Mapping Oakland

Presenting at AAG (April 16th)

2011-04-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

I will be presenting the findings of Mapping Oakland for the second time at the Association of American Geographers in Seattle, Washington, this month. I'll be presenting in paper session:"5371 Geographical Contributions to the Design of the City" on Saturday, 4/16/2011, from 12:00 PM - 1:40 PM in Metropolitan Ballroom A - Sheraton Hotel, Third Floor.

The paper is currently seeking publication and an unofficial copy of the study is available upon request. I am also available to present the findings to interested community groups and/or have discussions about the work. Feel free to contact me at mappingoakland@gmail.com.

-Robert

Finished

2010-05-20T22:37:00.001-07:00

The Oakland project, or at least the first part of this project has been completed. The survey data has been mapped and analyzed in GIS and the write-up is complete. I will not be able to post the paper online until the paper is officially published. Once the paper is published I will make it available here on this blog and/or the mappingoakland website. In the meantime, this week I will summarize the findings for each neighborhood. I will start tomorrow with North Oakland. Please feel free to leave comments, I am looking forward to what people have to say.

I say that this is the first part of the project, however the project is fully completed. I hope that this work will be further funded because the amount of data gathered is extensive and there is more analysis that could be undertaken. In addition, it would be ideal for another student to do a more extensive survey and analyze the data in another 5 years. The variable of time in this project would be most revealing.

The project has also been presented twice since completion. It was first presented to the Undergraduate Geography Society at the University of Texas at Austin and most recently to the "Positioning Global Systems" Symposium at the Yale School of Architecture. If you are interested in speaking to me about this project please contact me at mappingoakland [AT] gmail DOT com.

Preliminary Findings

2009-10-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

Preliminary results of the work show strong cognitive agreement between individuals where cultural features in the urban landscape are easily identified. For example, in Fruitvale the streets with strong Hispanic characteristics at the edges of the community were consistently mapped as a bounding feature. All neighborhood perceptions also included International Boulevard and Fruitvale Avenue intersection, which registers in GIS as an important social node of the community and correlates to the center of visible Hispanic culture of the neighborhood. Neither Freeway 580 nor the new Fruitvale Village Bay Area Rapid Transit station is considered to be part of the neighborhood. This is relevant as Freeway 580 is highly visible and easily identifiable, and the Fruitvale Village was developed to function as a community center. There is also a correlation between the mental boundary of the neighborhood with the main church on International and 34th Street as well as with the location of taco trucks. Taco trucks tend to coincide with the cognitive boundaries of Fruitvale. It is interesting to note that zoning regulations of the taco trucks tend to correspond with the extent of visible Hispanic culture of the district as well. When asked if they prefer street space, parks, or like both equally, participants typically answered, both equally. However most noted the parks they used frequently to be outside their perceived neighborhood boundaries.
In Chinatown most people did not identify Freeway 880 as a boundary to the west. Similarly to Fruitvale, neighborhood perceptions coincided where their culture was visibly present. Citizens in Chinatown also tended to map natural landscape features. For example most participants considered the edge of Lake Merritt as a boundary. To the east toward downtown the lines become very fuzzy and many consider high-rise buildings and areas that appear to be high density to be part of the neighborhood.
In West Oakland people still seem to identify West Oakland as only the area west of Mandela Parkway. Mandela Parkway is a new neighborhood parkway designed to reconnect West Oakland after the elevated Freeway 580 collapsed in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Mandela Parkway for many is still noted as a boundary of their neighborhood for people east or west of it. Neighborhood boundary lines do not coincide with architectural character or demographics necessarily; they are more contiguous with large arterial roads and the elevated Freeways 580, 880, and 980, that surround it. When participants were asked if they prefer street space, parks, or like both equally, they tended to answer parks, though there was significant social life present on the streets.
The Temescal neighborhood had consistently fuzzy boundaries that frequently ignored large landscape barriers, like freeways, but all included aspects of Telegraph Avenue, a main arterial street with eclectic shops and restaurants.
Again these are the preliminary results of the survey and the data are still being analyzed in GIS and the recording of urban typologies where agreement is very strong or fuzzy is still ongoing. All GIS and mapping work is intended to be complete by the end of 2009 and final paper finished by the end of February 2010.

Up and running again.

2009-10-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lag of time in this project. I have moved to Austin, Texas from the Bay Area and have been adjusting to my new life and new demanding workload. Mapping Oakland project is still going and I hope to have frequent updates in the months to come. I have finally gotten all the survey data in GIS and hope to have all of the spatial metrics done by the end of the year. I should have a report on the results published on the webpage by the end of February. Keep eye on this blog for updates as work is completed etc.

-Robert