American Inequality site shows problems and solutions

I've used this blog for the past 12 years to share links to data-mapping platforms that identify areas of high poverty and inequality.  I host these links in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library. 

This week I learned of a new resource, called American Inequality.  Below is a screenshot from one article on the site.

Visit this page for a collection of data visualizations and articles showing "a path forward". 

One feature that I like on this site is that it not only provides an interactive map that enables you to zoom into specific parts of the country to learn more, but in the article it shares solutions that could be implemented if more people mobilized public will to solve these problems.

I've been sharing some of the data-maps I find in the concept map shown below.  

In addition to sharing these resources on this blog I've been showing ways to incorporate maps into blog articles on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC blog.  

I learned about the American Inequality resource by participating in a ZOOM webinar hosted last night by the PBS News Hour Classroom.  During the webinar I asked "Who was teaching this?" and was told about a New American History site. I asked them to post the link on Twitter, which they did, as you can see below.

Thanks to @jeremybney @saribethrose & @NewsHourExtra for tonight’s discussion on data visualizations - a topic our @NewAmericanHist teams thinks about daily as we build new #OER learning resources and share w/educators & students K12 across the country https://t.co/TmiyLMHZEm pic.twitter.com/QAzkCJ5cng

— Annie Evans (@MapM8ker) May 23, 2023

I visited the site and found this Mapping Inequality lesson plan. 

If you're an educator or an activist I encourage you to browse this site an see ways to teach others to tell these stories in creative, interesting and informative ways.

I keep looking for sections on each data-mapping site that show ways students and adults can create similar, on-going, map-stories, since that's the only way we'll build the public attention, and motivation, to do the work of solving the problems shown on the maps.  It seems to me that any of these platforms could be hosting a "teach this" resource list and including the New American History site. 

Share links in the comment section to sites where you feel this is being taught. 

Unfortunately, access to all of the articles and resources on the American Inequality site is not free. There is a subscription fee.  If you can afford to pay please do. If not, use the articles that are shared at no cost and share them with others. 

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon and/or Facebook. (see links here).

I don't charge a fee for anyone to use the resources on any of the blogs or websites I host, but there is a cost to me. If you can help with a small contribution, please visit this page. 

New data platform focuses on Financial Health and Wealth data

If you skim through this blog you'll see that I'm sharing links to tools that communities can use to better understand where youth and families need extra help to share in the opportunities of America.

Below is an image from the Urban Institute's new dashboard which was introduced via a ZOOM event today.  View presentation slides.  A video of the event will be available shortly. 

View the dashboard at this link. One of the features of the platform is the ability to focus on small spaces, as low as the zip code level. 

I shared one of the slides with this Tweet, showing the type of stories that can be created.

The slides for today's #LiveAtUrban event can be found at https://t.co/ZIyRvduv1q

I show one slide here. Youth in every city need to learn how to do this analysis & share it widely. Who's teaching this? https://t.co/Jv2zzvKg3Y pic.twitter.com/DqnZSL0sEr

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) November 9, 2022

In doing so, and by writing this article, I'm demonstrating a practice I hope many will adopt. More people need to learn to tell stories using data platforms like this or some of those I point to from this concept map.

Use the data to create change.

In a 2014 Tutor/Mentor blog article I encourage schools and libraries to create programs that teach youth to tell stories using data and maps.

As media report incidents of violence, young people, volunteers and activist could use data platforms like created by the Urban Institute, to show some of the inequalities that contribute to a loss of hope and an embrace of violence.  

If these stories are told creatively, forcefully, and often enough, they can convince policy-makers and philanthropists to create new policies and programs that change these conditions.  

I urge you to take time to view the Urban Institute dashboard, and in a few days, view the video of today's ZOOM call, to see how panelist described how it might be used.

Thanks for reading.  

If you find this information useful, consider a contribution to help Fund Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. 

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. 

ChiVes - new environmental mapping resource

Last night's ChiHackNight presentation introduced ChiVes, a data collaborative and community mapping application that brings data on Chicago’s environment together at the neighborhood level. It’s a partnership of researchers, community organizations, and civic groups.

 

This site is a data collaborative, resource guide and a platform where "code-enthusiasts and developers can fork the ChiVes website, make changes, and submit for review."  

Above is a screen-shot showing a map view from one section in the site. At the right are many menu choices for what you might want to view. You can zoom in to the block level.  

Below is a map view from the 'communities' section on the site. Choose a community from the drop-down menu and you'll see a report like the one shown below for Grand Boulevard.

The beauty of this site is that it is a "work in progress".  If you see something that you think would improve the maps or presentation of information, contact the organizers, like I did on Twitter, or if you're a web developer or GIS professional, use the open source code and create a new page that you can host on your own site or, possibly, offer as an update to the existing site. 

I added a link to ChiVes in this section of the Tutor/Mentor Library where I point to many other examples of GIS mapping. 

In addition I shared this article, showing how I was overlaying information on maps to show poverty levels and the number of kids, age 6-17, in each Chicago community area, and to draw attention and resources to help youth tutor and/or mentor programs grow in each area.  The Tutor/Mentor Program Locator platform built in 2004-2009 is out of date and now only an archive. Thus, I'm hoping a developer (and a university) will be inspired to take ownership and build a new platform with the same features and goals and student involvement similar to what ChiVes is modeling. 

If you're reading this please share information about ChiVes so more people will investigate and help make this a valuable resource for Chicago and a model for other communities.  

30 Year History of Mapping

This blog was created in 2008 by Mike Trakan, a newly hired map maker, to show the work he was doing for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago.

Today I posted an article on the Tutor/Mentor blog that featured the concept map shown below. 

Please take time to read the article, and dig through the many other articles I point to.   If it makes sense to you, help me find benefactors who will establish a Tutor/Mentor Connection study/action program on one or more college campuses, where student/faculty/alumni manpower will re-build the mapping capacity and apply all of the strategies I've piloted for the past 30 years, to reach more k-12 kids in high poverty areas with support that helps them move safely through school and into adult lives with jobs that enable them to raise their own kids free of the challenges of intense, segregated, poverty.

Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and/or LinkedIn (see links here). 

Help me keep this strategy on-line. Visit my "fund T/MI" page at this link. 

Chicago Community Health Index

Below is a screenshot from a Community Health Index created by UIC Great Cities Institute and updated annually since then. The darker red areas are parts of Chicago where the hardship index is highest.  These are areas where people have needed help for many years. 

This blog has been using maps since 2008 to highlight areas of high poverty where youth, families and schools need extra help.  Prior to 2011 the maps shown were created using our own GIS tools. Since then blog articles have continued to show maps using a Program Locator developed in 2008 (but inactive since 2018) and platforms created by others.

The goal is that people from every industry and  profession, as well as from colleges, faith groups and health care institutions, will spend time looking at these maps, then will create their own blog articles, calling more people to look at the information, then do something with their time, talent, dollars and votes to change conditions in one or more of the areas with high needs.

That's not yet happening in nearly enough places.  

See more uses of maps in stories on the Tutor/Mentor blog, which was started in 2005.