Affordable Living

https://nhiavang.carto.com/viz/66b0a21e-7980-11e6-810a-0ee66e2c9693/public_map (Links to an external site.)

by Nhia V.

A safe and affordable living situation has always been an important part to me. For this project I want to focus on creating an environmental friendly, affordable and safe neighborhood and housing.  I figured that it would be important to choose and locate where current public schools are located, grocery stores play a huge role in jobs and food source for a neighborhood and last of all where are there currently affordable housing. The map would serve well as a foundation to a research proposal for creating safe, efficient and affordable housing

Hospitality Guestroom Technology

by Olive T.

Nowadays the internet covers every part of the city, although high-speed broadband can be found only in the downtown as illustrated as highlighted zones on the map. These areas showed the highest potential to cooperate IOT technology with the hospitality industry. Moreover, City attractions and hotel buildings which respectively illustrated as yellow and orange points also represent the potential of the users’ volume. As present days many sightseeings provide information and special events online, it would highly benefit for hotel guests to able to access this data through hotel IOT devices.

online map : https://oillyidol.carto.com/viz/0536919a-7865-11e6-a61a-0ecd1babdde5/public_map (Links to an external site.)

Green Roofs, an Opiate for the Rich?

by Rebekah T.

At first glance on a small-scaled map, green roofs look to be overlapping many national historic register districts. However, upon closer examination- green roofs and historic districts seldom overlap, especially considering the number of green roofs in Chicago. Green roofs then, could be assumed a more contemporary design practice- one that would not often be supported by preservation advocates. Where green roofs do overlap historic districts, it is likely that they occur on buildings that are non-contributing to the district.  

Green Roofs have a tendency to be focused in more-wealthy Community Areas, which is ironically also where historic districts tend to be focused. As visible on the small-scaled map, the most concentrated portion of green roofs is near the loop and radiates out much like the CTA lines. Moving to the north is the second densest area of green roofs. Also visible in this map is the average electricity usage per community area. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any correlation between green roof concentration and reduced energy consumption. However, many factors, including incomplete or insufficient data could be skewing the results.

Food Safety

by Liang S.

https://lsu.carto.com/viz/bb8db162-79c8-11e6-bc53-0e3ebc282e83/public_map

 

This is a map regarding food safety and business licenses issued from May 1st to the present, as well as food cart locations in chicago area. This subject is particularly interests me because there has been more than three businesses forced shut down due to illegal licensing issues in the past year alone. The red dots simulate food inspections while green hexagons simulate business licenses issued within the past 4 months. There are a few blue dots indicating foot cart locations but from personal experience there is known to be more food carts around chicago so the data set is rather inaccurate and the business licensing as well as food inspection not over lapping some of the food cart location makes use wonder how safe are the food we consume and how many businesses are running illegally. 

Public Amenities, an Answer to Crime?

by Melis S.

https://isilmelissimsek.carto.com/viz/762ae238-79ce-11e6-be68-0ef7f98ade21/public_map (Links to an external site.)

 

Crime and illegal activity that are happening in the neighborhoods, I feel is a big issue especially in urban environments. It disables the way we use our limited outdoor spaces. With this map that I am creating I am trying to study if creating an environment of neighborhood space/garden helps us reduce the crime and illegal activity that is going on? Does having a Police office helps keep the peace and with protect the neighborhood spaces?

Communication Windows: Connecting Communites, Erasing Borders

by Suzie S.

The purpose of this map is to understand the necessity for residents in Chicago to have a “communication window” at home to communicate with their loved ones living far away. Since people who live alone and people who came from far away (which often overlap with people who speak a different language) are the ones who need long-distance communication the most, the three databases I used are “Languages Spoken in Chicago,” “Selected Socioeconomic Indicators in Chicago,” and “Boundaries- Community Areas.” The statistics that I picked up from the databases include every community’s percent of housing crowded, per house income, predominant non-English language, and foreign language speakers. Through the map, it is obvious that residents along lakeshore tend to live with fewer people and also tend to have more incomes, while communities with more foreign language speakers tend to have relatively lower average income. According to the map, the two conditions, which are “residents who live with few people or live alone ” and “residents who speak a foreign language,” are more contrary than overlapping with each other, so in this project, they would possibly be two separate groups of potential consumers.

Parks and Schools, a Disconnect?

by Anna S.

In this map I combined datasets of the public schools of Chicago, locations of public parks in the city, and public works of art. During my presentation, I discussed a network of architects and architecture students, thinking of it as more social than internet-oriented. My idea was to connect people to each other rather than to devices. And because I found it increasingly difficult to find datasets and maps that pertained to architecture students specifically, I decided to connect schools, art, and public places. I’ve found that one of the places where people can connect intimately in an unstructured environment is public park space. The gathering of people in one small setting immediately connects them in a geographical sense, and with the dawn of social applications such as Pokemon Go people are bonding face-to-face now more than they have in recent years. The way that art ties in is the attraction of people towards aesthetics and towards eye-catching landmarks. People naturally gravitate towards things that interest them and this common interest in art and in various icons in public space intrinsically unites them.

I also thought it might be enticing to see if there was a relationship between these public spaces and schools. There is hardly an environment in which people bond and create close relationships as effectively as school, and as I wanted to examine particularly the connections between architecture students I thought it could be a good idea to expand that study to a larger group of students. What I found interesting in mapping these three sets of data is that there does not seem to be a lot of schools near public parks or works of art. There is certainly a correlation between public art and parks- most public pieces are displayed in parks, after all. But it doesn’t seem that parks and schools influence each other. Or, rather, they seem to have an inverse correlation; in places heavy with parks and greenery there are exceedingly few schools (see: the Millennium Park/Grant Park area, the Jackson Park area).

Thinking Smart, Smart Rooms that Is

by Emily S.

Considering my proposal for a “smart room”, which would modify the AC, lighting, and shading of the room to maximize comfort levels for the people using the space, this map touches on a few Chicago data sets that could help the case for this proposal. First, the purple dots represent the city park department buildings. This helps to grasp the idea of the amount of buildings that could benefit from this idea, even though it does not represent each specific building. Secondly, the red dots represent the different community areas in Chicago that could significantly benefit the community with this idea. Lastly, the yellow dots represent the affordable housing developments. With this being the most ideal housing option for the majority of the area, adding this proposal to residences would increase comfort levels for many people. This map outlines areas where this “smart room” could be greatly affected in a positive way.