Promoting Civic Awareness Through Interactive Maps
By Satta Sarmah
We’ve seen interactive maps used to recount historical events like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination or to make public data on city crimes and home foreclosures more accessible to average citizens.
Now, one organization in New York City is using an interactive map to build community awareness and promote much-needed development in neighborhoods across the city.
The Community-Based Planning Task Force of the Municipal Art Society has created an “Atlas of Community-Based Plans in New York City.”
The task force touts the atlas as the “only publicly accessible compilation of the city’s community-based plans.”
The map appears to be the first of its kind in any U.S. city.
Though it’s labeled as an atlas, it’s basically an interactive map powered by Google. Each trigger point on the map has links to a text pdf version of a community-based plan for a particular area, whether it be Coney Island, East Harlem or Chinatown.
The task force also made the atlas very user-friendly and location-centric. Users can search for plans by borough or by type. For example, you can look up community plans in Brooklyn or search for housing revitalization and water revitalization plans. The atlas includes current plans and plans dating back to 1989.
The atlas was initially created to provide local political candidates with in-depth information about improvement efforts in certain communities. However, the atlas is also being used as a road map for communities that want to mimic plans created in other neighborhoods.
Presumably, the task force has used the atlas to push community development efforts to the forefront of the city’s consciousness. In their explanation, the task force said they created the map because the city seems to be committed on paper to improving disadvantaged areas, but needs to put in more elbow grease to complete these projects.
The atlas has certain implications for journalists, especially community and urban affairs reporters. It could be a good source for stories, provide reporters with an overview of neighborhood concerns on their beat and help them determine the efforts local politicians are making to address these issues.
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