Mapping Historical Neighborhoods: A New Historical GIS Approach

James B Townsend, Michigan Technological University
Don Lafreniere, Michigan Technological University

The concept of neighborhood has been long studied with little agreement beyond the notion that neighborhoods are somewhat self-contained areas within a wider urban environment. Despite the lack of a finite definition, there is wide agreement of the importance of studying population dynamics at the neighborhood scale. Many attempts have been made to spatially define, measure, and quantify contemporary neighborhoods, but less attention has been given to methods to spatially define historical neighborhoods. In this paper, we utilize an HSDI to develop a viewshed methodology that recognizes that ‘neighborhood’ is unique to each individual and devise a way to create a neighborhood for each person in a city. We compare this approach to more common methods such as census tracts, zip codes, municipal boundaries, and other geographical conceptions of neighborhoods by measuring the relative neighborhood socio-economic status across the city.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 33. Advances in Conceptual & Methodological Frameworks for Spatial History