Dreaming of fat maps

Eau Claire County in Wisconsin USA is a typical case of the increasing use of mapping to identify trends in neighbourhoods which can lead to practical action (but could they really have nearly two-thirds of their population overweight or obese? Really?):

To see if there’s a possible connection between obesity and the physical environment, the city is considering making a map showing areas where obesity is high...(and) if these neighborhoods have inadequate recreational amenities, a lack of nutritious food options or other physical barriers to fitness.

A roadblock to creating this map is that local-level data could be hard to come by...

The draft plan states the measure of this would be body-mass-index -- a ratio comparing height to weight. A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight, while 30 and above are classified as obese.

A quarter of Eau Claire County residents are obese, according to surveys done between 2000 and 2010 by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Another 37 percent of county residents are overweight and 37 percent of county residents have a BMI below 25...

Wait, does Tarzan even have a neighbourhood?

The LA Times in the USA has a fantastic attempt at describing neighbourhoods, which uses interesting maps technology and their readers' direct involvement: to create an "objective" approach that takes into account local views. Some of the comments, though, were a little strange...

Powered by Leaflet — Map data: Copyright Google, 2011

This is how I always envisioned my Tarzana plantation.

— Edgar Rice Burroughs
about Tarzana
posted February 19, 2009 at 5:36 p.m.

What is Community?

Community has become increasingly central as a focus for sustainability action in Australia with numerous initiatives and policies targeting the community as both the beneficiary and the agent of change; for example there is the Sustainable Communities Initiative, the National framework of Green Star Communities and the Community Energy Efficiency Programme to name but a few, In short community is currently somewhat of a catch phrase within the field of urban sustainability policy - and intuitively it feels good. 

Community focused action seems to represent a positive step-change away from traditional top-down legislation towards policy that aims to empower people and give them ownership over their future - something rare in a world dominated by big business interests and in which the citizen is viewed largely as a passive consumer. But what is this unit we are aiming to empower? If we pause for a minute to consider what a community actually is, it all starts to get a little foggy.

Thinking about neighbourhoods

Why are we looking at neighbourhoods? And, indeed, what are neighbourhoods, exactly?

Researchers have no consensus on definitions for neighbourhoods. Dictionaries typically come up with the following:

neighbourhood US, neighborhood [ˈneɪbəˌhʊd]

n

1. the immediate environment; surroundings; vicinity Related adj vicinal

2. a district where people live

3. the people in a particular area; neighbours

4. neighbourly feeling

neighbourhood

noun

1. district, community, quarter, region, surroundings, locality, locale It seemed like a good neighbourhood to raise my children.

2. vicinity, confines, proximity, precincts, environs, purlieus the loss of woodlands in the neighbourhood of large towns

Researchers then try to modify the noun by using something like “walking neighbourhood”. This is sometimes supposed to be around 1 -2 kilometres in diameter from the home. Even this has been recently challenged as too large a space when matched to the actual walking habits of residents in a town in the UK.