Equity Mapping: How We Can Do More with GIS

“Equity mapping” has been around for at least 10 years and focuses on collecting information about topics like environmental exposure or access to healthy food. An equity map combines information about how data related to specific issues are spatially distributed and how they overlap with other demographic, economic and social vulnerability data. These maps are generally intended to help policy makers to understand where and how communities are impacted and where programs should be located. Let’s discuss what our communities should look like and how we get there.

Redlining and Climate Change

Last month, we celebrated Junteenth, and I heard an interesting piece on NPR about how climate change impacts low-income and minority neighborhoods. It was a re-broadcast of a piece from 2020 that briefly discussed how redlining is still visible today, and not just in the ways you would think.

GIS and Social JusticeEva ReidJuly 8, 2024redlining, GIS, Climate Change, Social Justice, Racial DiscriminationComment

Understanding Redlining in America through GIS

There is an apocryphal story in my family about how my Black, West Indian grandparents couldn’t purchase a home in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley where they were renters. As the story goes, the White family my grandmother worked for bought the house with my grandparent’s money and later transferred the house to them. There are some holes in this story, but it wouldn’t be unheard of in New York, or most of the United States, in the first half of the 20th century. As a documented map geek and data detective of sorts, I was intrigued to find out more about how this played out across the country.