Map Making Process: Sample Cartography Project

Steavi Swinson

Northeastern University

GIS/Cartography

Before I begin explaining my map making process, it is important that I define my “Big 5”. My message is intended to create awareness. This map will be highlighting which neighborhoods are seeing high or low crime activity. I will be creating an awareness map because I do not believe enough people are educated about what is happening in their surroundings. A lot of people don’t really read or watch the news anymore because they feel that it is too negative. And for those that do watch the news, all the news media does is highlight all the bad that is happening around the world; influencing people to believe that bad things happen, more often than they actually are. No one ever reports that some places are doing well and seeing no crime. Therefore, I think it is important to create awareness about what is actually happening around people, so they are not misinformed. My audience will be the city of Waltham residents. My venue will be online, and my medium is going to be viewed as a JPEG at a 96DPI, in layout view.

This project has truly been a challenge for me. I have never paid so much attention to producing a “perfect” final medium in my map, and never have I changed my mind so many times in a project. But, in the end, I think I truly learned a lot. To start off, one concept that I have seemed to struggle with throughout this course is the Big 5 itself. For one, because before this class I haven’t heard of it. I think the reason being is that majority of projects that I have done in the past have always been generalized, and focused more on content. But in this case, throughout this course, I’ve needed to focus on being more specific and creating a specific detailed map, with a specific message, and for a specific audience; and to be honest I think this was a big struggle for me at the beginning. Since then, after producing several drafts, I think I have been able to narrow it down. My original message was to prove to citizens that parks are dangerous, because parks are where most crimes happen. I wanted to create a map suggesting safer alternatives. However, my data did not support this theory at all, therefore I had to change my message. While my medium and venue have stayed the same, my message, purpose, and audience have changed, in a way I believe my data can support my new proposal. As a result of working with the “Big 5” throughout the semester, I believe I have a much better understanding of it.

It wasn’t until reading the comments of the self-critique that I really looked at the map, and said my data doesn’t support my message. Therefore, I had to change my message. Next, I tried analyzing crime data in relation to educational institutions. But, once I looked at the data, I saw that all the crime is centralized towards the bottom center of the map and majority of the educational institutions were located towards the southern part of the map. Ultimately, after analyzing my data, in relation to parks, educational institutions, government buildings, commercial districts, etc. I felt that it was best to change my message to be an informative map for the public, telling them where the most crime happens and what kind of crime their neighborhoods are seeing. I decided this because after analyzing my data, I saw that there were no trends or patterns within the crime data relating to parks, educational institutions, government buildings, etc. In consequence to this, I had to talk about what my map was actually showing. And as a result of this, I felt that I needed to change the visual of my map, to meet my new map proposal.

Since my map purpose is to create awareness and inform the residents, I decided that adding a table describing what kind of crimes occur in the area was a good idea, because this gives the map a more informative aspect for the residents of Waltham. Crime happens everywhere, but no one knows what kind and for parents with children, they usually assume the worst. So I thought it would be a good idea to include the type of crimes to occur in their city, that way people are informed and know how to prepare or better protect themselves. I myself was a little shocked to see what kind of crime occurred within this year of data as well. Knowing that this city is in the Boston area, I thought I would be seeing harsher crimes such as kidnapping, rape, or homicide. I was very surprised to not see any homicide cases within an entire year. These are much simpler crimes, and I think it is important that the residents know which crimes are happening in their vicinity. For example, robbery, burglary, and larceny is the most popular crime, right before breaking and entering. It is important for residents to know that breaking and entering is happening a lot in their area, to better protect themselves. And with the density surface map, residents can clearly see which neighborhoods are being effected, and it looks to be that only Banks Square and Southside neighborhoods are seeing more than 75% of the crime, so these are the neighborhoods that need to be more aware to better protect themselves.

I believe adding a subtitle for my map was necessary. For locals to see what kind of analysis was performed, although they may not understand. For the locals to know analysis was performed on this data, and this data did not come from ‘thin air’. Generally, I simplified my data a lot for an easier understanding to my audience. Overall, I feel my map is appropriate and creates a visual hierarchy that I feel is suitable for my audience.