Food and the Power of Maps
Urban Gardening, Food Deserts, and Mapping was the title of the presentation Nicole Ryerson and I gave during this week’s Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for CURVE. Nicole and I are both M.S. students in the department of Geosciences and, between the two of us, we have a diverse collection of original maps. These maps have been produced from the simplest of web mapping services to the heftiest spacial analyst desktop software. As we sat at Workstation II, there was a pleasantly consistent flow of curious administrators, librarians, faculty members, and students stopping by to ask us about our work. As we presented, we offered what I now reflect on to be a gracefully orchestrated dialogue:I would give a short overview of the different mapping tools that were used to make the maps surrounding food topics that we had on display and Nicole (who has constructed an awesome thesis surrounding urban agriculture in Atlanta) shared her wealth of knowledge surrounding food from “the plant to the policy.” Conversations around urban food are extremely “sexy” in research right now and, because these conversations lend themselves to spatial considerations, easily translate into related discussion around cartographic representations. Cartography is becoming increasingly accessible to non-experts with the advancement of technology. You can hardly search through a newsfeed on Facebook without seeing some colorful map of the US declaring each state’s allegiance to a certain product or habit. The one that I’ve seen most frequently is this one showing Facebook fans of the NFL. Both at my … Continue reading