Welcome to the GIS for Equity & Social Justice Group – Let’s get started!

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04-20-2020 08:36 AM
MargotBordne
Esri Contributor

Welcome and thanks for joining the GIS for Equity & Social Justice Group on GeoNet.  In this group, members can find a community of people who are leveraging GIS to advance equity and social justice. This is a space for members to collaborate, share their work, connect with other professionals, ask questions, participate in discussions, share successes and challenges, and learn about relevant events. The Esri administrators of the group, Clinton Johnson and Margot Bordne, will also share the latest information and resources from Esri on this topic. 

To get started, we invite you to first review the group features and overview page and familiarize yourself with the group info, admins, and GeoNet 101 information in the left column.  As you explore the group, you’ll also find tools to connect and collaborate so we encourage you to use them to share files, create blogs, ask/answer questions and read the latest blogs posts and join discussions. 

Next, we invite you to post a comment below to introduce yourself, share about the work you do, and something you hope to gain from this space. 

We’re excited to connect and collaborate with you and we look forward to seeing your contributions.

- Clinton & Margot

26 Replies
MargotBordne
Esri Contributor

Hi Esther West‌, no worries on the delayed reply  Veronica Velez recently spoke at the GIS for Equity & Social Justice SIG at the UC but unfortunately those were live events and the recordings are not available. However, I do have the link to a presentation she gave earlier this year at a different webinar if you are interested...here is the link Women and GIS | Webinar Video | Esri

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ChristenWatts
New Contributor III

Hi Everyone!  It's wonderful to connect with you.  I am Christen McNamara Watts and I'm the GIS Manager for the City of Asheville, NC.  Asheville hired our amazing Equity & Inclusion Director, Kimberlee Archie in 2017 and I've been working closely with her & her team to use GIS to act on our City's 2016 resolution of "cultural diversity and social and economic equity are evident in all that we do."  Recently, I've been working on a Broadband Access Gap analysis, which we believe will have a larger impact on existing Educational and Economic Opportunity Gaps during COVID-19. As well as working with a wonderful intern to map our African American historic landmarks from before Urban Renewal.

Here is a link to a Story Map of some of our work so far: https://equitymap.ashevillenc.gov 

I'm excited to see what other folks are working on, I'm so glad to have this opportunity to connect.  I would love to learn about how people are using GIS to support Business Inclusion efforts.  I am also so interested in the Equity Indexes that have been created.

LaToyaGray
New Contributor II

Hi Christen!

Thank you so much for sharing your Asheville Equity project. This is AMAZING and exactly what I want to do in Richmond, Virginia. For two years I have been serving on a committee that is working on the City of Richmond's master plan and one of the takeaways from my experience is the need to tell the story of the destruction and displacement that has hurt the African American community in Richmond. I know all too well the impact because it has hurt my family. I've collected and created a map of displaced residences and businesses from the Downtown Richmond area that I hope to present at a local conference in the Fall. I also want to show the impact that gentrification is having on communities that were already victimized by urban renewal but was not sure how to best display that through maps. Your project is very inspirational and I appreciate you sharing it with our group!

Sincerely,

LaToya

ChristenWatts
New Contributor III

Thank you!  I'm so glad to connect with you LaToya.  I would love to see and learn from your work.  I should have mentioned that I'm still learning, and our project is still a work in progress, but thank you for looking at it.  If we can collaborate or work together - I would love that.  We are in early stages of mapping losses from Urban Renewal, but I think it's so important that we do it.  Thank you for sharing, and I am so sorry that your family was affected and hurt by terrible policies.  I'm glad you are a part of designing Richmond's master plan.

Christen

by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hello everyone, and thank you Margot for setting up and moderating this community.  I am an Esri Solutions Engineer supporting our Transportation Sector Roads and Highways sales team with technical consulting and demos.  We've seen increasing interest from Departments of Transportation in equity analysis for roadway project planning, scoring, and prioritization.  While I've found a great deal of literature and specific methodologies for applying equity analysis to mass transit projects, roadway planning seems more problematic, and many DOTs are struggling with where to start--e.g. how to measure project benefits and burdens for at-risk communities, how to identify the communities impacted, where to incorporate equity analysis in project workflows, how to monitor and evaluate equity impacts over time, etc.. 

I've done some work with ArcGIS Insights using geoenrichment and the Esri-curated Demographics Data to identify at-risk community impact of roadway projects, and I'm working on some ideas for creating walk/drive-time buffers around road projects to more precise identify at-risk populations.  I'll be happy to share some of these efforts with the community as soon as I have something presentable.  In the meantime, I'd welcome community suggestions and ideas for approaches to equity analysis for roadways.

Cheers!

Paul Giers

JustinMadron1
New Contributor II

Hello Everyone!

My name is Justin Madron, I am the GIS Project Manager & Analyst at the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab. We focus on creating maps of American History with a focus on social justice. Our most current project on redlining is titled "Mapping Inequality" and can now be used in the Living Atlas! I just found out about this space and I'm excited to see what others are working on. Happy Mapping!

MargotBordne
Esri Contributor

Welcome to the community Justin Madron‌! Yes, we just sent out an announcement that this data is available (https://community.esri.com/groups/gis-for-equity-social-justice/blog/2020/08/09/gis-ready-historical...) and we are really appreciative to your team for doing the underlying research to make this happen. If there are any other datasets from your team that you think would be helpful to have in Esri's Living Atlas let us know! 

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