Connecting to the Future
Dynamic Maps And Historical Change
Reading about attempts to convey history in spatial terms, I was reminded of this map: http://tipstrategies.com/archive/geography-of-jobs/" target="_blank"> which I had come across some time ago. It illustrates the progression of job gains and losses in the United States from 2004 onward, depicting the decline of the automobile industry in Detroit, the decimation of civic life in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the boom and then bust in the national economy, first in the Sun Belt and then pretty much everywhere. It's one thing to read that the unemployment rate has risen above 10%. It's another thing to see graphically how huge the damage done by catastrophes both natural and man-made has been.
The idea of how geography affects history on a small scale further put me in mind of the work of Robert Moses, whose ruthless dedication to highway building dramatically altered the physical, but more importantly the cultural landscape of New York City. His successful invocation of eminent domain in pushing the Cross Bronx Expressway and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (and his failure to do the same across lower Manhattan) had profound effects on thousands of people uprooted and thousands more left to live in eviscerated neighborhoods. A dynamic map might trace the progress of Moses's bulldozers and relate the advent of the highways to the subsequent deterioration of income and occupancy levels in the areas affected. The story of the Cross Bronx and the BQE is not simply of local interest, however, as it was replicated in dozens of American cities where asphalt monsters chewed up the hearts of downtowns and millions fled the urban for the suburban.
The idea of how geography affects history on a small scale further put me in mind of the work of Robert Moses, whose ruthless dedication to highway building dramatically altered the physical, but more importantly the cultural landscape of New York City. His successful invocation of eminent domain in pushing the Cross Bronx Expressway and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (and his failure to do the same across lower Manhattan) had profound effects on thousands of people uprooted and thousands more left to live in eviscerated neighborhoods. A dynamic map might trace the progress of Moses's bulldozers and relate the advent of the highways to the subsequent deterioration of income and occupancy levels in the areas affected. The story of the Cross Bronx and the BQE is not simply of local interest, however, as it was replicated in dozens of American cities where asphalt monsters chewed up the hearts of downtowns and millions fled the urban for the suburban.
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