Mapping

SoilKitchen.org organized free lead tests for a week. They tested over 350 samples, primarily from Philadelphia.

About 10% of the samples had > 1000 ppm lead (the point at which it becomes not so good for growing vegetables).

I color coded the markers based on lead levels and created this map:

The government has an interesting Food Environment Atlas that lets you map things by county.

One neat layer is pounds of fruits/veggies eaten at home per capita. They also have grocery store access, food prices, and a lot more!

The NY Times has come up with a new map using Census data on income, race, housing, same sex partners, and education. Nifty interface!

The data is from 2005-2009, the American Community Survey, which is happens in-between the major decennial census.

They display the data at the census tract level if you zoom in. I cannot tell if they are trying to show block level data - as they have dots representing data on blocs, however I don't think the American Community Survey does blocks.

This map is insanely good

Income, race, education, health, political participation and more -- all presented in a user friendly format.

The only downside is that their smallest area is a Congressional District. They should have done zip codes! More work, but so much more logical.

I've got heat maps working for operating coal, nuclear, gas, biomass, hydro, and municipal solid waste incinerators.

List of Heat Maps

I broke the lower 48 states in the US into around 700,000 grid squares. Roughly 3 x 3 mile.

You can see the heat map with the markers that link to more detailed facility information, or without them.

There are three different levels of color saturation which let you decide whether to show a map saturated with facilities, or a "points of light" view.

This is my first take on mapping income near the Detroit Incinerator.
They are going to have a big protest of the facility during the US Social Forum.