Boston in 50 Maps

The latest book in Belt Publishing’s 50 Maps series is Boston in 50 Maps. Living in the area and knowing author Andy Woodruff, I had the chance to attend the book launch at the Boston Public Library sponsored by the Leventhal Map Center. 

-Leventhal President Garrett Dash Nelson (left speaking) and Author Andy Woodruff (right)

As a non-native Bostonian Woodruff brings a refreshingly non-exceptionalist view to this book. While many Bostonians think their funny accents, sports crazed fans, history and food are unique in the world, he spotlights some truly uniquely Boston experiences. One of them is Storrowing, when larger vehicles, sometimes the moving vans of college students, get stuck or collide with the low clearance underpasses of the riverfront highways (including Storrow Drive) despite the many “CARS ONLY” signs.

A uniquely Boston historical event was the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 when a large tank burst spilling the sticky stuff all over the area and destroying buildings, wharfs and an elevated railway.

While many east coast cities were partially built by filling swamps, bays and rivers with land, a huge percent of central Boston was created this way.

What is most interesting to me is that these filled areas are also the ones with the highest risk of coastal flooding in the near future. This is best seen by comparing the white areas (areas with the least flooding risk) of the map above and the flood risk map below. In addition to the downtown peninsula, also note the South Boston/Dorchester Heights area, East Boston and Charlestown. 

One interesting experiment from Woodruff’s Bostonography site, was an online survey where respondents named and drew their neighborhoods. The overlays of these resulting in “consensus” neighborhoods as opposed to official city defined ones.

Neighborhood definitions can get controversial as I’ve discovered in my own work. Many people are proud to live in a certain neighborhood, and you don’t want to run afoul of them by telling them anything different. I know this from experience. The consensus map is as good a way of defining neighborhoods as I’ve seen. 

Boston is much more diverse than it often gets credit for. Part of the reason it is not seen as diverse is that most of the immigrant communities are far from where most tourists and business travelers go. This is part of a “small multiples” image showing some of the most common immigrant clusters in the region.

Here is one final Boston quirk. In Philadelphia, a square is just that - a square shaped park. In New York City it is sometimes a square but often a triangle where Broadway intersects a major avenue. In Boston a “square” is usually a haphazard intersection of many roads, often without a park. Woodruff creates a nice small multiples look at the squares of Boston. Here is a small piece of the larger graphic to give a sense of all the different shapes.

Other maps of local interest include unbuilt highways, discontinued transit lines, fall foliage, ducklings,  Smoots, and most importantly proximity to Dunkin’. If you crave more buy the book.

Internet Traffic and the Strait of Hormuz

 Oil isn’t the only thing passing through the Strait of Hormuz. 30% of the world’s data traffic also passes through there and 90% of the traffic between Europe and Asia. Iran is now threatening to charge “user fees” on these cables.

-via Anadolu Agency

These seem like remarkable percentages given the detour that these cables make to get into that area. Here is a close up from that somewhat blurry image.

Credit to the American Geographical Society for alerting me to this map - from a Turkish government news source.

Hiking the Suburbs

 Last week I was given an award by the Newton Conservators for the work I did making an updated trail guide. While Newton, Massachusetts is not a major hiking destination, it is a city of over 85,000 people who will hopefully benefit from knowing where they can go for a nearby hike. We (including the writers and graphics team) put a lot of work into it and I think the end result came out great. Here is a sample page,

and a map detail.

The guide is spiral bound with a pocket that contains a two-sided foldout map showing citywide trails, locations of all the sites and suggested longer walks.

I enjoyed working on this project quite a bit as it was a rare chance to focus on cartography, whereas my normal job tasks are more about managing data, users, web applications and requests. You can see more and buy the guide here.

An Evening at The Map Center

I’ve been meaning to go to The Map Center since I met proprietor Andrew Middleton about 2 years ago at an event. Middleton won a contest to take over the store from its previous owner and moved from California to Pawtucket, Rhode Island to run the place. Finally, a Geospatial Professionals Network event was my excuse to head to Pawtucket.

There are very few map stores left in the United States and most of them specialize in antique maps. The Map Center has carved out a niche in the more interesting (in my opinion) world of creative and eccentric maps.

Also included are books, post cards and other ephemera such as this tray.

For me, it was like being a kid in a candy shop.

Here are some sample books.

Here is a piece of an old Russian rail map.

All the Hams of Massachusetts by Ricky Rainbow Beard.

Of course, I couldn’t leave without buying a bunch of stuff I don’t need*, including this T-shirt,

and a hard copy of the wonderful Cross-Sections through California by RJ Andrews. 

*About the “stuff I don’t need” quote, Middleton says “no one will have their day ruined for lack of a thing I sell. But I do hope it makes people's lives richer and more filled with wonder and curiosity.“

It’s tough running a map store in an age of ubiquitous internet maps and GPS. He is planning on doing some more experiential stuff- classes in QGIS, event hosting and art exhibitions for that very reason. I hope the store survives so I can continue buying items that make my life richer.

Chernobyl Radiation Zone - 40 Years Later

This past Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. Radiation was scattered across Europe but the worst of it was concentrated in the 2,600 square mile exclusion zone around Pripyat, the plant’s location. This area will be uninhabitable by humans for a very long time. Informal estimates range from 300 to tens of thousands of years. 

-Map via Reddit

Though a few people have returned to this area, it has mostly reverted to forest with a large wildlife population. This map via Wikipedia, from ten years after the disaster shows radiation accumulation across Ukraine, Belarus and parts of Russia.

Current radiation conditions are shown at SaveEcobot, a project that combines data about the state of the environment, pollution, and environmental protection tools.

These site indicators are published on the map without additional verification, so they are approximate. The average natural level in Ukraine is usually 0.08–0.30 μSv/h. The dark blue and purple locations have significantly elevated radiation levels. Here is a zoomed in version around Pripyat, with the exclusion zone shaded.

A click on the reading will give you a chart of measurements over the past week. This one is from the grounds of the power plant.

This site also monitors fires, water and air quality. I don’t think radiation is factored into the air quality measurements. 

You may also find a few hidden messages in these maps. I’d translate this one, but you might find it rude.

Ethnic Diversity of Toronto

 Jeff Allen is a cartographer based at the University of Toronto and does work for their School of Cities. He’s created some interesting visualizations, particularly around language. Here is a page where you can choose from dozens of languages to see how their speakers are distributed across the Toronto and Hamilton metropolitan areas.

Above I’ve chosen five languages represented in different colors. While French and Spanish speakers appear to follow overall population trends (no obvious clusters) there are very clear clusters for Mandarin, Punjabi and Italian.

I tried a few random smaller languages to see if they had their own clusters, which they do. Khmer and Lao speakers cluster in the same Jane Street area while Yiddish (and Hebrew also) cluster along Bathurst Street. 

Another visualization traces the history or ethnic groups. Choose from over 20 languages and you get a scrolling story showing the distribution changes at various time periods going back to 1971 .

Here is Yiddish, showing the same pattern as in the previous map.

Branching out to other cities this visualization shows the English-French east-west divide in Montreal. The purple areas are the most bilingual, while yellow areas are where immigrants live and are less likely to speak either language.

You can see many more of his maps here.

Back to Toronto, here is a gorgeous, colorful map by Alex McPhee showing the most commonly spoken non-English languages across the city. The “small multiple“ maps across the bottom, showing the top languages are a nice touch. 

He has produced similar maps for Montreal and Saskatoon.

I’ll close with one more Jeff Allen map: Dogs of Toronto.

Inglehart Values Map

While not a geographic map, the Inglehart Values Map from political scientist Robert Inglehart charts out regions of the world as they appear along a bivariate chart of values.

via Wikipedia. - 2004 version

The x axis shows a continuum from survival values to those of self expression. Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security. Those with higher self expression values are generally more financially secure and more free to express themselves without fear. They tend to emphasize personal freedoms and tolerance of others. The y axis shows traditional values (generally religious) vs secular values. The colors define regions. You can see how the former communist countries of Europe tend to be less religious but also less inclined towards self expression. Latin American counties are on the opposite end of this, being more traditional minded but having high self expression scores. 

Inglehart pointed out a correlation between the Protestant societies of northern Europe and high degrees of self expression and “secular rational” values. Catholic European countries fall closer to the middle of the chart while African nations are clustered in the lower left. The most interesting pattern is in the “Confucian” countries of East Asia that score very high in the secular-rational scale but diverge quite a bit among the survival-self expression axis.

Several versions and updates of this chart have been made over the years. Here is a 2023 version with slightly different regional breakdowns and a more subtle color scheme.

-via World Values Survey

Finally, here is a video where you can how this map changed between 1981 and 2015.