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https://github.com/aepyornis/bcm-nacis-2015


https://github.com/aepyornis/bcm-nacis-2015

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README 

        
# Presentation on the Northwest Bushwick Community Map for NACIS 2015



by Ziggy Mintz & Chris Henrick



## To View it

- Open `presentation.html` in a web browser of your choice

- Check out the console to read notes as you advance the slides



## Notes



### who we are: Ziggy



* I joined North West Bushwick as a "tech-inclined" community member with a urban planning degree. 



* I teach GIS at Columbia University's Mailman school of Public Health



* This project got me into programming. I had never written a line of code before I started this (and I  strongly believe in learning through making) 



* And now I'm a member of learn-to-code project called the learning collective (go to thelearningcollective.nyc)  and a number of other programming-centered-activist activities.



### who we are Chris:



* Formally trained Cartographer and GIS analyst, currently work as a web-developer specializing in geo & interactive mapping.



* Got into web-mapping, data-visualization, and open-source GIS while pursuing an MFA at Parsons in Design and Technology. I worked on the BCM for a group project in a class called “Tactical Urbanism” taught by Caroline Woolard and Melanie Crean.



### Housing justice:



* We believe that housing is a human right. Many many people, globally and nationally, struggle just to have an affordable place to live. Housing justice is not just about finding people housing, it's about fundamentally changing the system to become more just and equitable. 



* Our current system of housing is full of injustices & discrimination (site some quick examples?)



* “People over profit". We want to reform our system of housing so that it's primary goal should be to provide housing for those who need it the most, instead of maximizing profit.



### Bushwick:



* [NYTimes in 1993](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/06/opinion/in-america-the-echoes-of-bushwick.html): 



"Nobody talks much about Bushwick. It's just a tired, old, poverty-racked neighborhood in Brooklyn where adults without jobs move listlessly from one boring day to the next, and the police have to close off streets to slow the high-energy encroachment of youthful drug dealers, and the children, of whom there are many, find it difficult to dream because their days and their nights are so often disturbed by the sound of gunfire."



* Bushwick, like many urban US neighborhoods, was ravished by the common blights of 1980s and 1990s -- violence, industrial decline, disinvestment; it was also deeply neglected by city- officals.



* Primary working-class and low-income, lots of hispanic immigrants



* these demographics are changing: 364% increase in 'white' population from 2000-2010 (technically that's just west bushwick).



* has become in the past 5 years, the next “Williamsburg". 



* Massive amounts of real estate speculation, evictions, foreclosure, sky rocketting rents, etc.



* Displacement happening at an incredibly high rate! 



### History of the project:



* [North West Bushwick Community Group](http://www.nwbcommunity.org/) was founded in response to a rezoning of a large swath of land that was a former brewery complex.



* do you know what a rezoning is? It drastically leaves out community participation in NYC.



* The opposition of a group of neighbors to the rezoning of industrial land into (mostly) luxury housing, raised a lot of question considering the technical-details of housing and planning. how do all these regulations work and can we use technology to help us understand see what will happen next -- this led to the creation of a working-group that ultimately resulted in the bushwick community map. -- promote Rheingoldwatch.org :)



### Quantitative data:



* an opinionated view of city data



* on a local scale -- there were many city maps showing 'everything' for the whole city, but this was purposely of only a few key datafields for a single neighborhood.



### Narratives:



* use a few stories already known throughout the neighborhood as a hook to get people to experience the qualitative data



* they are: Joel & aaron Israel, Colony 1209, Rheingold



* The idea was to integrate  these stories into the map, so has to raise questions. Ok, so if this was the zoning for colony 1209, what are other lots and buildings are zoned similarly? 



### Audience:



* There were many debates about whether the map should be for "housing and community organizers" or for the "general public".



* One idea emerged that we have an 'organizers map' and a 'public map', but we ended up deciding against that.



* It was my belief that it is better to be more technical, if only because, the "technical" landscape of planning and housing matters. Educating regular citizens on the technical languages used by city officials can better equip them to find ways to fight and stop harmful development in their neighborhood.



### Languages:



* very important to us that the website was translated. Many of bushwick's residents, especially the most-vulnerable, speak spanish as their primary language. City planning meetings and literature is more often than not in difficult-to-understand english.



### Evaluation:



* has helped a number of housing organizers. Often organizers want to know "what's next?" where will gentrification happen next, where will the next rent-stabilized tenant be threaten? Of course, our map won't tell you that, but it does provide the data so that you can make better guesses.



* Lawyers. There's an amazing non-profit legal services group that helps many tenants in bushwick -- they use the map to do research on landlords.



* some citizens. We won a small grant to do outreach, so hopefully we can use it to reach out to more people who might be interested in using the map. 



### Promience:



* NWB only began a few years ago, but the map was a key stepping stone in become a 'houshold name' in the bushwick political scene. We now regually meet with our city council member, "real" nonprofits and many long-standing political organization. 



* There is a generation gap here -- not all long-time housing advocates were convinced on the virtues of technology, we had to "prove" that we were more than just some new-age technie kids who like maps.