Andy Woodruff of Bostonography.com details a project to create a crowdsourced map of Boston’s historic neighborhoods:
There are many questions to be asked here. Where are the areas of consensus? Where are the disputed zones? Where are the no-man’s lands? etc.? Let’s tackle these one at a time in a series of posts and maps. Today we look at consensus.
I was fortunate enough to spend the past week in Boston for a conference related to my Ph.D. research. I stayed in the Back Bay district in a very cool Brownstone from the turn of century and spent a good portion of my free time walking around the city. I absolutely loved the distinct nature and personality of each neighborhood and was left wanting to learn more about their respective histories. This leads to the planned future posts from Woodruff:
So while the neighborhood summaries above rely on edges to describe the maps, let’s also think about the areas represented by the shapes and what’s inside them. What are the characteristics of these areas? Why are they the shapes that they are? Why is consensus easy or difficult in different areas? What is the significance of the differences in opinion between residents of a neighborhood and people outside the neighborhood?
This work should produce some interesting social conclusions. I can’t wait to see the outcome.