Chicago Health Atlas - updated

In 2014 I wrote this article about the Chicago Health Atlas. Last night at the weekly ChiHackNight event, the updated version was shown.

Below are some screenshots I've created, with links to a couple of articles where I've used these.

This is map showing hospitals in the North Lawndale area of Chicago - from this article

This map shows youth serving organizations in the North Lawndale area - from this article

Here's another screenshot that I just created today, showing the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

I've been creating map stories, using mapping resources that I've had available, and those created by others, for more than 25 years. My goal is to teach others to do the same.

Here's one from many years ago.

This was created in the 1990s, before I had access to the Internet, and well before I had the ability to create map views with layers of information.  However, you can see poverty areas highlighted, indicating a need for youth tutor/mentor programs, among other supports. You can see an Excel list, of programs in the area, based on the Tutor/Mentor Connection survey, and you can see a list of assets (business, faith groups, university, hospital) who could be helping build mentor-rich programs (visualized by the chart). 

For this map area to be filled with such programs, someone needs to be creating an on-going invitation that reaches out to all the assets on the map, the political leaders, media, and community members, including leaders of existing tutor/mentor programs, to bring them together in an on-going conversation that builds a better understanding of need, and leads to the growth of more, constantly improving youth programs in the area. 

This concept map visualizes that process.

Map-based planning - view here

If some, like Chicago Health Atlas, are building and maintaining platforms like this, with a list of resources in each community area, then it will be easier for others to use this list in an invitation process, getting people together on an on-going basis, and innovating solutions that build public will, and a distribution of needed resources, to all parts of the map-area shown.

Here's a second concept map, visualizing planning needed.

Planning needed to influence resource providers - click here

I hope those who are creating data maps will devote space on their web sites to coach others to use their platform for creating map stories that bring people together to solve problems shown by the maps. One group that does that pretty well is the Community Commons site.  It's one of many that I point to on this data map.

There's a lot of information in my blog articles and on my web site and web library. Use it for on-going learning. Make it a resource for college programs that help grow future leaders.

If you appreciate what I'm sharing, I could use your help to pay the bills. Click here to contribute to my FUND TMI page.

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.

The Politics of Englewood

This is a  map of the greater Englewood area of Chicago, taken from a Southsideweekly.com article titled Without Representation: How Englewood got mapped into pieces.

I drew the line down the middle to show how the Englewood and West Englewood community areas are dividied.

I've posted a number of articles featuring Englewood, on the tutor/mentor blog.

Here's one from 2009, under  headline of:

Chicago Kids Victims of Neighborhood Violence

I encourage you to read the feature article of Sunday's Chicago Tribune, titled Innocence in Peril, which shows the tragic impact of violence and drugs on kids living in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago.

 Then I encourage you to use the interactive tutor/mentor program locator to zoom in on the Englewood neighborhood (zip code 60621) and learn about existing volunteer-based tutoring /mentoring programs, or other youth organizations that provide some form of tutoring for kids in these areas.

This is map of Englewood from Tutor/Mentor Program Locator

 When you look at this, don't think of tutoring or mentoring as a simplistic strategy that cannot overcome the complex, deeply rooted poverty, segregation and racism in Chicago. Think of this as a strategy that connects adults, businesses, faith groups and other resources beyond poverty, in long-term personal connections which transform the volunteers and what they are willing to do to help kids and families.

 If we don't increase the number of people beyond poverty, who get involved with as much commitment as they would to help their own kids, we'll never have the dollars and political will-power to change the systems of support for kids living in poverty.

 As you use the interactive map, you can create overlays showing faith groups, businesses, universities in the area who could be helping tutor/mentor programs grow. You can also look at the highways that bring working people from the suburbs, through these neighborhoods every day. Look at the faith groups on the suburban end of these highways, and think of them as partners who could be educating their members to use this information, and their resources, to help tutor/mentor programs grow in poverty neighborhoods.

Visit the Tutor/Mentor Institute to learn more about strategies that readers of this Tribune story might learn so that they are more of the solution, than a drive by reader.
-----------------------------------------

In November 2015 I wrote another article, titled "Using Maps in Long Term Planning" and showed how an area where two shootings took place had multiple layers of political representation. 

The ChicagoSouthsideweekly.com article shows how this dilutes accountability, and may be contributing to the lack of progress on some of these issues.

I've been using maps to tell stories and draw resources to high poverty neighborhoods since 1994. Browse through sections of this blog, and the Tutor/Mentor blog, to see many of these.

If you value this work, I could use some help, with contributions, to keep on doing it. Click here if interested.

Vision for a Resilient Chicago

view map here

The map at the left shows areas of Chicago where people were living in economic hardship in 2014. The red is the areas of high impact, while the darker blue shows areas of medium impact.

This map is part of an ambitions new plan, titled Resilient Chicago, to create a Chicago "where residents, neighborhoods, institutions, corporations, and government agencies are successfully connected to each other in the pursuit of economic opportunity, safety, equity, and sustainability."

I encourage you to take time to go through all sections of the web site and download the full report.

I was not part of the planning process, which started in late 2016, and don't know if any of the ideas on the Tutor/Mentor blog, Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site, or this blog, were viewed by any who were part of the planning process.

However, I've been sharing maps pointing to these neighborhoods for more than 20 years, focusing on efforts that bring people together to build and sustain mentor-rich non-school programs in each of these areas, as part of a larger strategy of getting more people involved in trying to address the many problems related to poverty, segregation, income inequality, etc.

The devil is in the details. How does the city get from "here", the launch of this plan in 2019, to "there", a time in the future when most of the goals of the plan have been met?

Follow this link and view some of the articles where I've used the "here to there" concept. Maybe there will be some ideas that leaders can apply to help Chicago make this plan a success.

If you are part of this process and would like to bring me and the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC experience into the process, I'd be happy to connect. I'm on Twitter @tutormentorteam. I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook, too.

If you value this information, a contribution can help me keep it available. Click here

Uses of Maps in Conservation Efforts - Discussion

For  25 years I've been trying to build support for the mapping efforts of Tutor/Mentor Connection, which focus on identifying areas of high poverty, then mobilizing people and resources to  build and sustain solutions in these areas, such as volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

During this time one obstacle I've faced is that most people don't use maps this way, or focus more on other geo-based issues, such as conservation.  Below is a Tweet that came across my feed. I encourage you to read the article.

We create maps of pristine area or wilderness, but what are the implications of our creations? Interesting piece on @mongabay discussing how the targets we set include and exclude and the potential injustices we risk. #Wilderness @ConservationGIS #Mappinghttps://t.co/YaysbMkgx5 pic.twitter.com/zxgnVQnVd2

— Katherine Markham (@K_Markham_) February 7, 2019

The argument in this article is "We already have enough maps. Why create more?"  I can appreciate that.

While I've been trying to map poverty and locations of tutor/mentor programs in Chicago since 1994, few have come forward to say  "Let me help you".  Instead, new platforms with a similar focus have been created.  Furthermore, I find too few efforts where people are using the data-maps in stories intended to influence public policy, volunteer involvement, business and philanthropic support, etc. for work that needs to be done within any specific map area.

I have been aggregating links to data and mapping platforms for many years and created the concept map shown below to share some of these.  Look at articles on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor blog to see ways I've used maps in stories for many years.

I don't think we'll ever reach a point where there is just one data-map that everyone uses. That's just not the way people work. Thus, my recommendation to the conservation people is that someone create similar concept maps and web libraries, so at least people who focus on conservation (or other issues) could find these and learn to build stories from multiple platforms of information.

If you like my articles and concept maps, click on the "help me" button and send a contribution.

Take a look at 2019 #ProsperityNowScorecard

On my Twitter feed today I saw this Tweet. 

Today, we release the 2019 #ProsperityNowScorecard, an interactive tool that not only provides key data on financial health in America, but also points to policy solutions that promote wealth-building and economic mobility for all. Explore the scorecard: https://t.co/EXw4Jyedtw pic.twitter.com/ErAhDVXXVo

— Prosperity Now (@prosperitynow) January 29, 2019

I took a few minutes to dig into the ProsperityNow site. It's loaded with information.  Below are three pages I looked at:

This is a data resource for the entire USA. You can look at it from the state level, or from the city level. Zoom in and create a focus on specific places.


Below is an example of the type of data that is available for specific locations, in this case, Chicago.  I'm not sure if this data gets more detailed, showing pockets of wealth and poverty within big cities like Chicago. That would be useful.

The next image show ProsperityNow networks across the country, and identifies leaders in each city.  Since the hastag #ProsperityNowScorecard was used, I hope in future weeks that I'll be able to see how people from within specific places are connecting with each other, and how people from different places are connecting and sharing ideas.

If you've read past articles on this blog, or the Tutor/Mentor blog,  you will see my long term commitment to help build and sustain non-school youth tutor/mentor programs which connect k-12 kids to people who live beyond poverty areas and can open doors to opportunities.  Thus, my goals and those of ProsperityNow align.

Let's find ways to connect and get more people involved.