Introduction
For the midterm, I created a digital web map using a street map of Minnesota’s Twin Cities from 1948 using ArcGIS Online. My goal was to compare how public and private parks in Minneapolis and St. Paul have changed with the addition of residential areas and side streets. By geolocating a select number of parks from 1948 and overlaying the map onto the current map of the Twin Cities, I identified several differences over the years.
Sources
The map I used comes from the David Rumsey Map Collection and was created by the Rand McNalley & Company. The street map was published in 1948 and shows five cities: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Montreal, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. Since I was only interested in mapping Minneapolis and St. Paul, I cropped the map to only show these cities.
Process
The process of creating this web map was quite extensive. The fact that I used David Rumsey’s Map Collection caused the most issues. I began by choosing the street map of the five cities, cropping it to only show Minneapolis and St. Paul, and georeferencing the map. Unfortunately, the David Rumsey site only allows for users to access the WMTS endpoints of a map once so I was unable to receive the service token. With the help of Wei-Hsin Fu in the Environmental Studies department, I was thankfully able to use the map. Wei-Hsin had to edit the map in ArcGIS Pro, upload the layer to ArcGIS Online, and transfer ownership to my account.
Once I had the map in ArcGIS Online, I created a CSV file detailing the location, status, and type of five parks in the Twin Cities. I uploaded the CSV file onto a new layer and began editing the points of the five parks. The symbology of each park’s point is either a green golf flag or a brown park bench, representing whether the park is private or public. Next, I created a new feature layer and drew polygons the size of the park based on the 1948 map. My goal was to have viewers compare the locations from 1948 to today by comparing the original map of the Twin Cities to today. Finally, I created pop-ups so users can click on each park and read about its status. The last step was creating an Instant Web App for viewing.
Presentation
For the presentation of the map, I made many decisions to help users understand. Regarding the base map, I decided to switch the theme to Navigation (places) due to its clear street names and detailed places. I made each of the five parks have a unique government-style symbol depending on if it is private or public. I also edited the size of the symbols to be easier to see and added labels to make the location names more visible. For the pop-ups, I decided to only include the park name, address, and status to avoid unnecessary information. To present my midterm, I chose to use a WordPress subdomain due to its user-friendly controls and the ability for full customization. I decided the best format would be to have my HTML embedded first followed by my analysis.
Significance
By applying my chosen digital approach of georeferencing, I was able to gain insight into how public and private parks have changed over time in Minneapolis and St. Paul. For many of the public and private parks in the Twin Cities, the addition of housing infrastructure and streets has resulted in removal. One of the parks listed, Nicollet Baseball Park, is a good example of neighborhoods replacing public recreational spaces. Although some of the parks shown in the 1948 map no longer exist, it is also worth noting that compared to then, there has been an addition of many public and private parks throughout the Twin Cities such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park in Minneapolis. Web mapping is an incredible tool for visualizing Digital Art & Humanities work. By creating interactive and visually appealing maps, we can recognize trends and changes within our society. It is also an excellent tool for storytelling by highlighting trends such as changes in housing or how interested we are in planning spaces for recreation. While data science allows for pattern identification, web mapping is a much more historical approach with an emphasis on understanding societal and cultural contexts.