Mapping For Justice

Gang Territories and School Closing - View map

2013-05-22T11:48:00.001-05:00

DNAInfo Chicago has created an interactive map showing gang territories around schools that Chicago Public Schools plans to close. Maps like this could be use by business, faith groups, political leaders, etc. to build non-school supports for youth and families in these neighborhoods so kids would a) come to school better prepared to learn; b) and be less likely to turn to gangs as a source of social/emotional and economic support. See the DNA Infor map here.

Responding to Growth of Suburban Poverty

2013-05-21T15:22:00.001-05:00

I encourage you to read this Brookings Institute report as well as this article on Mother Jones, showing the dramatic growth of poverty in suburbs of Chicago and other cities. The strategies I've shown for building a distribution of mentor-rich programs in inner city neighborhoods will need to be expanded to reach youth in high poverty neighborhoods. Will you help?

Mapping Strategy Started in 1993

2013-05-18T14:19:00.001-05:00

In 1993 I was telling a friend at Chicago's United Way/Crusade of Mercy about my new organization and it's goal of building a master database of non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. She said "How will you show that information?" I said "I don't know.". She showed me a geography magazine and ways that data can be mapped, and I've been trying to harness this potential ever since then. The article at the left is from a 1994 Chicago SunTimes article.

The challenge with creating the types of maps you see on this blog are a) you need to collect the data on existing tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region and keep it up-to-date; b) you need to collect demographic and school performance information from available sources; c) you need to be able to afford a mapping tool; d) and you need to have talent available who can use the mapping tool to create maps. I've never found a foundation and/or business partner who would fund this consistently, even though ESRI donated software and IBM provide money for computers back in 1995.

Yet, as this article in the this 1999 URISA trade association magazine shows, I've been able to create enough maps that stories have been told in various media at different times over the past 20 years. To many people I've become known as the "map man" because of how I constantly talk about ways maps could be used by leaders to guide the distribution of financial resources and support the growth of mentor rich k-12 non-school tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago, or any other major city with pockets of urban poverty.

I've been hosting Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences every six months since May 1994, and in these I've also shared maps via posters and workshops.

In late 2007 I received a $50,000 donation which enabled me to hire a part time map maker, Mike Traken, who created all of the maps shown and map stories on this blog, up till early 2011 when we ran out of money to keep Mike on staff. With part of the money we also hired a tech team from India who build the Interactive Tutor/Mentor Program Locator which you can use to create your own map view and maps. This PDF provides instructions for using the Program Locator.

If you think this use of maps has value, I encourage you to help me find sponsors, investors, business partners and volunteers to help me update the maps, build new maps, create advertising so more people know how to use them, and create new owners who have the same passion that I have for using maps to build a better distribution of needed services in high poverty areas of the country.

Maps showing most segregated cities in USA

2013-04-29T12:08:00.000-05:00

Business Insider has posted maps showing the 21 most segregated cities in the US.

My hope is that leaders will use maps like these and those on this blog and the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator to develop strategies that draw volunteers from beyond these neighborhoods into ongoing tutor/mentor programs that help build bridges connecting youth and families to ideas, opportunities and resources beyond these highly segregated areas.

You can also see these maps on Flickr at this link.

Chicago youth program funding - Create Competition to DO GOOD!

2013-04-23T11:35:00.000-05:00

A slick new web site has been created to mobilize resources from the business community to fight the rising violence in many inner city neighborhoods. The Mayor is raising a pool of $50 million dollars to fund new initiatives that expand the number of youth reached. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago on the Tutor/Mentor Institute blog.

On the Get IN Chicago web site is a map showing neighborhoods eligible for funding from the first round of this initiative. I created a map from the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, showing levels of poverty, locations of poorly performing public schools (from 2008) and locations of non-school tutor/mentor programs that I've been able to identify.

While the neighborhoods targeted for funding certainly have a need for youth serving programs, there are other neighborhoods that also need these programs, including areas of the suburbs that don't come under the Mayor's umbrella, but certainly are affected by high poverty, gangs, drugs, etc.

If you look at the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator map, you'll see that there are not a lot of existing tutor/mentor programs in the areas where funding is targeted. If you look at the web sites of existing programs, you'll also find that too few show comprehensive strategies, theory of change, or multi-year history of success. That means new and inexperienced programs will compete for this money, and that it will take time for these programs to grow to be great in how they influence youth habits, or how they build a cadre of loyal volunteers. That won't happen in a few months. Hopefully in two to three years when these programs are maturing, the money will still be there.

However, what happens to other programs in areas outside of this funding? Are companies going to just switch funding from programs they have been supporting to new initiatives the Mayor is supporting? Can we really expect them to put $50 million in new funding into this sector? A newly released 2013 Non Profit Finance Fund survey shows that non profits are already struggling financially. Without a flow of operating dollars to sustain current efforts, new money for expanded efforts sits on an empty shell.

The city and suburbs need a long-term strategy that mobilizes operating and innovation resources for many programs and supports volunteer, youth and donor connections for many years. It's needed this for more than 20 years, not just in the past two to three years.

This strategy needs to use maps to support the distribution of resources and growth of programs. It needs to be based on libraries of information showing what programs are doing in different parts of the country, not just Chicago. And it needs to be supported by on-going public involvement advertising, education, evangelism, involving leaders from many sectors. I created this strategy map many years ago to show my own commitment to helping youth from the Cabrini Green neighborhood move through school and into jobs and careers. It shows a need for many leaders and many volunteers with different skills. It could be on the web site of any youth program, or on the web site of the Mayor and any business leader.

To me, that's the role of elected leaders. Use your influence to motivate leaders from every sector to adopt long-term strategies that help all kids in Chicagoland move through school and into 21st century jobs and careers. Use your web site to give recognition to leaders who adopt this strategy and showcase those who seem to do a little better than others every year. Create a Chicagoland competition to DO GOOD and compete with other major cities to show that Chicago leaders can do more good than they can.

CPS School Closings - Map Analysis Needed

2013-04-10T14:46:00.001-05:00

In today's Chicago SunTimes a story showed the walking route between King Elementary School, 740 S. Campbell, to Jensen Elementary Scholastic Academy, 3030 W. Harrison. In the printed edition of the SunTimes a map was included showing King at one side of a rectangle and Jensen at the other, with potential routes kids might take from King to Jensen, and potential hazards to kids shown along the routes.

Since I'm a map fanatic, and I've done maps of school areas in the past, I thought that there was more to this analysis than what was being presented. Thus, I used the Chicago Public Schools Locator web site (which is quite good). I created the analysis below: I don't know how CPS elementary school districts are drawn, or from what distance around the school kids are drawn. However, I drew a circle around the two schools in the SunTimes article. (One question I had was that in the SunTimes article the receiving school at 3030 W. Harrison is Jensen, yet on the CPS locator the only school at that address is Bethune. Is the CPS locator up-to-date?)

If you look at the circle around the two schools, and you look at other elementary schools in the area, you might want to ask a few questions, such as:

a) The students who live in the area West of King would could be within 4 blocks of Jensen, depending where they live. However, students living South, North or East of King would have to travel even further than the 8 blocks shown in the Sun Times article.

b) With other elementary schools potentially closer to where some of King's students live, is CPS really planning to divide kids from closing schools among several different schools, not just the "receiving school"?

c) CPS has mapping capacity. Do they map the home addresses of students to determine the attendance pattern for every school, or to understand transit routes, bus routes, etc.

Using map analysis tools like this it might be possible for CPS, parents, community activist, political leaders and others to make better decisions about what schools kids should attend, as well as what non-school resources are in the area around every poorly performing school in the city.

As a vocational education program, CPS and City Colleges of Chicago could be teaching youth in area high schools to create maps and do map analysis stories like this. Businesses in Chicago who provide mapping services could provide technology and mentoring. Why not?

See more of the map stories on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC blog.

How Geography of Poverty has Changed in Chicago since 1950

2013-04-08T10:38:00.001-05:00

This Chicago Magazine article has animated poverty maps showing the change in poverty distribution in the Chicago region since 1950. Those who work for social justice, equal education opportunity, etc. should be using maps like this to plan ways to distribute volunteers and dollars into places where poor people are moving, while keeping resources flowing in places where large concentrations still live. See how Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC use maps to mobilize resources that support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region.

Program locator - http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/InteractiveMap.aspx

Map Gallery - http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/mapgallery.html

Tutor/Mentor Institute blog articles - here and here

Violence Hits Cities Hardest

2013-03-24T10:55:00.000-05:00

These maps illustrate that the heaviest concentrations of gun violence are in big cities. The top map is from a March 22, 2013 Huffington Post article and the bottom is from the Maps of the World web site.

To me the maps illustrate the challenge we face in obtaining national political consensus on any type of gun control, or effective education policy. People in some parts of the country don't live with the same problems that people in other parts live with. Big city problems are far different than problems of smaller communities and rural areas. In a system where votes are tied to geography, getting enough votes to support policies important to one or another geographic regions requires compromise, or tremendous empathy, or both.

While we look for national compromise, I look to connect with people in big cities who have youth populations of 75,000 or larger, with concentrations of poverty isolated geographically and politically from the rest of the resources in their regions. If we can connect on-line and in face-to-face events we can talk in a common language, about common problems, and perhaps innovate ways to resolve these problems without dependence on national consensus.

Join me on Facebook, Linked in, the Tutor/Mentor Connection on Ning.com, or in the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference held in the spring and fall.

Or, invite me to places where you're bringing people from big cities together to innovate solutions to these problems.

May 2005 Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago

2013-02-19T17:16:00.002-06:00

This map show total participation in the May 2005 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference held in Chicago. This is part of a series of maps being created to show the range of organizations that have participated in these events and to also illustrate the need for greater participation from business, philanthropy, faith groups, political leaders, media and others who would be part of the "village it takes to raise our children". This map shows only the programs who participated in the May 2005 conference. Due to a technical glitch, these don't all show on the above map. These are not all of the organizations providing volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring. It's not realistic to expect every program at every conference. However, by having continuous conferences since May 1994 we've been able to connect a larger percent of the tutoring/mentoring community to each other and to all of the other information shared in the Tutor/Mentor Connection library. This work has been done in the past, and in the present, with limited and inconsistent support from philanthropy, business, Chicago Public Schools or political leaders. The next conference will be held at the Metcalf Federal Building on Friday, June 7th and my hope is that these maps help motivate more leaders to provide their support for the work that Tutor/Mentor Connection and now Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC have been doing for nearly 20 years.

November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Conference Map

2013-02-19T11:56:00.000-06:00

This map shows participation in the November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, held at Northwestern University. A keynote speaker at this conference was Valdis Krebs, a social network analysis expert from the Cleveland, Ohio area. He wrote this blog post showing how he had connected to Dan Bassill and the Tutor/Mentor Connection. If you read more of the articles Valdis has written about networks you can begin to see how the conferences are part of a network-building process launched by myself almost 40 years ago. See maps of additional past conferences here. Be part of the next conference. See details here.

Class Divide in Chicago - New Maps

2013-02-12T10:44:00.000-06:00

This image is from an article in The Atlantic Monthly Place Matters story titled Class-Divided Cities: Chicago Edition Maps are used to show the different economic and intellectual divisions in Chicago. There is an interactive map in this article that enables you to zoom in. This map is similar to the interactive map on the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator that enables you to build your own map, adding layers of information showing where tutor/mentor programs are most needed, and also showing what tutor/mentor programs are operating in different parts of the city.

The Tutor/Mentor Interactive map was built in 2008-09 by a team in India using part of a $50,000 donation given in November 2007 to upgrade the mapping capacity at the Tutor/Mentor Connection. We ran out of money to keep building this or updating it in spring 2009 and in 2011 the non profit hosting this project dropped it completely due to lack of funding. I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to find ways to keep it going. My team in India has disbanded and I don't have the money to bring them back, or find local talent to update the Program Locator. I'd like to find a way to connect with talent that created the map for this Atlantic Monthly article, or who could do such work. If we can update the Program Locator and add funds for marketing and teaching people to use it in Chicago, we should be able to find ways to share this with other cities without them having to build their entire system from a zero base. If you're interested in helping please introduce yourself on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in or on this Ning site.

November 1997 Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference Map

2013-02-05T14:58:00.004-06:00

Using MapAList I've been able to upload data from an Excel spreadsheet to show participation in the November 1997 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. You can interact with the map, click on icons to see what organizations were participating, and from this information get a sense of how effective the Tutor/Mentor Connection was in bringing people from different parts of the Chicago region together for this event. Total attendance for this conference was 205. This was during the time when the Montgomery Ward Corporation provided office space and funding and Public Communications, Inc. was providing Public Relations support. We've not had that level of support since 2002, yet have continued to offer the conferences. This is same map, showing organization's offering various forms of tutoring, mentoring only. Visit this page to see a complete collection of conference maps.

November 1998 Tutor/Mentor Conference Map

2013-01-31T16:23:00.000-06:00

Using MapAList I've been able to upload data from an Excel spreadsheet to show participation in the November 1998 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. You can interact with the map, click on icons to see what organizations were participating, and from this information get a sense of how effective the Tutor/Mentor Connection was in bringing people from different parts of the Chicago region together for this event. In the next few week's I'll post a few more maps from 1997-2002 and from 2007-2012 showing changes in participation due to decrease in financial support for Tutor/Mentor Connection over the past 12 years. You can also find these maps on the Conference Map page of the Tutor/Mentor Conference web site. The goal is to attract sponsors, partners and investors so we can rebuild participation to the level of the late 1990s, then expand it to reach even more people. If you'd like to do map analysis using this data, please contact me. There's lots of questions to ask, such as why are so few people from business, philanthropy, universities, faith groups, etc. involved?

MapAList - Cool Address Mapping Tool

2013-01-06T10:32:00.001-06:00

This is a new mapping application, called MapAList, that I've added to the COOL TOOLS section of the Tutor/Mentor Library.

I've been attempting to map participation in Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences held since 1994 to demonstrate the impact I've had in bringing programs together over a period of many years. This mapping can be done via a Social Network Analysis process or from a GIS mapping process (or both). I've never had consistent talent to do this work, and the tools have been pretty complex. Now that the technology is more available, I still need volunteers, interns and/or business partners to create these maps and communicate their meaning. Contact me if you'd like to become involved in this project.

NYTimes maps murder sites in Chicago!

2013-01-03T14:44:00.002-06:00

This graphic was part of a January 2, 2013 New York Times story about murder in Chicago. Does that make you feel good, fellow Chicagoans? I encourage you to browse past articles on this blog to see maps created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection over the past few years. If you compare the maps showing murders with the maps showing poverty and poorly performing schools, there is a correlation.

The maps I've created are part of a strategy. They are intended to show how community leaders, businesses, political leaders and others can support the growth of non-school tutoring, mentoring, arts, technology and jobs programs in high poverty neighborhoods. Such programs can combat offer alternative choices and support systems to youth in neighborhoods where often gangs are the only network available to youth. Maybe in a few years the NY Times and other metropolitan papers will be showing different maps, indicating the rich network of youth supports available in high poverty areas.

Twitter Network map

2012-10-01T16:39:00.002-05:00

Map showing Twitter mentions of @tutormentorteam from Oct. 2010 to Sept. 2012. http://www.twitonomy.com/map.php?id=nalhuf

No General Goes to Ward Without a Map

2012-09-28T14:40:00.002-05:00

I just uploaded this presentation. It's one that I created more than a dozen years ago to illustrate way political, business, faith and community leaders could use maps to build a distribution of k-12 tutor/mentor programs in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities.

Interactive map showing gangs in Chicago

2012-09-24T13:40:00.000-05:00

Visit this page on the WBEZ web site and find maps that show gang locations in Chicago. The map has layers of information that you can turn on and off, similar to how the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator is designed.

Chicago - Most Gangs in US?

2012-09-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

This article about Chicago gangs was posted at ChicagoMag.com. Take a look at the map of gang involvement across the USA. See larger version of map here.

I hope leaders, policy makers and philanthropists will learn to use maps like this to dedicate resources to fighting gangs and reducing the root-cause of gang involvement in places where the problem is greatest.

Place Matters - read the report. View the maps.

2012-08-14T11:51:00.001-05:00

This is one page of maps from a report titled: "Place Matters for Health in Cook County." I wrote about this on the Tutor/Mentor Blog.

In many maps posted on this site in the past few years we've shown how where you live influences what your opportunities are. This report further reinforces this.

This is an issue that should concern everyone in the Chicago region and in other metropolitan areas. Not just from a moral perspective, but from an economic one.

In the Executive Summary of the Place Matters report is this message: "A study released by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in 2009 found that direct medical costs associated with health inequities among African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans

approached $230 billion between 2003 and 2006. When

indirect costs, such as lowered productivity and lost tax revenue resulting from illness and premature death, were included, the total cost of health inequities exceeded $1.24 trillion".

If this concerns you form a learning circle in your faith group, college, business and read and discuss the report. No matter where you live on this map you have a role in changing what the map will show in the future.

e-Democracy Blog - use of maps

2012-07-04T09:12:00.004-05:00

This article on the e-Democracy.org project blog shows how GIS maps are being used in planning strategies that engage greater diversity of participants in the on-line community. Follow the links in the blog to more articles.

Mapping strategies for helping kids

2012-07-03T15:05:00.001-05:00

I hosted another Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on June 14, 2012 at First Unitarian Church in Chicago. I've been hosting these every six months since May 1994 and in every one I've shared maps like these to illustrate the vision of the Tutor/Mentor Connection for mentor-rich non-school programs to reach kids in all high poverty neighborhoods. For this vision to be achieved leaders in business, politics, religion, health, law, sports and entertainment each need to be using maps to support volunteer and donor mobilization strategies that reach programs in all parts of the region. I've not been able to make new maps for more than a year since our money ran out and we no longer have a map-maker on staff. If you'd like to join with us as a partner, sponsor or volunteer we can continue to provide the maps that others can use to support their own decision making.

Maps of Cook County Government boundaries 2012

2012-06-16T11:11:00.002-05:00

Visit this link to find maps showing the current Cook County Government boundaries and the proposed new boundaries.

With more and more people learning to use maps our hope is that they will use them to mobilize volunteer talent and dollars to support the growth of mentor-rich youth programs in areas with highest concentrations of poverty, violence and poorly performing schools.

Elected officials can provide the leadership to bring people together and focus attention on this issue and they can be held accountable by voters for what they do or do not do.

Businesses, hospitals, faith groups in a geographic area can also provide leadership and be held accountable.

Visit more of the articles on this blog to see how maps can be used. This project is in a dormant stage now since funding is no longer available to create these maps and write these stories. However the examples illustrate what is possible.

Public and Private Schools in Chicago. Create Your Own Map

2012-06-06T11:48:00.000-05:00

Great Schools offers this widget for making maps showing private schools in a city. I've mapped Chicago. If you're someone writing about public education I'd like to connect so we expand the conversation to include private schools as well as public. Maps like this can help.

Chicago schools

Illinois schools

I want this widget for my site

This map does not include poverty overlays, or show which schools are under performing, but I'm sure others may be developing map-tools to do this. The Interactive Map that the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC hosts includes these features and points to the location of non-school tutoring and/or mentoring programs. However, our map has not been updated in three years and without the resources to do this we can't expand it's impact.

On-Line Social Mapping Ideas

2012-05-23T14:31:00.000-05:00

I first met Jim Cory of Horizon Mapping in Madison, Wisconsin around 2000 via an on-line discussion hosted by the Global Bank. He mentioned that he was doing some work with mapping so I sent him an introduction and asked if he could help me. Jim has been building maps for me for 10 years and helped create the first map gallery and interactive maps.

This map story is one that Jim did for me several years ago.

It's part of a "Rest of the News" strategy which I've been promoting since 1994 as an effort to turn "bad news" media stories into advertising that draws volunteers and resource providers into neighborhoods where tutor/mentor programs are needed. Without having help from GIS volunteers like Jim I could not be making these maps.

I recently asked what he knew about creating Google maps. After a bit of research Jim created this page, which is a tutorial that anyone can use.

I've already added a map to the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum, which will add to the network analysis work my interns have been doing. These maps will show where people in the forum come from and will hopefully help those located in the same parts of the world connect and share ideas and resources with each other.

Thanks Jim. I'll be sure to integrate these ideas into future mapping and network building that I do.