For the project, I will be focusing on hospitals in the Chicago area and their relation to redlining. This would start with using redlining maps as a basis and finding all currently operated hospitals in the Chicago area. I am only going to include hospitals with emergent care and trauma units at first to keep the scale manageable. I believe it would be best to create a story map for this project as I will be discussing redlining and its effect on the current landscape of Chicago’s hospitals. I also want to be able to include anecdotes about hospitals and their individual histories (mainly the major ones I find). I will be using the redlining maps of Chicago as well as current google maps for the hospitals. I will also be utilizing secondary and primary sources for background on redlining and individual hospitals. I also want to see if there are any hospitals that “failed” in the Chicago area if possible.
The story map will make the most sense as I am not creating a direct timeline but only examining current maps within the context of redlining. The only thing I really have to be mindful of is to not attribute everything to redlining and make sure I do a good background of the individual areas that seem to lack hospital care. Another factor to consider is response time to emergent calls. It is hard to get accurate data on the usual amount of time it takes an ambulance to get to a trauma unit but there are a few hospitals that have this data and it would be interesting to include this if possible.
Mainly this project would focus on the lasting effects of redlining that go beyond demographics which is what I typically see. It is also in similar effects to food dessert maps that it will bring attention to one of the necessary structures that people need to live. It could also be interesting to include food desert maps (not of my own making) but in reference to the map, I make and compare them. Overall it’s worth examining the access people have to emergent care as it’s one of the structures that save lives in communities.
I think this is a solid, fairly straightforward project and I know you’ve already found some interesting data to support it. You can find the redlining maps (including those that are predigitized) here: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/39.1/-94.58&text=downloads
Although tracking change over time via mapping isn’t super necessary here, I think you SHOULD track change over time in these neighborhoods using documents. Are the hospitals today the only hospitals that have ever served these communities? Perhaps, but probably not. Omaha just lost a hospital in midtown (Creighton’s), which left a big gap in the healthcare of the area (only partly replaced by the student clinic). There’s a story there, in other words, and I would encourage you to use your MAPs to highlight the geospatial side of the story (emphasis on the present), but texts (primary sources like newspaper will be helpful, do you know how to access them?) and secondary sources are necessary as well. Reach out to me about this stage of the final project when you need help!