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Outside the Neatline
If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out ESRI’s interactive map of Hurricanes & Cyclones. This robust web application includes Irene’s track, social media as well as your choice of basemaps. This app is a great example of how far GIS has come in being able to incorporate near real-time data with geographic location.
Sextante is a Java-based geospatial data analysis library. It currently contains over 300 algorithms for data processing, performs both raster and vector analyses, and will soon be compatible with ESRI’s ArcGIS. Check out these two videos for more!
Visit the Sextante Blog for future updates…
This is the fourth in a series of posts on web-based maps developed by the University of Connecticut Libraries Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) for the On The Line project.
Today’s posting on interactive maps showcases the Race Restrictive Covenants in Property Deeds, Hartford area, 1940s, which exemplifies the use of Geospatial technologies in the humanities. Geospatial technology allows us to show historic data in new and interesting ways and enables the user to see the data from a new perspective. Working with Professor Jack Dougherty at Trinity College, MAGIC developed this digital map as part of the On The Line project, a public history of schooling, housing, and civil rights in the Hartford metropolitan region.
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| Click image to explore our Race Restrictive Covenants Map |
Restrictive covenants are barriers — typically against African-Americans, Jews, or Catholics — that were written into property deeds by individual home owners or real estate developers, to legally block them from owning or occupying housing. In 1921, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of private property owners to insert these restrictions, but when challenged by civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, it eventually ruled in the 1948 Shelley v Kraemer case that these restrictions were no longer enforceable by governmental authority. Yet restrictive language still exist in the legal paper trail of property records. Based on their search of property records in West Hartford, Professor Dougherty and a Trinity student researcher, Katie Campbell, so far have found 5 examples of racial restrictive covenants in suburban housing developments from the early 1940s. Click the map above to see the location of each covenant, with a link to scanned source document.
For example, the developer of High Ledge Homes, located near South Main Street in West Hartford, inserted this restriction when filing the property deed in June 1940:
“No persons of any race except the white race shall use or occupy any building on any lot except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race employed by an owner or tenant.”
While students generally learn about the history of segregation in Southern and border states, this map reveals a hidden chapter in our history of the North. Racially restrictive covenants have been extensively documented in other northern cities, such as Chicago, Detroit, and Seattle. In their digital history website, the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, students and faculty from the University of Washington built community awareness that helped to pass a 2006 state law making it easier for homeowners associations to rid themselves of these historical racial covenants.
Within the Hartford region, can you help us find other examples of restrictive covenants by race, religion, or nationality? Do you recall seeing or hearing about similar barriers in the property deed of a family member or neighbor? If so, please post a comment on the On The Line website or contact MAGIC via email.
The cartographic layer for the Race Restrictive Covenants in Hartford area, 1940s: A Map with Linked Documents map was created using ESRI’s ArcMap software. Professor Dougherty and Katie Campbell from Trinity College located housing development deeds in West Hartford, CT containing restrictive language.
Using the deeds, we digitized the location of housing developments that contained restrictive covenants, and then exported the shapefile as a KMZ file using ArcGIS ArcToolbox conversion tool. We then edited the individual pop-up balloons using Google Earth and added HTML code to link PDF documents of the property deeds and to improve the overall display of the data, and then this layer was saved as a KMZ file. This is similar to the customization of the Redlining in Hartford KMZ discussed in a previous blog posting. We also integrated a point file for each housing development with restrictive covenants in West Hartford, CT to enhance the geographic visibility of the five developments.
The linked documents map utilizes the Google Maps JavaScript API V3 and custom javascript code by Ben Spaulding and Thomas Bachant. The interactive map interface overlays our content on a Google Maps interface.
Coming next in this series — Home Value Index in the Hartford Region, 1910-2007: An Animated Time Slider Map
Last week, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted to establish a committee of experts to manage international cooperation regarding geospatial infrastructure. This press release highlights the diverse applications of GIS for the UN including analyzing climate change, natural disaster response and preparedness as well as managing population displacement, food and economic crises and pandemics. For more, visit the United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management.
Geospatial Technology, particularly in the past decade, has become more intuitive and user-friendly. This, in turn, has catalyzed the growth of a community of users that span a wide range of disciplines. Here, at the University of Connecticut Libraries’ Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC), much of what we work on is related to producing or preserving historical spatial data. This includes digitizing and georeferencing historical maps, producing cartographic layers from historical census data and making historical aerial imagery available to the public. We hope that by doing this, we can not only be of service to the traditional users of GIS, but also to those who are breaking new ground and finding novel applications for spatial analysis.
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| A Viewshed Analysis showing General Robert E. Lee’s perspective on the second day of fighting at Gettysburg. This recent NYT article describes research done at Middlebury College by Geographer Anne Kelly Knowles |
The disciplines comprising the humanities, including but not limited to Anthropology, History, and Literature, have recently shown an affinity toward employing spatial analysis techniques. This New York Times article has received much attention lately, as it highlights the use of GIS by scholars to improve their understanding of historical events (such as Gettysburg and The Dust Bowl). A project at the University of Virginia Library, entitled Spatial Humanities, works to encourage this integration of spatial technology in the humanities. In May 2010, the UVA Library hosted an event “The Scholars’ Lab/NEH Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship”. Follow this link to view two minute, three slide Lightning Talks from this event for more examples of spatial humanities projects and works in progress.
Spatially-enabling the humanities is not limited to scholars, however, and Google products have become a great tool for integrating a spatial dynamic for K-12. Google Lit Trips, which is a project that compiles cartographic layers related to Literature, is a great example of this.
At the University of Connecticut, we hope to do our part in contributing to this digitally-enabled spatial revolution in the humanities. Over the past two years, MAGIC has worked closely with Professor Jack Dougherty from Trinity College to produce cartographic products for On The Line: How Schooling, Housing and Civil Rights Shaped Hartford and its Suburbs.
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| Redlining, or discriminatory lending practices by geographic area, was a driving factor that shaped the Hartford Region. MAGIC helped to produce cartographic layers for On The Line that visually portray these policies. |
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| PSI’s Interactive Map shows the organizations Areas of Interest |
Check out this article that details a “Crisis Management App” that first responders in Marietta, Georgia use in emergencies. The application, developed with ESRI’s ArcView 10 and Adobe Flex, is designed to be used by non-GIS experts. Although it is designed for easy functionality, the capabilities of the application remain rich. Users (first responders) can add features, such as incidents and roadblocks in addition to accessing imagery and live video stream.
Also, be sure to check out this CNN article that details the growing use of Social Media in times of disaster. Russ Johnson, the director for public safety and homeland security for ESRI, is quoted throughout the article describing how these tools can help emergency resources be deployed more efficiently in time sensitive situations.
The Urban Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) and the University of South Florida’s National Center for Transit Resarch at the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) have announced the details to the 2011 GIS in Public Transportation Conference, which is September 13-15, 2011 at the Hilton Bayfront in St. Petersburg, Florida. The conference is still accepting poster submissions.
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| The SNAP Retailer Locator is one of the GIS applications the USDA has developed |
Recently, CNN featured this article describing the efforts in Iraq to protect the nation’s historic sites. Alongside the Iraq State Board of Antiquities, the Getty Conservation Institute and the World Monuments Fund are developing MEGA-Iraq; MEGA being an acronym for “Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Heritage”. These applications use Google Maps as a base map and layers regarding the historic sites are created by the parties involved. The goal is to help manage these sites of antiquity in addition to limiting the illegal trade of artifacts. MEGA-Jordan (pictured above) is already live and running, and can be visited by clicking here.