Author Archives: Alex B. Hill

Map: Detroit Stoplights 2015

det-stoplights

The new open data portal for Detroit didn’t have as many exciting datasets as I had hoped, but this was one that peaked my interest. Driving all around Detroit on a regular basis you will often run into signs stating that certain traffic signals are under study for removal. I’ve been surprised to see quite a few of these, but when looking at this dataset it appears as though the city has very few traffic lights. Downtown and Midtown are well saturated with traffic lights and the major North-South and East-West roadways are well traffic-lit. What is most odd is the very empty Northwest corner and Far Eastside where the highest population densities also are present. Why so few traffic lights in populated neighborhoods? Is it a function of Detroit’s growth history? Infrastructure? Are more people involved in traffic accidents in those areas?

EDIT 03/09/15:

A commenter on Facebook noted that these appeared to only be City of Detroit traffic signals because there are more County roads in Northwest Detroit. This can also be seen by locating Woodward Ave., which is a State of Michigan trunkline highway, and noticing that there are blank spaces where traffic signals would be located (same with Grand River Ave./ US-16 or Gratiot Ave./M-3). Therefore this is in no way a representation of all traffic signals within the City of Detroit, but rather the traffic signals that are managed by the City.

Is Detroit’s Data More Open?

image (3)

Almost half the “datasets” that the City of Detroit released are simplified duplicates of larger datasets or visualizations. In truth the city released about 46 datasets, about half of the “over 90” datasets that were announced. Out of the 46 actual datasets released, only 28 are new datasets that couldn’t already be found at the old City of Detroit GIS page, Data Driven Detroit (D3), or DetroitData.org. This is still an incredible gain for open data. I just don’t understand the reason behind inflating the numbers.

After years of a substandard webpage with download links to GIS files, the City of Detroit entered the modern open data era with a Socrata data platform supported (read: free) from their new Socrata Foundation. The city has been trumpeting that it has released over 90 datasets to the public. This would be an incredible feat in a formerly bankrupt government with multiple departments spread out and often at odds with one another. Yet, there are fewer datasets from the City today than when they were using the old webpage with download links to GIS files. Many of those now missing datasets were historical and have relevance to the current changes in the city.

The bigger story here is that the City has adopted a comprehensive, broad ranging, open data policy for all departments that places City data into the public domain. Regardless of how many datasets were released, this is the most important step towards progress in open data for Detroit.

“The cornerstone of this major shift in City policy will be that data and information, unless exempt from disclosure under State or federal law, will be available to the public, starting with an open data portal.”

– data.DetroitMI.gov

Data in Detroit made leaps when a Chief Information Officer (CIO) was appointed, but appointee Beth Niblock faced the daunting task of getting the City Government off of a mainframe and upgrading its systems for the current century. She often spoke about the issues of not having up-to-date computers and getting push back from various departments. Then a Deputy Director of Civic Technology Outreach was hired with support from the Knight Foundation. Garlin Gilchrist, appointed August 2014, is focused on equitable access to information and yet again open data for Detroit was a goal within reach.

However, many people and organizations had already given up waiting for the city to launch an open data portal.

Year Portal Organization
2009 Fileshare Site Detroit Data Collaborative (via D3)
2014 Esri/ ArcGIS Data Driven Detroit
2014 CKAN Civic Tech Community
2015 Socrata City of Detroit

Data Driven Detroit (D3) was founded in 2008 with support from City Connect Detroit ($1.85 million from Kresge Foundation and Skillman Foundation) as the Detroit Area Community Indicators System (D-ACIS) with the idea of pushing for more open data. The organization became a Detroit data powerhouse, but the majority of their data remained behind closed doors. There was an unsupported initiative within the organization called the Detroit Data Collaborative (DDC) led by a few dedicated staff members that attempted to make their data more accessible, but that only lasted about a year. Finally in 2014, D3 launched their own open data platform through the Esri ArcGIS OpenData Beta initiative.

I also gave up waiting for a data portal solution and worked with a group of individuals to launch DetroitData.org which is built on the leading open source data sharing platform in the world, CKAN from the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN), which is utilized by major international institutions and city governments alike. The great opportunity with CKAN is to make open data a community in Detroit where everyone with an internet connection can share and collaborate with data. Detroit has a thriving civic technology community already and too many institutional platforms are restricted and insular. Some great CKAN examples come from OpenDataPhilly.org and DATA.GOV.

Back to the issue of duplicate datasets, they are not a new occurrence. Many organizations take the time to simplify datasets to help make them less cumbersome and more usable, but that doesn’t increase the amount of data.

Datasets Duplicates Total
City of Detroit GIS 75 31 106
data.DetroitMI.gov 46 47 93
DDC 19 0 19
D3 72 5 77
DetroitData.org 31 0 31

There are a few city departments that are conspicuously missing from the new data portal, namely Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) and the Department of Neighborhoods (DON). In a recent interview on WDET, Gilchrist noted that finance data would be made available soon to improve the transparency efforts. It will be great to see how the community meetings go where Gilchrist will help residents navigate the open data portal site.

We can only hope that the City’s new open data policy actions will align with the Mayor’s (and staff) statements about becoming a more transparent city government. The City of Detroit is fighting many fires now and I hope that in the process they don’t forget about collaboration and the citizen driven efforts already under way. The open data portal has been a small step overall for data in Detroit, but the adoption of an open data policy holds huge potential for the future.

Map: Detroit Steam Pipelines 1910

det_steam1910

Thanks to an old discussion, a question about all the Downtown/Midtown steam may be answered or maybe there are just more questions. It seems that Detroit Thermal LLC is no longer operating. The steam plant on Willis St. (behind McDonalds/LTU/Hopcat) also appears to be dormant. Is all the steam now supplied by the human hazard that is the trash incinerator?

Map: Detroit Homicide Disease Diffusion 2003

dethomicides2003This is a preliminary analysis to better understand the pattern of homicides in Detroit as part of a decade long view (2003 – 2013). Critical research and innovative programs have called for utilizing public health and epidemiological approaches to homicide and violence prevention (Cure Violence). The Detroit Youth Violence Prevention (DYVP) initiative reports that 87 percent of the 1,200 Detroit high school students surveyed said a family member or friend had been shot, murdered or disabled as a result of violence in the previous 12 months. The Detroit News has a long 2010 article on the effects of gun violence on children that is definitely worth a read.

It appears that homicides in 2003 follow a disease diffusion model where there are a few focal points that spread out into the rest of the city while continuing to be hot spots throughout the year. In 2003, 366 people were murdered with July being the worst month followed by August and September.

Detroit has reported early success with the ShotSpotter technology that helps triangulate gunshots and sends officers into communities to talk with neighbors.

The decade long analysis is in the works. Read more: Homicide, Gun Violence, and Epidemiology in Detroit

detroitdata_get

Map: Detroit 1941 Traffic Volumes

det-traffic-1941

Detroit used to have major traffic congestion Downtown:

The arterial vehicular traffic jams in Detroit can be cleared only by breaking the bottlenecks in the heart of the city where the greatest volume occurs. Traffic studies clearly show that a large percentage of traffic proceeds between its origin and destination on illogical routes. The crow-foot avenues, the confused tangle of the old city, the rectangular pattern of the newer developments, the network of railroads, the absence of breaks in topography through which arteries might have been built behind the growth of the city, the monotonous flatness downtown which prompted the solid building with no open spaces between developments, the relation of business and industry to the waterfront; all these contribute to the circuitous travel necessary to reach most points by automobile. The streets of Detroit are wider than those in most cities hut they arc not wide enough in the right places and cannot he stretched enough at most throats of congestion to meet the increasing traffic loads. The greatest barriers to convenient and safe automobile travel are the automobiles themselves which were built faster than the streets were modernized to accommodate them.

det-traffic-1941-downtown

These maps and the traffic analyses led to the emphasis on expressway development as opposed to regional and rapid transit. The unfortunate conclusion from these analyses were:

With no natural open spaces to follow, the new expressways must be located largely through solid development. It is fortunate that the general pattern of traffic flow coincides with belts of depressed property cheap enough to acquire for wide traffic arteries.

The areas of “depressed property” being referenced were the majority Black areas of Detroit, most notably Hastings Street, Paradise Valley.

 

 

Map: Vegetation Change and Social Stress in Detroit 1990

detroit-vegetation-stressThis map comes from Solstice: An Electronic Journal of Geography and Mathematics (Volume VII, Number 1, 1996) at the University of Michigan. Authors John Nystuen, Rhonda Ryznar, and Thomas Wagner.

Figure 6. In Figure 6, census tracts with the largest increase in 
greenness are shown with the darkest green and brown tones.  Superimposed 
on this colored pattern are census tracts of high social stress 
(cross-hatched).  High social stress census tracts are defined as those 
tracts with decrease in population greater than 25% between 1980 and 1990 
and with more than 50% of children below the poverty level.  There 
is substantial correspondence between the two patterns.

Event: #Maptime Detroit – OpenStreetMap

osm_logoWhat: #Maptime

A monthly event that will share mapping skills at a different community group each meeting. Read more about #maptime DETROIT

Why: Goal

To democratize map making: to help everyone learn how to make maps and become literate map readers.

Where: SEMCOG, 1001 Woodward Ave., Suite 1400

Hosted by SEMCOG (Southeast Michigan Council of Governments) and LOVELAND Technologies – this February #maptime will focus on the basics of web maps and help you dig into OpenStreetMap, the open, editable map of the world.

Please bring a laptop. Let us know if you can’t bring one and we’ll try and have spares. Also, if you’ve got it, bring your own data!

When: February 24th @ 6pm

We’ll get the evening started at 5:30pm with an overview of #Maptime and then others will give lightning talks on how they are currently doing community mapping in Detroit.

RSVP: HERE

Map: Detroit Rapid Transit System 1920s

det-rapid-transit-plan

I’ve gotten flak for posting many of the fantasy transit maps of Detroit, but I think the fact that there have been so many fantasy transit plans speaks to the enormity of the issue that our metro area hasn’t solved since the 1950s.

There is no date for this map, but I think it is one of the more beautiful representations of regional transit as proposed by the Michigan Elevated Railway Company. My guess is during the 1920s when the Michigan Elevated Railway Co. was in operation and the Ford Blast Furnaces were built.

Source: Digital Collections – Burton Historical Collections

Map: Slums, Industrial, and Low Cost Housing in Detroit 1941

Slums, etc.1941This map from the 1941 Annual Report of the Detroit Housing Commission was an omen of things to come. Detroit’s black population was forced (racism, segregation, and redlining) to live in areas deemed “slums.” Properties were dilapidated due to negligent landlords and overcrowded as a result of racially restrictive housing.

This map is an important reference point to the “urban renewal” of the 1950s that displaced thousands of Detroit’s black residents. As the “slums” were removed, black residents’ only options were the new housing projects, which today you can watch being torn down.

Midtown Detroit Expansion Map 2000 – 2014

midtown-expand Since 2000 the area known as Midtown has seen rapid expansion. It is important to note that even though Midtown is largely a conglomeration of various institutional partners and acts as an economic driver, there is no official geographic demarcation, which has seemingly allowed Midtown to continue reaching northward. In many instances the authority, Midtown Detroit Inc., offers incentives in an area before officially annexing it for inclusion in its official brochures. Below is a quick breakdown:

  • 1890 – residents in the Midtown area represented the highest earners in the entire state of Michigan.
  • 1910 – upper and middle class families began moving to Boston-Edison and Indian Village to get away from the factories, pollution, and noise
  • 1943 – racially divided Woodward (white west, black east)
  • 1959 – I-75 construction destroyed Paradise Valley, center of African American community, area on Hastings St.
  • 1960s – the areas of Midtown on either side of Woodward ranked among the most economically disadvantaged in the state of Michigan.
  • 1970s & 1980s – temporary housing in the Cass Corridor and drug deals in the open air
  • 1976 – University Cultural Center Association (UCCA) founded
  • 2001 – Midtown Detroit Inc. founded (detroitmidtown.com registered 01-06-2000)
  • 2009 – entire Midtown area minus WSU campus was considered “empowerment zone” which meant tax credits and discounts on building improvement costs
  • 2011 – UCCA merges with New Center Council, expands boundary to include Woodbridge, Northend, and New Center.

In early 2011, UCCA merged with New Center Council (NCC) and formally began doing work as Midtown Detroit, Inc. The organization has expanded its staff and geographic footprint, increased its real estate investment activities and is implementing additional programs. This new footprint incorporates TechTown and the New Center area which will allow the organization to work more closely with HFHS, University Preparatory Schools, the College for Creative Studies, TechTown and many other anchors.

  • 2013 – expands boundary to include Henry Ford Hospital area
  • 2014 – expands boundaries for live and buy incentives and again to include HFHS investment area

Data: Over 20,000 New Streetlights Installed in Detroit

det-streetlightsThe Public Lighting Authority (PLA) reported that it surpassed 20,000 newly installed streetlights in September. As of 01/17/15 the Detroit Dashboard reports 20,572 new streetlight installed for an average of 935 per week, which is nearly double what Duggan promised in his State of the City speech in February 2014.

It obviously isn’t as straight-forward as a steady number each week, but rather ups and downs of construction, problem solving, etc. – however it appears that from the chart below weather was not a major installation hindrance.

det-streetlight-install-chartMy request for point locations of old streetlights was denied by the Public Lighting Authority:

[…] Specifically, the PLA hereby denies your request as the information contained on the PLA’s GIS system is exempt under MCL 15.243(1)(y), on the basis that the information requested “is designed to protect the security and safety of persons or property, whether public or private, including but not limited to […]

Maybe the DTE’s new management of the streetlights grid will make data more accessible?

detroitdata_get

Map: Detroit Streetlight Status 2014

det-streetlights-2014

In Mayor Duggan’s first “State of the City” (SOTC) speech (02/26/14), he promised many things from a bureaucratic, planning heavy 10 point plan. One of those many numerical goals that he set was to install 500 new streetlights each week.

Based on the spotty and often missing data on the Detroit Dashboard, the average actually comes out to 953 new streetlights installed each week from 07/19/14 – 01/10/15 (some missing weeks). It appears that this was one metric out of many that the Mayor was able to make good on.

Map: Hypothetical Effects of A Nuclear Attack on Detroit 1951

hypothetical-effects-of-a-hypothetical-nuclear-attack-on-DetroitThis map was published in the Detroit News April 17, 1951, shows the hypothetical effects of a nuclear attack on Detroit. It appears that Arden Park and Brush along with Livernois and Warren held important targets for a nuclear bomb drop.

“Major airlines, Detroit automakers, IBM, the phone company and Wall Street planned employee shelters. The Federal Reserve designated banks for postwar check cashing, and a farmer in Iowa built a fallout shelter for 200 cows.”

Map: Running, Walking, and Biking Routes in Detroit

detroit-runkeeperMapbox has put together an excellent visualization from data collected through the Runkeeper phone app that helps you track your activity.

This was shared by the Detroit Greenways Coalition and later had some good coverage by Daily Detroit.

There is an obvious focus in Downtown and like many other major cities, people prefer to run along the river.

Map: The Greening of Detroit 1975-1992

greeningdetroit1975-1992This map comes from Solstice: An Electronic Journal of Geography and Mathematics (Volume VII, Number 1, 1996) at the University of Michigan. Authors John Nystuen, Rhonda Ryznar, and Thomas Wagner utilized Landsat imagery to do an fascinating analysis of a greening Detroit, which was largely due to increased vacancy and natural regrowth on abandoned structures.

Figure 1.  Landsat change image of Detroit showing changes in 
urban greenness from 1975 to 1992.  Imagery and analysis are joint 
ventures between Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM) and 
The University of Michigan, College of Architecture and Urban Planning.  
Green areas show tracts with greenness increase; red areas with 
greenness decrease; black areas, no change. Change data derived from TM 
1992 and MSS 1975 images of vegetation reflectance.

Map: Martin Luther King Jr. and Detroit

mlk-detroitMartin Luther King Jr. has a well documented presence in Detroit. He made a number of notable appearances in the city that inspired many working for civil rights in Detroit, including Grace Lee Boggs. King’s most famous Detroit appearance was the June 23, 1963 “Walk to Freedom” where 125,000 marched with him down Woodward Ave. and 25,000 listened to his speech in Cobo Arena. The 1963 speech was a test run for his ‘I Have a Dream” speech given during the March on Washington in August of the same year.

“I have a dream this afternoon, that one day, right here in Detroit, Negroes will be able to buy a house or rent a house anywhere that their money will carry them, and they will be able to get a job.”

  1. 1958 – King gives speech at 78th annual National Baptist Convention of America held at the King Solomon Baptist Church
  2. June 23, 1963 – “Walk to Freedom” down Woodward (start at Adelaide), speech afterwards in Cobo Hall
  3. Sept. 1963 – National Baptists Congress held at the King Solomon Baptist Church
  4. 1968 – “The Future of Integration” speech at Grosse Pointe [South] High School

A bust King was placed in pocket park at corner of Rosa Parks Blvd. & E. Grand Blvd. in 1981. Other namesakes include: Eastern High School renamed in 1968 as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, Martin Luther King Apartments, Martin Luther King Junior Education Center, and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Anyone know what year Myrtle was renamed to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd?

Map: Where Are All the People in Detroit – Occupancy and Foreclosure

det-occupied2There is a common media narrative that Detroit is empty, a blank slate, a blank canvas where anything can be done. However, this false narrative doesn’t account for the nearly 700,000 people who do live in the city. I pulled all of the “occupied, partially occupied, and possibly occupied” properties out of the Motor City Mapping (MCM) data and the above map is the result.

I found 203,723 occupied structures, which is an 81% structure occupancy rate and a total of 54% of properties with occupied structures. This doesn’t necessarily account for parks or large unused former industrial properties. The map however gives a far different picture than the common media narrative of an empty Detroit.

det-occupied-foreclosures2This year the Wayne County Treasurer identified 61,912 properties in Detroit for foreclosure in 2015. Loveland Technologies found that 35,669 of these properties (63%) are occupied according to the MCM survey data. More from Jerry of Loveland Technologies:

“According to Motor City Mapping data cross-referenced with the Wayne County Treasurer’s list of incoming foreclosures, 35,669 occupied residential homes are entering tax foreclosure in 2015. At an average 2.74 occupants per residence, as many as 97,733 people are estimated to live in these homes.“

The potential loss of almost 100,000 more people from the city would not help any kind of revitalization. The foreclosure crisis is far from over for Detroit, which has seen a disproportionate amount of discriminatory subprime mortgage lending. Innovative solutions are needed quickly to help Detroit residents keep their homes.

Update:

Video from Loveland Technologies: A Hurricane Without Water: Detroit Property Tax Foreclosure, 2015

Data: 40% of Detroit Households Have No Internet Service

det-internetIn our current age of digital solutions for urban problems this stark digital divide cannot be overlooked.

Bill Callahan, director of Connect Your Community 2.0 compiled data from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2013 to come up with estimates for major US cities. Detroit ranked #2 for worst connectivity. That means that Detroit households had no access to internet, not even a smartphone.

As the City of Detroit launches more mobile apps, start-ups develop digital solutions, and services continually move online – there needs to be a recognition analog connections are necessary. That is unless Detroit wants to leave almost half of its population out of the loop.

Civic technology that utilizes texting services, community groups that help residents increase technology literacy, library branches that offer internet access, and old fashioned people-to-people canvassing will be critical pieces of inclusive Detroit development.

Some great examples of addressing this digital divide are the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition’s (DDJC) Disco-Techs introducing technology at community events around Detroit and the Detroit Digital Stewards program that provided community technology training focused on community mesh networks for internet connectivity.

Map: Detroit Future City 1970

dox-future-plan0001

This map comes from Volume 3 of “Emergence and Growth of an Urban Region: The Developing Urban Detroit Area” completed in Constantinos Doxiadis and associates. The project was a collaboration between The Detroit Edison Company (DTE), Wayne State University, and Doxiadis Associates. Being that the 3 volumes (each around 400 pages) were privately funded the plans and ideas never came to pass.

If you compare the above Doxiadis map and plans with the most recent Detroit Future City (DFC) plan there are some striking similarities beyond color scheme. The main differences seem to be that Doxiadis did not make a plan for a future with continually decreasing population where the DFC includes large swaths of ecological and green land uses that plan for no people.

detroit_works_01

Map: Detroit Area Ethnic Groups 1971

det-ethnic-groups-1971

The Detroit Historical Society has so many great maps in their archives!

This map is an excellent addition to the series of maps that we have ranging from: