This graph from the New York Times examines the rising price of housing in the United States. The x-axis is the year, and it ranges from 1987 to 2007. The y-axis is the price index, based on sale prices of standard existing single-family homes. These prices have been adjusted for inflation--so far, so good. But notice the range of the y-axis: the graph has essentially magnified a small snippet of the y-axis, from 90 to 170. This seems like a very small margin, and of course it makes the increase in prices much more dramatic than it actually may be. Also, I did not like the various lines drawn through the graph--they were distracting. And the shading of the graph and the lines indicating certain price indexes (ie. 150) seem random and unessential. Overall, this graph seems misleading and ineffective.
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