By Kenneth Yeung, U of T Student
To recap: I am a fourth year Urban Studies student at the University of Toronto and I am currently taking INI 437, a fourth year internship/ seminar course. During reading week, I, along with 10 of my classmates and the instructor, travelled to New York City for one of our class field trips. From the tour at the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side to a lecture at the Skyscraper Museum, this ‘learning outside the classroom experience’ has given me a valuable opportunity to learn more about New York City.

The Harlem walking tour was one of the most memorable group activities during my time in New York City. The tour was led by Neal, a native Harlemite who spoke of culture and historical development of Harlem. During the tour, Neal introduced us to one particular teenager on the street, who he calls his nephew. Neal said that teenagers like his nephew in Harlem are equally respectable because many of these teenagers are often misrepresented by the media based on their fashion. Besides the great stories told, I am impressed by Neal’s engagement with his community. Neal emphasized the importance of social media and the pivotal role social media has towards the community and civic participation. For instance, Neal recognizes that Harlem is currently experiencing a period of gentrification and he advocates the use of social media, like Facebook and blogs, among youths to raise concerns over gentrification in order to protect the cultural heritage of Harlem.

I finally realized that the use of social media is a global social phenomenon. From the uprising in Egypt to the use of social media in Harlem, I see a connection to my internship project. In particular, a significant part of my internship involves a long-term project whose goal is to create a way for Framework to visualizes emerging causes and trends that helps Canadians connect to causes they care about. The collection will consist of a series of open interactive maps that can be easily shared with other users. By creating open data, it is easier for Framework to ‘bring people to causes and causes to people’.

By Kenneth Yeung, U of T Student

If you recall from a few months back, I had concluded that Google Maps was the best option for creating mobile and interactive maps for my long-term mapping project as an intern at Framework. However, after creating several sample maps, we re-evaluated its capabilities as we realized that Google Maps cannot visualize different layers on a single base map; hence my project was put on hold until we found a more robust software.

Click here to view on of my early maps.

After a little more market research, we were able to find an alternative mapping software named Rhiza Labs to carry out my project. The Rhiza Insight GIS mapping software enable users, like myself, with no prior GIS experience, to collect data and create maps to tell a story. For my project, I am using Calgary’s 2010 Vital Signs data and information set as a template to visualize some of the emerging trends and causes happening in the city. In particular, the Calgary Vital Signs shows measures of quality of life in 12 key issue areas such as food, and environment. My task is to visualize these key issue areas to see emerging trends in the city. For example, I’ve collected the locations of all the community gardens in Calgary to show the growth of local food gardens in different communities.

There are four main reasons why we decided to use Rhiza Insight to carry out my project. First, Rhiza Insight enables users to map out data quickly. The multiple layers over a single base map create an effective visualization capacity for presentations. Second, it is easy to import data from spreadsheets, shape files and other file formats. Third, this mapping software allows users to customize their maps in order to make them more visually appealing. Last but not least, the finished maps can be previewed using the Google Earth application, which creates the opportunity to create an engaging presentation for the audiences. Hopefully my Calgary Vital Signs presentation will be shown at the 6th Calgary Timeraiser in June.