Don Lafreniere

Racist housing practices as a precursor to uneven neighborhood change in a post-industrial city

Abstract Racial dynamics and discrimination have been extremely important in influencing decline in the American Rust Belt. The mid-twentieth century departure of white and middle-class populations from cities was precipitated by a breakdown of discriminatory housing practices. This study examines the relationship among housing condition, vacancies, poverty, and demographics in Flint, Michigan, from 1950 to 2010. Historical census data from the National Historical GIS and housing condition data from the City of Flint government are aggregated to neighborhoods defined by economic condition factor (n = 102). Results of rank-difference correlation and geographically weighted regression indicate that, across neighborhoods with the greatest decline in housing condition, the strongest correlate was most often the increase in vacancy rates driven initially by racially motivated suburbanization – suggesting that demographic change alone is not primarily responsible for neighborhood decline. This research is important to understanding the long-term and ongoing consequences of mid-twentieth century racist housing practices, particularly as it relates to the implications of maintaining legacy infrastructure.

Rescaling the Past through Mosaic Historical Cartography

Abstract Please click here to download the map associated with this article. Researchers of our past have long used historical maps to place events and to uncover the physical form of an area. A series of maps may be employed to understand a region beyond the extent of a single map. However, rarely are these maps included in publications of research findings. At best, a modern cartographic reproduction will be created to depict the research area. Our maps, created for a historical atlas of Sandwich, Ontario, Canada, are noteworthy for their use of original historical maps in a mosaic to recreate the past. Our objective was to overcome the international boundary between Canada and the United States, a borderland that has succumbed to vast generalizations on the part of the cartographers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through the use of ArcGIS, we georectified and fixed the extent of our maps, creating a series of maps that depict the changing urban growth of Sandwich over 200 years. This methodology can be extended to allow for the cartographic visualization of economic, political, social and spatial relationships that exist beyond a single map.

You are where you live: Methodological challenges to measuring children’s exposure to hazards

ABSTRACT Many of the challenges that affect children living in poverty are directly related to the neighborhoods in which they live. Places that inhibit healthy living and those that expose children to environmental pollution tend to more heavily affect children in poverty. This environmental injustice is a natural concern of the fields of urban planning, geography, and children’s health. Yet many decisions that affect opportunities for healthy living are made without a full understanding of how neighborhood context influences such opportunities. In this brief, we paint inequalities in child health outcomes as a spatial problem, review some of the geospatial tools used by urban planners and geographers, discuss common reasons for misclassification or misrepresentation of spatially explicit problems, and propose more suitable methods for measuring opportunities and exposures germane to the field of child poverty. Throughout, we emphasize the need for evidence-driven, spatially grounded responses to child poverty issues with a spatial dimension.

Creating a longitudinal, data-driven 3D model of change over time in a postindustrial landscape using GIS and CityEngine

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to create a longitudinal data-driven model of change over time in a postindustrial landscape, using the “Copper Country” of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as a case study. The models resulting from this project will support the heritage management and public education goals of the contemporary communities and Keweenaw National Historical Park that administer this nationally significant mining region through accessible, engaging, and interpretable digital heritage. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies Esri’s CityEngine procedural modeling software to an existing historical big data set. The Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure, previously created by the HESA lab, contains over 120,000 spatiotemporally specific building footprints and other built environment variables. This project constructed a pair of 3D digital landscapes comparing the built environments of 1917 and 1949, reflecting the formal and functional evolution of several of the most important copper mining, milling, and smelting districts of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. Findings This research discovered that CityEngine, while intended for rapid 3D modeling of the contemporary urban landscape, was sufficiently robust and flexible to be applied to modeling serial historic industrial landscapes. While this novel application required some additional coding and finish work, by harnessing this software to existing big data sets, 48,000 individual buildings were rapidly visualized using several key variables. Originality/value This paper presents a new and useful application of an existing 3D modeling software, helping to further illuminate and inform the management and conservation of the rich heritage of this still-evolving postindustrial landscape.