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  • Welcome to Maptastic.

  • Now you might think that you know the US.

  • But we're going to look at some maps that show it

  • in a completely different light, looking at some new data that

  • shows us how the US has built up over the last two centuries

  • from East Coast to West Coast.

  • Now cartographers love nothing more than new data

  • to put on maps.

  • And today, I'm with my colleague, Steve Bernard,

  • who is our master cartographer at the FT,

  • to look at some exciting new data recently released

  • by some academics at the University of Colorado.

  • And the first thing that I did with this data

  • was load it up quickly into our computerised mapping

  • software, our GIS.

  • And I zoomed in to Phoenix, Arizona,

  • just to have a little look at what the data says

  • about how Phoenix has developed over time.

  • And as you can see, in the early 20th century

  • we start to see these little black dots, which

  • are these individual pixels showing that that land has been

  • built up, right?

  • And as you can see, as we go through the 20th century,

  • you get this amazing picture of sort of growth.

  • And this city structure, the city shape of Phoenix,

  • really starts to come out.

  • And massive expansion in recent years.

  • So this was a very crude first attempt

  • at just looking at this data and thinking: does it

  • offer us anything useful?

  • Now I showed it to you, Steve.

  • And you got similarly very excited about it.

  • Yeah, the first time I saw it, I was looking over your shoulder

  • at this.

  • And I just thought, this is going

  • to be great to do for the whole of the US.

  • And this is all of this data showing

  • how the US has been built up since 1810

  • running as an animation now.

  • It's almost impossible to see to start with because you have

  • these very small little yellow pixels starting

  • to light up on the East Coast.

  • What just happened there?

  • So this is the railways flashing up as they were developed.

  • I got the data from the Library of Congress,

  • which had these amazing old maps, which they had digitised.

  • And I took these into the mapping software

  • and essentially traced them, every single railroad

  • from 1830s to 1890s.

  • And I needed to do them in stages

  • so I could show the development of the railroad from the East

  • Coast all the way to the West Coast.

  • So the yellow dots are the populated...

  • The yellow dots are the populated areas.

  • And the railroads are what you've just

  • flashed up on there.

  • That's interesting by itself because now we're

  • looking at two different data sets.

  • That's one of the powerful things

  • about this GIS, this computerised mapping software,

  • is the way that you can layer information on top.

  • So this might be a story that people are familiar with.

  • But this is the first time that they've seen it.

  • See it actually growing, yeah.

  • Then there's this whole pivotal moment

  • in the late 1860s when the first railroad connected the West

  • Coast to the East Coast.

  • And then you'll see the explosion

  • of population along the West Coast from that point on.

  • San Francisco, Los Angeles, further north into Seattle,

  • they are growing exponentially from that point on.

  • And the amount of railroads which are developed

  • is phenomenal.

  • Sort of unrelenting for the 60 years

  • or so from the 1830s to the 1890s.

  • When people think about travelling around the US now,

  • invariably people think about internal flights.

  • But back in this period, the railroad,

  • not only was it essential for getting about,

  • just from looking at these maps, we

  • can see that the railroad actually

  • helped to define the geography of the US.

  • So all of the areas that are building up

  • are building up based on the connections

  • that the railroad is making.

  • I mean, one of the things I thought

  • was very, very interesting looking

  • at some of these old maps was just how important

  • it was for people to have maps of these connections.

  • I mean, some of these maps here are really, really beautiful

  • maps.

  • But they're all talking about the connections.

  • This map here, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,

  • is actually titled Shewing the Connection, this kind

  • of joining up of the cities.

  • It was an incredibly important part

  • of America's economic expansion.

  • This one here, the map of the Canal and Railroads of the US,

  • it's almost like a still from your animation.

  • It was painstaking tracing all of these

  • because obviously each map was slightly different at slightly

  • different projection, which means I had

  • to what's called georeferencing, which basically

  • turns this map into a rubber sheet

  • and allows me to stretch it inside the mapping software

  • to get it exactly into the projection

  • that we're using in the final animation.

  • After 1956, the US highways decided to build what is now

  • known as all the interstates in the US and which again just

  • enhanced the connections between the cities and made it easier

  • for people to mobilise and...

  • We're seeing highways on the animation where

  • although it's still allowing us to go east to west,

  • it's actually connecting up more of the country.

  • So the interstates are going to places

  • that not even the railroads necessarily were going.

  • So again, another layer of geography

  • telling us something a little bit

  • more about how the US was developing at that time.

  • The really interesting thing at this stage

  • as well, as you can already see, this

  • is so looking at 1970, just that difference

  • in density between the east and the west.

  • And then that kind of the open road

  • is really sort of the Midwest and out west.

  • You can see that.

  • And they look very, very sparse and isolated, the roads.

  • Whereas a lot denser connections over on the East Coast

  • - very, very stark.

  • A lot of that has to do with farmland areas in the Midwest,

  • which a lot of the area is given over to agriculture as opposed

  • to large cities.

  • So this is just showing exactly what areas of land

  • have been developed since 1810 through to 2015.

  • I added another layer showing when each parcel of land

  • was actually developed.

  • So before, the yellow just meant it's been built on.

  • It's been developed, yeah.

  • Now the colour is showing us when.

  • OK, so let's just interpret that colour ramp a little bit for us

  • here.

  • So the very earliest settlements are coloured yellow.

  • So we can see that's over on the East Coast there.

  • Massachusetts lighting up, for example.

  • Then it becomes red, orange-red, and through to purple.

  • So the more purple you see on the map

  • that's recent development.

  • Yeah, so a lot of the southern states, you can see,

  • are a lot more purple than obviously

  • the East Coast, Massachusetts, Boston, New York.

  • But still some of the orange on the West

  • Coast where Los Angeles, San Francisco,

  • were connected by those early railroads.

  • Just it's worth pointing out there

  • is still a lot of this data set -

  • that uncertainty is still a part of any big data set.

  • But this one in particular, there's still big chunks

  • represented by this teal sort of colour there.

  • Lots of a bit...

  • Michigan.

  • I guess some ambiguity.

  • I don't think that stops us thinking

  • that this is a very interesting way of looking at the US.

  • But it's kind of important to know

  • that no data set is perfect even when you put it on a map.

  • The thing that's fascinating for me

  • about using these computerised mapping systems

  • is that you can zoom in and zoom out freely.

  • And so we're going to go live into the GIS

  • now to have a look at some of this data.

  • So this is the application I used to create the animation

  • and the maps is called QGIS, which

  • is an open source software, which anyone can use for free.

  • One thing I looked at initially was 40 metro areas,

  • which had populations over a million,

  • and seeing how they had changed individually over the 205 years

  • that we have in the data set.

  • Chicago just grabbed my attention immediately.

  • A, because it's sort of a famous city

  • that everyone's fairly familiar with.

  • But the way that the city has grown in those early years,

  • you can really see very clearly, if I just

  • turn on the railways over the top,

  • how the early developments and settlements were

  • following along the railroads.

  • So this is using the same colour scheme that we were looking

  • at before.

  • So the yellow areas are the older areas,

  • the purple being more recent.

  • So that is fascinating.

  • You get this kind of...

  • Sort of spidery.

  • A spider's web sort of structure building out of the centre

  • of town.

  • That's instantly recognisable.

  • Absolutely.

  • Where else was interesting?

  • So what we're going to see here is

  • going to be the population growth from 1810

  • to 2015 in the downtown area.

  • It's the whole metro area of Phoenix-Mesa

  • because the census data doesn't cover that whole area

  • because obviously it's expanding all the time.

  • The map might show us when it was built.

  • But it doesn't actually show us an awful lot

  • about what's going on there.

  • The population data is going to show us actually

  • when did the people arrive.

  • Yeah, exactly.

  • Well, you'll get a sense obviously in the beginning.

  • As in your map, there's not a lot going on...

  • Dormant period for Phoenix.

  • The odd thing pops up in the late 1800s.

  • But after that, it's just an...

  • Now we start to see it go, yeah.

  • Carefully at the population map at the bottom chart,

  • that's at the bottom.

  • It really does grow exponentially in the past 40

  • years or so.

  • So the really interesting thing looking at animation

  • is actually there was a lot of growth in the built area

  • before you started to notice a real increase

  • in the population.

  • And in fact, most of the area had

  • been built on before the population density

  • presumably really ramps up.

  • So that's fascinating, being able to see

  • the sort of geographical spread of the city

  • relative to the sort of density of population

  • living in that area.

  • The population has pretty much tripled since the 1970s,

  • which is quite an explosion.

  • There are other cities as well...

  • There are indeed.

  • ...worth looking at.

  • And in fact, the population charts

  • that you've created there are really, really interesting

  • because one of the things we see when we look at all

  • of the US, those major metro areas,

  • is that there's an interesting pattern repeated

  • across several cities.

  • Indeed, yeah.

  • A lot of the new cities like Phoenix, San Antonio, San

  • Diego, San Jose, they're the success stories

  • of this urbanisation.

  • But there are also some of the larger cities

  • that are being left behind.

  • If you look at this set of charts here,

  • we're basically showing cities in red

  • that have seen a decline in recent years.

  • And there is none more dramatic than Detroit,

  • which was at one point the fourth most populous city

  • in the US as recent as the 1940s.

  • And is now seeing their population drop from 1.8m down

  • to just over 700,000 at the last census.

  • That's a huge proportionate drop and in

  • absolute terms a big drop.

  • The interesting thing looking at the chart

  • there is that decline has been going on for a long time.

  • So the peak was back in the middle of the 20th century.

  • And there's been a long-term decline since then.

  • How can we map that back onto the city maps?

  • Looking at Detroit...

  • well, I've got a map on now is the bottom 20 per cent

  • of income.

  • So the poorest families and also the highest vacancy

  • rates, where they coexist at the same time.

  • And you'll see a big hole appearing in the downtown area

  • of the city.

  • So these are areas with vacancy rates that are quite high.

  • So a large proportion of sort of empty buildings and deprived

  • areas.

  • So what's really interesting about doing that and showing it

  • like this is that it is almost perforates that map

  • that we have just built up.

  • So you have this period of growth and expansion.

  • And then in places like Detroit, it's actually possible

  • to visualise on the map how you...

  • this has not gone back to obviously kind

  • of pristine or virgin land.

  • But it's just...

  • People have just vacated it.

  • And they haven't come back.

  • This data is 2010 census data.

  • There is a regeneration in Detroit underway.

  • And people are now developing the downtown area, which

  • should attract more people.

  • But it is fascinating to see that a lot of these highly

  • vacant areas and poor areas in the cities across the Rust Belt

  • are predominately in the older part of town.

  • If you look at the orangey, this whole area

  • is basically where most of the deprived and poor areas are.

  • The newer, more recent urbanised areas

  • are not so badly affected.

  • And that's the story which is true across a lot the Rust Belt

  • cities.

  • So here we have Pittsburgh and Cleveland, Columbus,

  • Indianapolis.

  • So if you look at Cleveland, it's a very similar story.

  • In the older part of town, the poorest and most vacant areas

  • are in the older parts of the city.

  • It could be due to it being too expensive to develop

  • these old buildings.

  • So the pattern that you just mentioned

  • that is really consistent is that those yellow areas, which

  • are the older areas, are the ones that

  • are more likely to be zapped by our perforated data.

  • They're the ones that are the oldest.

  • But they are also, in some senses,

  • the most challenging for policymakers today

  • to deal with.

  • And in fact, that leads me back to the value

  • of these maps in general because just as these old maps were

  • so incredibly valuable during that massive expansion

  • period in the 19th century as the US built out westwards,

  • these maps are equally valuable to people

  • who are making decisions today about what to do.

  • So you can imagine if you were a city planner in Cleveland

  • or Detroit, this view of how the cities developed

  • and the way that it is now is not something

  • we've been able to do before.

  • But this is not exactly what you'd

  • want to see if you were looking to make interventions

  • to turn things around.

  • That's the good thing about sort of seeing,

  • taking in, say, this old data in terms of the historical value

  • to it but also being out to map new data sets on top of it

  • to sort of get a lot more value from it.

  • And I guess the other thing with 200 years' worth of data here

  • more or less, you can slice through that as well to really

  • understand more recent things.

  • So if we ignore the two centuries of change,

  • we can do things like use this data to say, right,

  • show me the only... only show me the areas that have been

  • developed in the 21st century.

  • So where is America growing right now?

  • This is since 2000.

  • So now the yellow pixels that we're seeing are parcels

  • of land in the US that have been developed...

  • Since 2000.

  • ...for the first time since 2000.

  • That is really fascinating.

  • Can we see any patterns at a city level in here?

  • I mean, how are some of our old friends like Phoenix

  • faring on this data?

  • So for Phoenix, this looks like a story of continuing growth,

  • just looking at the extent of land that's showing up here.

  • Absolutely.

  • Look at that.

  • That's really fascinating.

  • So this general pattern that we've seen as cities grow

  • is still happening in Phoenix.

  • There's still big expansion outwards.

  • Now there's data linked behind this map.

  • That's what this software is doing

  • it's using the data that we've got to draw the maps for us.

  • Can we actually see what the data is telling us there?

  • So our magic inspector tool.

  • OK, so this is the tool that when you click anywhere

  • on the map, it's going to tell you

  • what data is behind that point.

  • To go to the exact layer.

  • There we go.

  • So this will tell us where we click on the map, what year it

  • was first developed.

  • And so this data set works in five-year age bands,

  • if I recall correctly.

  • So it's not something that's...

  • It's not day to day, month to month.

  • It's every five years.

  • Steve, people might be looking at this video

  • and seeing you having so much fun clicking

  • and enjoying and exploring this data.

  • How do people get started if they want

  • to play with this themselves?

  • Well, the data set is freely available from the Harvard

  • website.

  • So you can download it.

  • And you'll be able to have the same starting point that I did.

  • The first thing you just need to get hold of

  • is QGIS, which is an open source software, which

  • allows you to take this data in and map it immediately.

  • If you want to learn QGIS, I've actually

  • done this series of 31 videos, which

  • allow you to sort of slowly get to grips with how

  • to use the software.

  • It's quite a vast piece of software.

  • But you normally only need to use probably about 10

  • per cent of it to get to the stage

  • where you can map something like this.

  • You don't need to know everything about it.

  • The Library of Congress maps are free to download.

  • Yeah, the highways... the Census Bureau has so much data on it.

  • It's a vast resource population data,

  • deprivation data, vacancy data.

  • All of this is freely available on the Census Bureau website.

  • Fantastic.

  • Thanks, Steve.

  • You're welcome.

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