Tag: maps

Bored at Home? Want to Research Your City’s Past?

By Erik Loomis

In General

On May 8, 2020

Historians know the value of Sanborn maps, those amazing fire insurance maps that mapped cities over time. But they are useful to lots of people. I have a friend who runs an environmental mediation business and these maps are critical to finding out just what potentially polluting businesses were where in the past, for instance. […]

General

Immigration Map

By Erik Loomis

On May 10, 2016

Who wants to see a new immigration map showing where people came from to the U.S. by the decade, from the early 19th century to the present? You should because it’s pretty cool and bright and sh

General

Mapping LA Sprawl

By Erik Loomis

On June 5, 2015

If you like cool visualizations of how sprawl in Los Angeles occurred by noting the age of every building in the city, then this is for you.

Sea Monsters

By Erik Loomis

In General

On December 20, 2013

I’ve always found the old maps with imagined sea monsters in unexplored places particularly fascinating. Marina Warner has a long essay in the New York Review of Books about them. The ocean is so interesting because it’s so close yet so impossible to explore, especially before advancements in technology during the 20th century allowed for […]

Dave Brockington

Maps and Strikes

By Dave Brockington

On December 3, 2013

Here is a pretty cool map of precinct-level support in three Seattle municipal races from last month: mayoral (Ed Murray v incumbent Mike McGinn), one city council seat (socialist Kshama Sawant again