Author Archives: Alex B. Hill

Detroit Ribbon Farms Map 1796

Detroit1796

Detroit in 1796 was little more than a series of ribbon farms between the Detroit River and the woods, adjacent to Fort Detroit. The city has recently passed an urban agriculture ordinance to allow urban community and personal gardens. Is Detroit getting back to its roots?

The size of ribbon farms can vary from lot to lot and from place to place. In Illinois, these lots could be a quarter mile or more long and only 30–40 feet wide. Near Detroit, the ribbon farms were about 250 feet wide and up to three miles long.

Farmers of ribbon farms typically, although not universally, built houses on the farm along the river such that the houses on a series of ribbon farms were located near each other.

The French government initially enticed its citizens to move to the “New World” by offering free farmland in 1765. In the year of this map, 1796, Detroit passed into US control under the Jay Treaty.

War gardens were a major facet of life in Detroit during World War II. Mayor Coleman launched the Farm-a-Lot program to 1970s and the Boggs Center launched Gardening Angels in the 1980s to repurpose vacant lots. Now there are a host of gardening programs and organizations continuing the work of the Boggs Center and Coleman with others attempting to create an industrialized farming system in the city’s empty spaces. Farming, gardening, and growing have never been far off from Detroit’s roots regardless of the machinery produced in the city known for its motorized might.

Map of 51 Detroit City Parks Closing

DET_Parks

51 City Parks Closing, 37 to receive less maintenance

  • Dark green are existing parks that are not slated for closure
  • Light Green are parks that will be maintained less
  • White are parks that are closing

Detroit will still have a wealth of city park space after today’s announcement, but it was surprising to see Romanowski Park, Butzel (near Rec Center), and Grand Circus Park on the list of closing parks. It is very unclear what closure or low maintenance will mean. It is also debatable that these parks were already seeing low to no maintenance.

Source: “A list of the parks to close or receive less maintenance” Detroit Free Press, 2/1/13

DET_Parks_786922

Thanks to Matt’s suggestion:

@MattH : Do you have the parks outlines? Would be cool to render those to show size / scale.

Detroit Minimalist Bicycling Map

bike_det

Part of my Michigan Bicycle Cities series, this map is made to show the emphasis on biking in Detroit (or rather the new emphasis on biking in Corktown and SW Detroit).

I saw this idea over at Paste in Place by Ryan Sullivan and it really got me thinking about the cities that I’ve biked in most and how they measure up to other cities around the world. Michigan has a long way to go, but these cities all have great bicycle cultures. I decided to add a circle around the cities because they don’t really have cool bodies of water to fill the negative space, just rivers that run through them. All lines are bike lanes, bike paths with signage, or multi-use bicycle trails.

Source: City of Detroit, Non-Motorized Master Plan

Map the Crap out of Detroit (Part II)

When: March 13th, 2013

Where: Loveland Technologies, Department of Alternatives, 1514 Washington & Clifford

What:

Round 2 of our 2013 meetups discussing city mapping, data sharing, land use policy, and neighborhoods++. Last time was an awesome (optionally wine- and beer-fueled) round table of 25 people talking about this, that, and the other interesting Detroit thing. This time we’ll also have some 5-7 minute project presentations to seed the conversation. There are a few presenters lined up — to be announced when their pencils turn into pens — but if you also want to share, let us know you care.

Map: Detroit Racial Divide 2000

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Likely one of the best known maps of Detroit, this map created by Erica Fischer as part of their “Race and Ethnicity 2010” series representing one dot for a group of 25 people of the same race shows the deep racial divides in Detroit metro area. Hamtramck stands out as a diverse island in the middle of Detroit, but otherwise there is s sharp line at 8 Mile, the City’s northern border.

Sources: Erica Fischer

Personal Cartography in Detroit, 2012

detroit_2012

Many cartographers like to take inventory of their personal cartography near the year end. I figured it would be a fun experiment to map my own personal journeys and travels of 2012 on top of my foursquare check-ins.

I had to reconstruct my travels from my Google Calendar and Foursquare check-ins after losing all my GPX data when my Garmin was stolen out of my car. I think this made the exercise that much more interesting and challenging.

Being a community health worker, I was driving all over the city and metro area every day. Data shows that I typically use I-96 and usually check-in at locations in Midtown. Sadly, my job doesn’t let me walk or bike very often. I am resolved to ride my bike more in Detroit during 2013.

Source: original post

De Troit a la Mondrian

mondrian_detroit

While looking at the 2010 census data on population density and the percentages of change between 2000 and 2010, I kept imagining the Detroit census tract grid in the style of Dutch painter, Piet Mondrian. He began painting his primary color grid works while studying in Paris.

Then I saw this Mondrian world map and went for my own version of Detroit’s percentage of population change.

Zipcodes of Detroit Map

detroit_zipcode

This was a fun typographic/ numerical mapping idea that I thought of the other week and decided to make it happen. It took a bit of time, but turned out how I imagined.

The Crayola Crayon colors that I used are: Blue Gray, Brick Red, Burnt Sienna, Canary, and Granny Smith Apple.

Reference: Zip Codes | GIS Maps | City of Detroit

Map: Detroit Downtown Population Growth

detroit_ann_arbor

Many recent maps have highlighted the population loss of Detroit. Although the Census data and population loss is disputed, the interesting bit highlighted by this map (that does not have a legend or map key #fail) is that it shows population growth in the downtown region (blue) surrounded by a sea of population loss (red) with growth in Detroit’s suburbs.

Not many maps have taken time to demonstrate that there are some areas of population growth in Detroit, however this is largely due to new incentive programs to live near downtown Detroit and the influx of some large corporations who also incentivize employees to live in the city.

Source: Stephen Von Worley | http://www.datapointed.net/visualizations/maps/growth-rings/detroit-michigan/

Detroit’s Income Inequality from Space

detroitsquaremile

Firstly, this was not my idea, but I wanted to test it out in Detroit. Tim De Chant posted on Per Square Mile that inequality can be visualized from space via satellite images on Google Maps/Earth. He previously wrote about the concept that the lack of urban trees represented the absence of wealth in certain areas of a city.

“Research published a few years ago shows a tight relationship between per capita income and forest cover. The study’s authors tallied total forest cover for 210 cities over 100,000 people in the contiguous United States using the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s natural resource inventory and satellite imagery. They also gathered economic data, including income, land prices, and disposable income.” (source)

The research basically stated that with an increase in income the demand for trees increased likewise decrease in income showed a decrease in demand for trees. As De Chant writes, the authors found that trees were seen as a luxury item.

This all made the gears turn in my head about how this research and De Chant’s image grabs from Google satellite imaging applied to Detroit.

48205 Osborn (“Deadliest” Zipcode)


I choose 48205 because, “The neighborhood of 44,000 residents accounts for 6 percent of the city’s population, but was home to 15 percent of its murders and 13 percent of its shooting victims.”

48221 Palmer Woods

I used to live in this zipcode, in the University District. I would often run around the Palmer Woods neighborhood because I was fascinated by how different running south past 6 Mile Rd. and running north above 7 Mile Rd. could be such different environments. Census data pegs this zipcode as one of the highest income areas of the city.

The idea seems to work well in Detroit neighborhoods, however the Greening of Detroit is working hard to plant more trees every day in both wealthy and poor neighborhoods.

“Between 1950 and 1980, around 500,000 trees were lost in Detroit to Dutch Elm disease, urban expansion and attrition. During that same time period, economic constraints prohibited the city of Detroit from replacing those trees. […] In 1989, Detroit, a typical American city, was losing an average of four trees for every one planted.”

The organization is estimated to have planted over 65,000 trees since its inception in 1989.

Cross-posted from Alex B. Hill