Transcript – Demographic-GIS Analysis of Spatial Population Distribution in U.S. Urban Areas in 1940

Hello, this is Mark Fossett representing the triad project entitled Demographic GIS Analysis of Spatial Population Distribution in U.S. Urban Areas 1940. Recent decades have seen a revolution in quantitative analysis of spatial population distributions in urban areas. This work is possible due to advances in graphical information systems, software and digital resources for working with spatial reference data. Unfortunately, the capabilities of contemporary research methods cannot be used to study cities in earlier times because the digital resource files needed for the analysis do not exist. This limits research of historical urban patterns and studies that investigate the origins of contemporary urban patterns. Our three project serves as a pilot to demonstrate the scientific value and technical feasibility of preparing digital resource files to support to support the analysis of spatial distribution of population in historical US cities. Our team create a digital boundary files for census enumeration districts for 10 cities in 1940. Our poster showcases how the resources can be used to prepare maps that reveal patterns of residential segregation among racial and ethnic groups in U.S. cities. The boundary files were handcrafted by the team of student workers, graduate students and faculty using historical maps and other materials. We will use the results from this project to establish credibility of a larger proposal seeking funding to extend the project to include all major urban areas of the United States in 1940 for the larger proposal. We will partner with researchers at Berkeley and the University of Minnesota to prepare unique data sets that link census records from 1940 with records from later censuses and post 1940 mortality records. Our contribution locally will be to include spacially reference population data for developing measures of neighborhood and community context for persons in 1940. Our team will then use the resulting data to investigate the effects of city and neighborhood conditions and residential segregation on social mobility and mortality after 1940. Thanks for your interest in our project. Please feel free to contact me for further information or to ask questions or offer suggestions.