New example of using maps in planning

Below are two maps from an interactive tool created by Kindred Futures, that maps pathways to building collective Black wealth in the Southeast part of the USA.

 

These two maps are part of a set of maps that you can find at this page.  While the story features Atlanta, the interactive platform enables you to create map stories for any part of the states shown on the map.  If enough of these stories are created and shared, they can attract more interest, volunteers and investors to support the goals stated on the website.

If you browse through articles I've posted on this blog, and the Tutor/Mentor blog you'll see that I've encouraged people to create map-platforms that provide information that informs and can be used in planning.  

What's next?

My only hope is that the developers will take a further step and collect information about existing youth tutor, mentor and learning programs and plot that on maps, the way I've done for many years.  This article highlights 30 years of using maps. 

In this article you can see how I share maps created by others and show how they might be improved by adding some of the features that were put into our mapping  platforms between 2004 and 2008. 

In total, these articles are intended to stimulate thinking and innovation in how intermediaries collect data and share it on interactive platforms, with the goal of drawing resources directly to youth serving programs shown on the map, or to help leaders see where more programs need to be built.

If you're creating a platform like the ones I'm showing, post a link to your site in the comment section. Then connect with me on one of these social media channels. 

University of Michigan Poverty Solutions Data Maps

I've followed the University of Michigan Poverty Solutions account on Twitter (X) for a few years and have a viewed some of their live presentations. Below are screenshots from two resources I found on their site today.

Michigan  Poverty and Well-Being Map - open link

Multidimensional Index of Deep Disadvantage - open link

Both maps are interactive, meaning you can zoom in to small sections of the country, or the state. And you can click on an area and get data showing the level of poverty and/or disadvantage in that area. I encourage you to spend time learning to use these in your own advocacy.

I've added links to the University of Michigan Poverty Solutions site in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library. Take time to get to know these resources. Share them with your community. 

As I prepared to write this post I scrolled through this blog, looking at articles I had tagged "datamaps".

I encourage you to do the same.  You'll see many other interactive data platforms and maps. 

In many articles you'll see how I've used maps to call attention to areas where kids and families need extra help. Here's one example. 

There are a lot of resources mapping poverty but I don't find enough people using the maps the way I have been since 1994, to draw volunteers, donors and business investment into these areas and keep it there for many years.   

That's the only solution I know of.  It comes down to building and sustaining public attention and public will.  

I took this photo many years ago, as a reminder of what I needed to do daily, and what others also need to be doing.

I'm on many social media platforms. See links on this page. I hope you'll connect and post links to map-stories you are creating.

I also hope you'll visit my "Support Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC" page and make a contribution to help me continue to maintain this library and share it daily with the rest of the world. 

Persistent Poverty in America

My Twitter feed brought a new report to my attention this week. It's titled "Persistently poor, left-behind and chronically disconnected" and was written by Kenan Fikri who I've been following for a while.  (I'll use Persistent Poverty to refer to this report in the rest of this article.)

The map below was what caught my attention.  It shows areas of concentrated poverty in six Ohio cities.

For the past 30 years I've used maps to focus attention on areas of concentrated poverty in Chicago. In this set of MappingforJustice blog articles, I show other cities with the same challenges.  In the 1990s a book titled American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass,  written by Douglas S. Massey,  addressed this same issue.

Below are a few passages from the Persistent Poverty article that I highlighted. (click to enlarge). Go to the report to read this in context.

The abstract shows a focus on social networks and social capital and says "these problems tend not to resolve themselves naturally".    The second shows that hidden in affluent Cook County are several clusters of persistent poverty census tracts.  Two with over 200,000 residents."

This is not a new problem. This 1994 Chicago Tribune front page pointed to some of the same high poverty areas as are shown in the Persistent Poverty report. 

I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago in 1993 (and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011)  to try to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in these areas as a strategy for expanding the networks of adults from beyond poverty areas who were helping kids through school.  I point volunteers and donors to these programs, through lists that I host on this page. 

In the Persistent Poverty report, one strategy was to expand networks of support and bridging social capital. 

This paragraph highlights the difference between "bonding" social capital which consists of strong ties between family, neighborhoods and/or church groups.  These are present in many high poverty communities.  What's not present are large doses of "bridging" social capital, which connect youth and families to people and opportunities and solutions beyond the place where they live.  

I've been writing about social capital on the Tutor/Mentor blog for many years. Add these articles to your research. 

The graphic below was created in the 1990s to show the design of the tutor/mentor program I led. It's a strategy designed to expand "bridging" social capital for K-12 youth and families in every high poverty area of Chicago and other cities with areas of concentrated poverty. 

The hub on this graphic represents a youth, a family, a school or a neighborhood. It shows a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program as a place that draws workplace volunteers from many different backgrounds to serve as one-on-one and group tutors/mentors to youth living in high poverty places of Chicago.  The timeline in the middle of the hub emphasizes the 20-plus years it takes to help each youth through school and into jobs where they can earn enough to raise their own kids free from poverty's challenges.  

The strategy I've emphasized has been to enlist leaders from every industry to use their own media, visibility and resources to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in all parts of a city, not just to one, or two, high profile programs. 

These two PDFs show this goal - Total Quality Mentoring  click here

Role of Leaders - click here

I've focused on cities because the geographic size makes it difficult for workplace volunteers to meet with kids during the school day, or right after school, because of the distance between work and program locations.  The after work and weekend hours are times when that volunteers is more able to stop at a neighborhood program and make an on-going commitment.

However, there are not enough long-term programs and there is inconsistent funding to build and sustain such programs.  Here's one of many articles where I focus on funding.  No solution will come without addressing the flow of dollars to these places!

However, as the map from the Persistent Poverty report shows, the problem of long-term poverty is not limited to cities and urban areas.

These two paragraphs emphasize the different history of places across the US and the lack of simple solutions.

Below is another graphic from my collection.  

It emphasizes the role each person can take to be part of a solution. If you've read this far, that means YOU!

Read the report. Here's the link again.

Update: I asked if there is an interactive map showing the Persistent Poverty data. There is. Follow the link in this post from Twitter (x):

There is! Much of this analysis was based off of @InnovateEconomy's big Advancing Economic Development in Persistent Poverty Communities project from last summer. The tract groups view on this map brings the full geography of poverty into focus: https://t.co/1DGIT80B9h pic.twitter.com/RLnR5eL0CR

— Kenan Fikri (@kenanfikri) February 16, 2024

Using the interactive map you can zoom into the Chicago area, or any other place with high concentrations of poverty.  Look at it. Create your own map stories.

Then, share it with people in your network, so they read it and begin to think about roles they might take in helping more people become involved in efforts that make mentor-rich programs available in all of the high poverty areas shown on these maps.

3-7-2024 update - Here's another article using the EIG dashboards to understand t his data:  https://cityobservatory.org/a-yawning-chasm-patterns-of-neighborhood-distress-in-us-metros/

Then visit this section of the Tutor/Mentor library and read additional reports about poverty, race and inequality in America, that I've been collecting for more than 20 years. 

In last Sunday's Super Bowl a group spent millions of dollars to purchase ads talking about Jesus.   I wish someone were spending the same money talking about the research I've been pointing to and mobilizing people to be volunteers, leaders and donors supporting youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in all high poverty areas of big cities across the country. 

And building a similar research library showing the different challenges of rural areas, reservations, and other places where solutions may be different than for big cities. Then, drawing readers and planners to that resource so they develop solutions.

And that they do it consistently for the next two decades.

What do you think?  Connect with me on social media. (see links here)

Help me pay the bills. Make a contribution to Fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. click here

Who is doing research about youth program availability?

 If you've read articles on this blog, going back to 2008, you'll see that the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) have been trying to build a comprehensive, map-based, understanding of what non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor and learning programs exist in Chicago and where more are needed.  Over the past several years my capacity to do this work has been greatly reduced so I'm pleased to be able to point to others who seem to be filling this space.

Below is one slide from today's STEM Pathways Coop meeting, where Deanna Howlett of Northwestern University spoke to attendees about the Citywide State of STEM Landscape Survey.  

View the slides at this link.  Below is another slide from the presentation, showing the process intended to create understanding, and change, where change is needed.

I've shared ideas and strategies with those doing this research and participated in the meetings when they were on-line.  I look forward to more.

Today I did participate in an on-line webinar, hosted by Brookings.edu, focused on Racial Equity.  Here's one Tweet that I shared during the event. 

"Cross pollinate ideas". "Look across the hall". "How can we work together?" @andreperryedu #BrookingsRacialEquity

Create maps to show "who should be connected" & what the issues are. https://t.co/bpiemrdHLf pic.twitter.com/rEb5x5buRv

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 8, 2023

Visit #BrookingsRacialEquity on Twitter and see my contributions and posts by others.   As I write this post and share my ideas on Twitter and other platforms I'm trying to model a practice that I wish thousands had been duplicating for the past 10 years.  

The Internet is a huge depository of information. But unless people are aggregating it in libraries like mine, or sites like https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/, it will be difficult to organize learning communities that are needed to build understanding and public will necessary to impact public policy in America.   In addition to its blog and huge library of research articles you can find video archives of past webinars if you search in this section on the Brookings site. 

Share this information. Build learning circles.

You can be the YOU in this graphic by sharing my post and forwarding my Tweets, along with those of other people and organizations that I point to in my library and blog articles. 

Among many problems we face one big barrier is that there is "too much information".  We need people collecting the information, but we also need people evangelizing and trying to get growing number of people to look at the information that's been collected. Then we need even more people who are facilitating understanding and helping people connect and work together to implement solutions, in places where data maps show more people need extra help.  Colleges, public schools and faith based organizations have been doing this for centuries.  We need to duplicate that process and that requires some major benefactors who make long-term investments.

I've written several hundred articles on the Tutor/Mentor blog, that just focus on this "learning" process. Here's one.  

The Step 3 graphic above is part of this concept map, showing 4 strategies that I've followed since starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  I invite others to build their own version and apply this in their own work.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll borrow from what I share here, on the Tutor/Mentor Blog and on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.  Create your own versions. Share your own maps and blog articles. Teach others to do the same.

You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Mastodon.  

If you want to help fund my work, visit this page and send a small contribution.

If you want to adopt this work and embed it in your university, I'd love to hear from you. 

Neighborhoods of Concentrated Poverty

Below is a map showing cities in the USA with neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. It's from this Brookings Metro PDF report.  Read the introduction in this article. 

This map was part of background information showing places where communities need extra help. Solutions were offered and are described in the report, and in this webinar that introduced the report. 

The PDF report included the set of maps below, showing concentrated poverty in Chicago and other cities.  Look at maps I share below, and on this and the Tutor/Mentor blog.  I've been pointing to Chicago's West and South side neighborhoods as places needing help for more than 2 decades! 

While this is a new report and map, the problem is not new.  The map below was from a 2014 Brookings.edu report which I wrote about in this 2015 article.

Maps that show high poverty areas in Chicago and other places have driven the work of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) for more than 2 decades.  

In the 1994 Chicago SunTimes article, I'm shown with one of the students from a tutor/mentor program I was leading in Chicago. The map in the background was one produced by my organization. The shaded areas are places with concentrated poverty, where I've been trying to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow since starting the T/MC in 1993. 

So this is not a new problem. 

The student shown with me in the SunTimes article now has a graduate degree and a son in college. That's the potential impact of organized tutor/mentor programs. We need more of them. They need to reach K-12 kids in every high poverty neighborhood.  Each city shown in these maps needs a Tutor/Mentor Connection-type strategy to make this happen. 

The solution.  

The PDF that I shared above included this graphic. Communities that were able to implement all of these steps showed positive gains in reducing poverty and increasing community wealth. 

Getting more people involved in helping the neighborhood, in building and sustaining non-school learning and mentoring organizations, and drawing resources to help improve school performance, high school graduation, college attendance and graduation, are additional needed strategies.

The problems are old. The Brookings.edu/CommonGround report offers new solutions.  Implementing these requires the same strategies that have been needed for decades.

Mobilizing public attention and support that would make long-term solutions available in every one of these high poverty areas is what would be new. This 1995 Chicago Tribune article shows that I had a "master plan".

What I did not have was the ability to communicate this effectively to the millions of people who need to be involved in solutions, for the many years it takes to build involvement, build commitment to solutions, then provide funding and talent to those solutions on a consistent basis for many years.

What's needed is for many to take the YOU role shown in the graphic below.

Share my articles and the reports I point to, such as those from Brookings.edu and those listed in various sections of the Tutor/Mentor Library. 

Educate yourself. Then engage your network. Offer help. Don't wait to be asked. Build a shared understanding and "Give" until it feels good. Build habits of learning by reading these articles weekly, and pass that on to your kids.

This is a long-term problem, requiring long-term solutions. 

Thanks for reading. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. You can find links on this page.

If you want to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, visit this page and send a small contribution. 

Mapping Poverty and Inequality in the UK - new maps

I saw this Tweet last week and saved it to do a deeper review when I was back home from my hospital stay. 

In the UK, people often think about inequality in geographical terms.

In reality, there are rich and poor areas almost everywhere, but they are not distributed evenly. https://t.co/sMzV6cn7LY pic.twitter.com/CHXwe6CGVM

— CityMetric (@CityMetric) April 15, 2019

Here's the link that the Twitter post points to.  I've been looking for someone mapping poverty and inequality in England, similar to how others have been doing this in the USA.  Here's an article I posted in 2011, following riots in London. Since then, I've  not found anyone creating maps like those I'm pointing to above.

 Of course, my goal reaches beyond just creating the poverty maps. I want people to create overlays showing where existing youth tutor/mentor and learning programs are located, and where more are needed.

Then, I want to influence the growth of teams of business, non-profit, education and community members who help existing programs grow, and share ideas, that help every program be great.

I've written about this in past articles on this blog, and on articles at TutorMentor.Blogspot.com since 2005.  I hope you'll take a look.

I show the need for planning and action teams, working at the program, neighborhood, city, state and national level. I'd like my ideas to be part of these teams and I'd like to be personally in the conversation, via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, or any other format you choose.

How to Increase Focus on Black Issues, when Share of US population is less than 14%

Here's a Tweet from BrookingsMetro that I saw this week:

Black-majority cities are on the rise, according to new research and data analysis from @DBHarshbarger + @andreperryedu. Read more. https://t.co/k3BRKric9G pic.twitter.com/FMuJ4OVSps

— Brookings Metro (@BrookingsMetro) February 28, 2019

This points to a Brookings article titled The Rise of Black-Majority Cities

Within the article is this statement: "The black share of the U.S. population rose only slightly since 1970. From 11.1 percent in 1970 to 12.6 percent in 2010." 

The map shows a heavy concentration of African Americans in the South East and along the East Coast from New York City South to Florida and in many large cities spread across the country.

I'm in Chicago, and started leading a tutor/mentor program serving African American kids living in the Cabrini Green public housing area in 1975. In 1993 I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) to help mentor-rich non-school programs, like the one I was leading, grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago, which were mostly African American and Hispanic neighborhoods.

I've been using maps since 1994 to show high poverty areas, in an effort to build public attention and motivate more people to provide time, talent and dollars to help youth tutor/mentor programs grow in all of these areas.

I use tags to help sort the articles in my blog, so if you click the #poverty tag, you can find a series of articles with various maps that show the demographics of Chicago the concentrations of poverty in the USA. 

Over the past 30 years the population of Black kids in the city has been decreasing.  It's still a huge number, but the Hispanic population is almost the same, and many African Americans who lived in the city are now living in the Chicago suburbs, or have moved out of state.

The work I've been doing since early 1990s is building a web library with information anyone can use to better understand issues, know more possible solutions, and then use these ideas in efforts to build and sustain youth tutor/mentor and learning programs that reach more k-12 kids in high poverty areas with support systems that help them move through school and into adult lives free of poverty.  In the concept map below I point to sections of the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library, with links to articles about poverty, race issues, inequality, Black History, etc.

In looking at the Brookings article and map I have some questions.

a) How do we attract and maintain attention and support for those kids still living in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago as the population changes?

b) How do we attract and maintain attention on social justice, inequality and other issues that focus on the lives of people whose ancestors came to America as slaves many years ago, when most parts of the country don't have a significant population of people with this background....and when the overall percent of African Americans in the total US population is  under 14%

Do solutions need to come from cities rather than from national initiatives? Do solutions need to be regional, focusing on parts of the country with high concentrations of African Americans?

Would it be helpful to show similar maps with Hispanic and immigrant populations, showing what percent live in poverty, and where they live? Are there shared experiences that are similar, and that could create political bonds that focus on solutions at the national level?

I really don't know.

Teaching Nineteenth-Century Slave Narratives using Digital Story Maps

Image from The Slave Trail site

I follow a #WorldGEOchat Twitter group that meets every Tuesday evening and am constantly finding new ideas for teaching and for engaging people with social issues that have roots in the past, but are cause for great concern in the present and the future.

Last week I saw a mention of using ESRI story maps to teach the history of the nineteenth-century US slave trade.  I clicked the link and started reading an article titled "Teaching Nineteenth-Century Slave Narratives: Engaging Student Scholars in the Production of Digital Story Maps" written by Amy Lewis, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Liberal Arts, St. Norbert College.

The article is an important read because it encourages student study of the American slave trade, which I feel is and important journey for many to take. It also shows how the students used ESRI story maps to plot escape routes and show movement of individual slaves while in captivity. The author says "the digital story maps engage their interest in ways that few other assignments can match and that they create an awareness of how digital media impacts the ongoing conversation about nineteenth-century slavery that continues to unfold in the United States."

I wanted to share this article, but it did not have usable images so I did a Google search for "slave trade ESRI story maps" then looked at the images.  The one I used in this article is from a site titled "The Slave Trail" which is an extensive resource.

This link opens the ESRI story map on that site.

Thus, by opening one link, reading the article, then doing a search for more information, I'm expanding my own learning. By writing this article, I'm hoping to spark the curiosity of others.  I go one step further. I put links to some of these articles in the Tutor/Mentor web library, to help people find some of the articles I've found valuable.

view examples of maps in stories

It looks like many colleges are using story maps and teaching digital literacy. If you're an educator, or someone interested in history, or in reversing the centuries of injustice caused by slavery, these resources will be useful to you.

However, I'm hoping that some of the students and faculty who learn to use GIS mapping to tell stories will look at what I've been trying to do for 25 years to use stories and maps to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs in areas of high poverty, frequent violence, poorly performing schools and many other indicators that can be viewed on a map.

I don't just want to build a deeper, more empathetic understanding. I want to influence more people to take the YOU role in this graphic. Become someone who helps mobilize time, talent and dollars from people YOU know, to support the growth and continued operations of mentor-rich programs in more places.

I maintain a list of nearly 200 organizations in the Chicago region that offer various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring and plot locations on maps to help build an understanding of where programs are located and where more are needed...and to help parents, volunteers and donors connect with individual programs.

This could be duplicated in other cities, with students from high schools and/or colleges building and maintaining the list of programs, and duplicating work I've been doing to use maps to draw attention to the data resources.

If this interests you, introduce yourself in the comment sections, or connect with me on Twitter @tutormentorteam or on Facebook, or LinkedIN. 

New Study Finds Millions Still Live in Poverty in Illinois

Listen to this short podcast talking about poverty in Illinois. Map and data courtesy of the Heartland Alliance of Illinois. 

While the number of people living in poverty is highest in Chicago and its suburbs, the greatest concentrations of poverty are in many downstate counties. 

America: More Diverse. Still Segregated

Map from Washington
Post, 5/2/18

This map shows segregation in the Chicago region and is part of an extensive article titled: Segregation Map: America is more diverse than ever, but still segregated",  in the May 2, 2018 Washington Post. click here

This is not a new issue. I've been adding stories about racism and segregation to this article and this section of my web library for many years.

The Washington Post article draws it's data from a new book titled Cycle of Segregation, written by Kyle Crowder and Maria Krysan . Here's an interview on WGN Radio with one of the authors.

The challenge continues to plague Chicago and other parts of the country. It's a complex problem and as Maria Krysan said in the Washington Post article:

We don't have the integrated social networks. We don't have integrated experiences through the city. It's baked-in segregation,” Krysan said. “Every time [a person] makes a move [they’re] not making a move that breaks out of that cycle and making a move that regenerates it.”

 I've supported well-organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs for more than 30 years because these programs are integrated social networks connecting youth and families from inner city neighborhoods with a mix of volunteers from many different parts of Chicago, many different business backgrounds, and many faith, age and racial backgrounds.

While I've led the Tutor/Mentor Connection since creating it in 1993, few leaders have adopted the strategies I've shared and/or made consistent, long-term commitments to helping this type of program start and grow in all high poverty areas of the city and suburbs. Furthermore, of the nearly 200 youth serving organizations I point to on this list, very few show a strategy and theory of change that describes their program as a social network connecting youth in poverty to people, experiences and opportunities beyond.

Next week The Chicago Community Trust will host it's annual On The Table event, where people from throughout the region gather in small groups to discuss issues important to them, and to Chicago. 

My hope is that many of these groups will use maps like I share and point to on this site, and discuss ways they and people they know can build a better understanding of the places and problems of racial segregation in the Chicago region, then map out strategies and action steps that people can take daily to try to close the gaps.

Number of High Poverty Chicago Youth in Each Community Area - Change since 2011

In 2011 I produced a PDF report showing the number of Chicago youth, age 6-17, who were living in high poverty households in each community area.

This week I've received new information from the Social Impact Research Center at the Heartland Alliance, and have updated the presentation to show current numbers.

The map shown above is from the new report.  2011 numbers are shown in yellow and 2018 number in blue. This map shows the far west side where the number of high poverty youth in the Austin neighborhood has increased while in areas close to the Chicago LOOP the number has decreased.

Here's the full presentation which I've posted on Slideshare:

Chicago Community Areas: Youth In Poverty-2018 from Daniel Bassill

My goal is that people form study groups, planning groups and support groups in each community area and they use this data in an on-going effort to help build and sustain well-organized, non-school, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs in areas with a large number of kids living in poverty.

I'd be happy to spend time with such groups, helping them understand the data and the resources available to them on the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web sites.

In the report I indicated that the maps came from the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator which was created in 2008-09. I also said that I've not been able to update this since 2013 due to lack of funds and technology support.

The Program Locator still works and serves as a demonstration of the type of mapping portal needed to help people find existing tutor/mentor programs, understand the availability of such programs in different community areas, and understand who some of the assets are who should be supporting youth  in different community areas because they have facilities in those areas.

If you'd like to help, or want to meet with me,  introduce yourself on Twitter, LinkedIN or Facebook or email me at tutormentor 2 at earthlink dot net.

Mapping UN's Sustainable Development Goals - ESRI Story map

At left is a screen shot from an ESRI story map that shows areas of concentration for each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Take a look.

These goals target the year 2030 for an achievement date and for the past year a growing effort has attempted to get more people involved.  I wrote about this on the Tutor/Mentor blog, here, and here.

I've been following the #SDGs on Twitter.

Last August I created this graphic, combining my Race-Poverty in US concept map with the SDGs graphic. My goal was to show that places in the US face some of the same issues, and that all the issues are interconnected and have poverty as a root cause, or as a primary result.

While I think the ESRI map is great, I feel that individual story maps need to be created for each of the 17 goals, and that these  maps need to focus on areas as small as a few blocks, in every country.  This would show areas in the US and Europe where people live in pockets of poverty, isolated from the wealth that surrounds them.

While we need a global mobilization, problems will only be solved at the local level and without maps it's hard to focus on all of these places, or know if resources are being provided to help people overcome their challenges.

I've been aggregating links to data-mapping platforms, and share that information via this blog, a concept map, and links in my web library.

I hope that in the near future I can find a site that if building a similar collection of links, focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Racial Imbalance in U.S. Public Schools - Interactive map

See this map here

I've posted several articles over the past few years that point to the Brookings.edu site and their use of data maps to show poverty and race issues in the U.S.

This link points to an article and interactive map showing the racial imbalance in U.S. public schools. 

You can zoom into the map and look at the school and neighborhood demographics for every public school (traditional and charter) in the U.S. 

Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the American City

This map is from a web site that tells the story of racial segregation in St. Louis as a result of deliberate policies enacted from the 1900 through the 1970s.  Click on the interactive maps to understand the impact of different policies and to see changes by decade.

In this blog I've included maps of Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago and other cities to show that racism led to concentrated poverty and inequality that is present in every city. Maps can be used to not only show where the problem is, and why it occurred, but also to support leadership efforts that help put programs in place that help overcome these challenges.

Distressed Communities in US

Distressed Communities Index map and data show a fragmented economy with nearly 52.3 Americans living in economically distressed communities.  Read the report-click here. View the map-click here.

Note: the link I'm pointing to is to an updated 2021 map. 

In articles on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor blog I show how people can zoom into maps like this to focus on specific areas. 

Below is an example. I've zoomed into the Springfield, Illinois area.

If you run your mouse over the map data tables pop up showing a "distress score". For instance, the rust colored area of Springfield has a 91.5 distress score with a 26% poverty rate and 25% adults not working rate. 

People from throughout the Springfield area should be creating stories using map-views like this with a "what are we going to do about it?" set of questions.  Only when enough people are concerned will anything happen.