UN organisations, public agencies and non-governmental organisations.