possible project
I’m hoping to do some GIS maps for my project, depending on how difficult the research is to get the information to put in the maps (since I haven’t done it yet and haven’t looked to see if anyone already has…). But after last week’s readings, I was thinking that an element of collecting might be an appropriate compliment to the maps.
More specifically, I wanted to map immigrant population data in New York, or at least Brooklyn, because each ethnic group had its own neighborhood, and these were constantly shifting (so every neighborhood has been through several immigrant stages). So I thought it would be interesting to color-code the immigrant groups and show their settlement patterns over time. I have absolutely no idea if this would be really easy, or not very useful, or if it would be next to impossible, or if it’s perfectly reasonable.
Anyway, I like some of the collection ideas we’ve seen. It would be interesting to solicit stories about some of the landmarks that didn’t change as neighborhoods did (parks, churches, etc) and then plot them on the map. Or to have audio files of anecdotes about a building or neighborhood. If I were to do that, though, I don’t think I’d solicit online, since most people would be older and not internet savvy. But I could collect them in person and then post them.
Not that I would be doing all this for my final project! But maybe I could lay the groundwork for research seminar next year…if anyone has thoughts/suggestions, please feel free to send them my way….!