Using Maps in Planning - Chicago West Side and Healthy Chicago 2.0

West Side of Chicago
Tutor/Mentor map

I used this map of El Stations on Chicago's West side in an article I posted yesterday.  Today I'm going to add some more maps and resources you might include in doing your own planning.

Below are three images that I created from pages on the Healthy Chicago 2.0 Health Atlas web site.   These all focus on the North Lawndale area which is included in the map I show above.

On the RESOURCE page of Healthy Chicago 2.0 you can learn about hospitals available in different community areas or zip codes of Chicago.  You can see the page below, showing North Lawndale. 

I have written several articles in the past showing roles hospitals, as anchor organizations, could take to help volunteer based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in the area around the hospital. If a team from any of these  hospitals were leading the planning process I have recommended, they'd first create a map showing the area around the hospital.

Then they'd want to know what tutor/mentor programs already exist. The map below shows YOUTH SERVICES included in the database of Healthy Chicago 2.0.

This database does not focus specifically on non-school tutor/mentor programs, and does not include some in the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute database, so you'd need to also use the library I point to in this link to create a more focused, comprehensive map. The map at the top of this article was created using this.

Next you want to understand the need for non-school tutor/mentor programs in this area. I created the graphic below using information from the INDICATORS section of Healthy Chicago 2.0

The area has a very low Child Opportunity Index and a very high economic hardship index with 12,833 young people between age 5 and 24 in the area.  You can supplement this with the information I provide on the map at the top, showing 4100 high poverty kids, age 6-17 in North Lawndale, and 7100 in South Lawndale.   If you look at each youth program and ask how many kids they serve, and what age group, you'd find that in total a very small percent of kids in the area have access to organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

You can find another set of indicator maps on the SCY Chicago web site. I point to it in this article.

Invite people to look at the
information and meet to discuss.

With this information the hospital can take a role of convener/network-builder, inviting people from the community to gather and look at this information, and begin to talk of ways they can draw more continuous support to help the existing youth programs constantly improve, while also help new programs form, borrowing ideas from existing programs in other parts of Chicago and other parts of the US and the world....all available in sections of the Tutor/Mentor web library that I've been building since 1998.

Since the late 90s I've been trying to motivate hospitals and universities to create Tutor/Mentor Connection type planning teams that would do the type of analysis I've just described, and the on-going work that leads to more and better programs helping youth in the service area surrounding a hospital move more safely and successfully through school and into jobs, including jobs in the hospitals themselves.  Here's one article with that invitation.

Unless a wealthy benefactor steps forward and provides the money to make this happen, I don't think I'll make much progress on this goal since leaders in these institutions are already doing their own things to solve these problems, and that reduces their ability to step back and ask "are there other things we should be doing?"

Who else could be helping?  I'm not suggesting that a hospital or university spend their own money to build and sustain well-organized non-school tutor/mentor programs. I'm saying they should use their visibility to draw business people into the conversation and motivate them to take this role.  In this section of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site if focus on role leaders in business need to take to help pull kids through school and into jobs and careers.

Find maps like this on
MappingforJustice site

At the right is another data platform that a planning team could use. It's a US Small Business Administration Business Locator site, which I describe in this article.  Using information like this teams in any neighborhood can build a list of businesses who also share the same geography who should be involved in building and sustaining  youth development programs that lower the costs of poverty in the area while increasing the pool of workforce talent and customers.

This article and the one from yesterday, as well as others that I've written over and over since 2005, are templates that could be duplicated on web sites of different organizations in various parts of the Chicago region and in other cities....all with the same goal!

I'd like to help you develop this strategy. Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIN. 

1-28-2021 update -  Envisioning better health outcomes for all. The crucial role of geographic thinking to address the pandemic needs goes beyond dashboards to aid all communities.- This article describes the potential uses of GIS mapping to understand where Covid19 has had a greater negative impact and what disparities made that happen. Click here to read.

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