Obesity Prevalence and Corner Stores in Detroit

I remembered that the CDC completed a Youth Risk Behavior Survey in Detroit and reported that 19% of High School students were obese. I figured that I could estimate how many and where these students were based on the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) data on public High School enrollment. 

The data maps fairly closely with population density, but there is enough of a variation to make it worthwhile as a starting point to examine the interactions between social and environmental factors.

I added corner stores to the map to demonstrate the prevalence of these food locations in relation to obesity among High School students. 

Volcanoes, Cities, and Population in Oregon

I made this not so beautiful map in my summer GIS class. I was ahead of my class in understanding ArcGIS basics, so I threw together these datasets. 

Interestingly, population and cities are focused around the port city of Portland and you can see how the geographic line of volcanoes and accompanying mountains keeps higher population density on the left side of the state. 

Amtrak From Detroit to Chicago & Back

During a recent family train trip to Chicago I wanted to keep track of our progress to see how much the train gets delayed. It turns out not really that much. The longest wait time was 7min and we never arrived more than 15min late going either way.

The return trip was much quicker because there were less people to pick up and we even skipped over a few stops because there was no one getting off or on.

Wayne County Population Cartogram

Inspired by the style of William Bunge, I put together this cartogram to get an idea of how population is weighted in Wayne County knowing that the suburbs to the west have significantly higher median incomes.

Map Your Detroit

Inspired by Mapping Manhattan and wanting to get more community members involved in mapping their own city, DETROITography is hoping to share print copies of this map template across the city - in schools, churches, and community centers to let people map their own favorite places, memories, or visions for Detroit.

I’m putting all my Detroit maps in one place and hoping to bring together the Detroit cartographic, geographic, and planning peoples.

DETROITography

Map of Bicycle City, Detroit

I’ve noticed a larger amount of articles talking about Detroit becoming a bicycle city. Beyond the influx of young people and hipsters, I see many Detroit residents outside of the Midtown/Downtown areas using their bicycles to get around the city. Where there is an inadequate transportation system and personal cars potentially add to economic hardship, bicycles are fairly prevalent.

It’s unclear how many people actually use bicycles as their primary mode of transportation, but there is definitely a strong history of bicycles in Detroit. Dodge first made bicycles and Ford made his first “car,” the quadricycle out of bicycle parts.

@DaveAtBicycling: Bruce Katz of @brookingsinst says bike manufacturer’s presence in downtown Detroit is “the future of America.” #nbs13

Detroit Average Rent Price Per Month by Neighborhood

I was really curious about this when my wife and I were apartment searching in Sept. 2012, I recently found the data from Zillow and decided to put it together. Zillow updates their data each week, so this is from data accessed on 18 Feb 2013. 

Map of Petition Signatures for Medicaid Expansion in Michigan

I made this map based on the zipcodes of individuals who signed our petition on Change.org asking Governor Snyder to expand Medicaid health coverage (Medicaid Matters for Michigan). The Largest areas are easy to see Ann Arbor, Detroit (and Metro Detroit), Lansing, and Grand Rapids. The odd Michigan outline is from my family density mapping. 

These areas also correlate with Michigan’s largest population densities, but it is still awesome to see that our efforts covered nearly the entire state. 

Hand drawn block map

The most exciting part of starting my graduate Research Methods in Anthropology class was that our first assignment was to hand draw a map of our block and describe each lot in detail as a test of our powers of observation.

Dark circles are streetlights, light circles are trees and shrubs, X’s are fire hydrants, double slashes are potholes, dark rectangles are cars, and cross hatched areas are parking lots.

Note: Professor wrote “excellent map” in top corner.

Michigan’s Uninsured Population Cartogram

My first dabble in cartograms was inspired by my work with MICHUHCAN. This graphic was featured in their “Medicaid Matters for Michigan” campaign.

There is an interesting juxtaposition between the number of people uninsured and their level of access to care. Notably Michigan’s insurance companies are located in counties with some of the largest populations of uninsured.