Making Maps - Action/Reflection Project

ACTION

One good way to unpack the organization and function of the city is to get out and study it. Diagram a city block near to your church at a busy part of your city or town. It should preferably be a block with mixed use, with features such as: retail businesses, residential buildings, restaurants, services, specialty shops, etc. Please make sure to include both sides of the street, i.e. both sides of each side of the block.

·   Downtowns are often not the best idea. Many downtowns in America can be somewhat dead, and yield little information for a local church. In addition, our interest is in reconnecting the church to its community, not downtown.

·    Once you have discovered a place to study near your place of ministry, be sure to check everywhere you see services: retail, social, and religious. Including in your search: alleys, basements (where applicable), particularly multiple floors, etc.

·   Identify the businesses (the position, size, and type of the business), offices, civic buildings, social service agencies, traffic patterns and parking, bus stops, fences and barriers, vacant lots, parks, single family homes, apartments, etc. on the block. Include any businesses, professionals, etc., found in multi-storied buildings.

·   Identify the physical/ spatial placement of objects (both utilitarian, and symbolic).

·   Show the use of space, symbols, barriers, people movements, etc.

REFLECTION

One example comes from when we lived in Southern California. I took a class of graduate students on a walk around one city block in Pasadena’s civic center adjacent to Fuller Seminary. We walked by a Japanese museum, City Hall, a large indoor shopping mall, restaurants, a pharmacy, the main police station, several large office buildings, and more. Most of the critical elements of urban function and organization were found in that one square block.

Use several sheets of paper to jot down your findings. Draw the block on a poster-sized piece of cardboard, and place each of items you found where they belong on the map. Finally, interpret your diagram. Ask questions like, “How does what I discovered on this block instruct me about how this city is organized and functions?” “Why is that particular business, store, home, etc. in that particular place?” “How can the placement of the buildings, the space, and the symbols I found, affect the lives of those who use the block?”

Resource:

Crane, Julia G., and M. V. Angrosino. Field Projects in Anthropology: A Student Handbook. 2^nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 1984.

Making Maps

History and Development

The Chicago School introduced the art of map making. Robert Park, one of the school’s founders, was optimistic about the value of studying the city in miniature to discover ecological inter-dependency:

"In these great cities, where all the passions, all the energies of mankind are released, we are in a position to investigate the process of civilization, as it were, under a microscope."[1]

Burgess, also of the Chicago School, analyzed the city of Chicago and suggested that the city could be divided up into five more or less concentric zones. He also included geographical, man-made, and topological factors in his analysis.

He wrote that map making is an excellent device which gives one a readily understandable reason for establishing contacts with people.[2]

We have used the phrase, “They live on the other side of the tracks,” referring to landmark which divided different classes of people. Freeways and Interstates in our cities, today, can divide in the same way. Maps, if done well, can enable us to look beneath the surface of just about any context and observe additional layers of meaning, which are significant for ministry.

The Method and Practice

We want your map to be as useful as possible in helping you to understand the way people who live in the community where you minister there interact with each other.

Some have said that eight square blocks in a city is a good area to work with. But that is expandable. It can also be shrunk in highly concentrated and diversified areas (Times Square for example).

There are several types of criteria which can be worked into maps. One can group them into major categories:

Geographical

·   Railroads,

·   Roads, paths, and alleys

·   Rivers, streams, lakes, oceans

·   Hills, etc.

·   Cemeteries

Public Systems

·   Bus depots

·   Railroad stations

·   Public transportation

·   Schools

·   Airports

·   Public medical clinics

·   Hospitals

Government Services

·   Social-service agencies

·   Police stations

·   Fire stations

·   Postal facilities

·   Government offices

Retail Services

·   Businesses

·   Shops

·   Gas stations

·   Supermarkets

·   Mom and Pop stores

·   Doctor’s and lawyer’s offices

Industries

·   Factories

·   Warehouses

Neighborhoods

·   Single-family homes

·   Apartments

·   Churches

Religious Activity

          ·         Churches

         ·         Storefronts

         ·         Mosques

         ·         Religious non-profits

As long this list is, it is not exhaustive. For this reason, don’t try to include every category in any one map. Use several maps, if necessary, but don’t attempt too much on a single map.

Putting Together Your Map

Remember the following four things that should be part of your map:

·   Orientation

·   Date of the map

·   An indication of the scale used

·   A key or a legend

Once you have recorded the data, it is necessary to begin asking questions of your data. Look at the big picture and ask the journalistic questions: “Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why.” “What are the services in this picture, and where are they located in the community?” “Are there any?” “Why?” “Why not?“ “How does geography (include man-made geography: interstates, bridges, gentrification, urban renewal, parks, etc.) alter the way people interact?”

Select important features and play down or eliminate nonessential ones. Doing so is a vital part of map construction and assessment.

The scale of the map is important, because the scale sets limits on the amount of information that can be included. Remember, all maps are reductions, but a map that is too small will overly limit the things you can include.[3]

If you have too large an area or too concentrated data, one solution would be to make more than one map of the area. Another possibility is to use larger paper, resize it, or paste it together, and copy it as many times as needed. Another idea would be to use clear overlays to show the locations of specific categories.

Note that the map you are constructing may include areas that are markedly different in:

·   Ethnic composition

·   Degree of economic well-being

·   Population density

·   Household size, or

·   Other important variables”

It often helps to use different colored pens. Again, it may also be beneficial to use clear overlays for demographics (ethnicity, ages, family, homeowners, lifestyles, etc.).

Map making has, of late, been criticized as being of no value in adding new information, but for a church trying to get the lay of the land it can be very valuable.

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[1] Robert E. Park, “Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” AJS 33:6 (May 1928), p.890.

[2] Burgess, E. W. and D. J. Bogue, eds. Contributions to Urban Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, p. 30.

[3] Crane, Julia G., and M. V. Angrosino. Field Projects in Anthropology: A Student Handbook. 2^nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 1984.