Place Matters - read the report. View the maps.

This is one page of maps from a report titled: "Place Matters for Health in Cook County."  I wrote about this on the Tutor/Mentor Blog.

In many maps posted on this site in the past few years we've shown how where you live influences what your opportunities are. This report further reinforces this.

This is an issue that should concern everyone in the Chicago region and in other metropolitan areas. Not just from a moral perspective, but from an economic one.

In the Executive Summary of the Place Matters report is this message: "A study released by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in 2009 found that direct medical costs associated with health inequities among African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans

approached $230 billion between 2003 and 2006. When

indirect costs, such as lowered productivity and lost tax revenue resulting from illness and premature death, were included, the total cost of health inequities exceeded $1.24 trillion".  

If this concerns you form a learning circle in your faith group, college, business and read and discuss the report. No matter where you live on this map you have a role in changing what the map will show in the future.

e-Democracy Blog - use of maps

This article on the e-Democracy.org project blog shows how GIS maps are being used in planning strategies that engage greater diversity of participants in the on-line community. Follow the links in the blog to more articles.

Mapping strategies for helping kids

I hosted another Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on June 14, 2012 at First Unitarian Church in Chicago. I've been hosting these every six months since May 1994 and in every one I've shared maps like these to illustrate the vision of the Tutor/Mentor Connection for mentor-rich non-school programs to reach kids in all high poverty neighborhoods. For this vision to be achieved leaders in business, politics, religion, health, law, sports and entertainment each need to be using maps to support volunteer and donor mobilization strategies that reach programs in all parts of the region. I've not been able to make new maps for more than a year since our money ran out and we no longer have a map-maker on staff. If you'd like to join with us as a partner, sponsor or volunteer we can continue to provide the maps that others can use to support their own decision making.

Maps of Cook County Government boundaries 2012

Visit this link to find maps showing the current Cook County Government boundaries and the proposed new boundaries.


With more and more people learning to use maps our hope is that they will use them to mobilize volunteer talent and dollars to support the growth of mentor-rich youth programs in areas with highest concentrations of poverty, violence and poorly performing schools.

Elected officials can provide the leadership to bring people together and focus attention on this issue and they can be held accountable by voters for what they do or do not do.

Businesses, hospitals, faith groups in a geographic area can also provide leadership and be held accountable.

Visit more of the articles on this blog to see how maps can be used. This project is in a dormant stage now since funding is no longer available to create these maps and write these stories. However the examples illustrate what is possible.

Public and Private Schools in Chicago. Create Your Own Map

Great Schools offers this widget for making maps showing private schools in a city. I've mapped Chicago. If you're someone writing about public education I'd like to connect so we expand the conversation to include private schools as well as public. Maps like this can help.

Chicago schools

Illinois schools

I want this widget for my site

This map does not include poverty overlays, or show which schools are under performing, but I'm sure others may be developing map-tools to do this. The Interactive Map that the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC hosts includes these features and points to the location of non-school tutoring and/or mentoring programs. However, our map has not been updated in three years and without the resources to do this we can't expand it's impact.

On-Line Social Mapping Ideas

I first met Jim Cory of Horizon Mapping in Madison, Wisconsin around 2000 via an on-line discussion hosted by the Global Bank. He mentioned that he was doing some work with mapping so I sent him an introduction and asked if he could help me. Jim has been building maps for me for 10 years and helped create the first map gallery and interactive maps.

This map story is one that Jim did for me several years ago.

It's part of a "Rest of the News" strategy which I've been promoting since 1994 as an effort to turn "bad news" media stories into advertising that draws volunteers and resource providers into neighborhoods where tutor/mentor programs are needed. Without having help from GIS volunteers like Jim I could not be making these maps.

I recently asked what he knew about creating Google maps. After a bit of research Jim created this page, which is a tutorial that anyone can use.

I've already added a map to the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum, which will add to the network analysis work my interns have been doing. These maps will show where people in the forum come from and will hopefully help those located in the same parts of the world connect and share ideas and resources with each other.

Thanks Jim. I'll be sure to integrate these ideas into future mapping and network building that I do.