Mapping Neighbourhood Displacement

There are many studies and projects about how infrastructure and policy displace people. Whether changing neighbourhoods through gentrification or destroying entire neighbourhoods for highways, policies often target people based on race or economic status. Whether intentionally or not, those policies don’t consider the impacts on affected groups.

Last month I helped Collin Yarbrough create a map for his book, “Paved A Way”. In it, he discusses infrastructure, policy, and racism, while learning about the history of the Central Expressway in Dallas and the neighbourhoods affected by its construction.

Collin already had the data prepared in ArcGIS with layers pulled from the City of Dallas GIS Services page. He sent me files containing roads and rivers, clipped to the area of interest for his book, and with attributes required for labelling. He had also manually digitized the neighbourhood boundaries and added landmark points.

Collin was under a time crunch because his book was heading to the publisher in a couple of weeks, and his publisher suggested a map to show readers the location of neighbourhoods affected by highway construction.

He needed help styling the map and preparing it for publication. I styled the roads and neighbourhoods, labelled highways and neighbourhoods, numbered the landmarks and created a legend. 

For more information, follow Collin on Instagram or Facebook, and buy “Paved A Way” on Amazon.

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