Deconstructing DesignReckoning in Pixels™

Maps & research

Seeing the ground clearly

Space is evidence. We use ArcGIS to map displacement, food access, and change over time — and pair every map with the research that explains it.

The overlay

One ground, three layers

A map is built in layers registered to one ground. Here there are three: the story layer, where the work is read; the data layer, where it is counted; and the source layer beneath them both, where every line is footnoted. Select a layer to lift it from the stack.

Registered · one ground

Three layers, lined up

A map means something only because its layers register: a story about a block sits over the parcels of that block, which sit over the record of who held them.

The three things this page offers are those three layers. The story layer is where the work is read; the data layer is where it is counted; the source layer is where both are footnoted. Select a layer to lift it from the stack.

  • 01 · The story layerNarrative maps — Scrollable, place-based stories that combine maps, media, and text. The ground, told.
  • 02 · The data layerLive interactive map — A pannable, zoomable web map embedded directly on the page. The ground, live.
  • 03 · The source layerResearch library — Participatory studies and critical scholarship behind the work. The ground, evidenced.
Illustration: a woman with a backpack and a man in a cap read a tall scrolling page titled Our Neighborhood Stories, where photographs, a map with pins, a voice recording, and captions run down the page, with a hillside town and a river behind them.

01 · The story layer · ArcGIS StoryMaps

Narrative maps

Scrollable, place-based stories that combine maps, media, and text. The ground, told.

A StoryMap moves through a place the way a walk does: a map, then the voices and photographs that belong to that spot, then the next. It is how the evidence reaches people who would never open a data table, and it is the layer most of this work is read in.

Open StoryMaps

Illustration: two people at a laptop showing a neighborhood map of coloured parcels and dots beside a panel of housing figures, rent, vacancy, and cost burden, with a city skyline and leaves behind them.

02 · The data layer · ArcGIS Maps SDK

Live interactive map

A pannable, zoomable web map embedded directly on the page. The ground, live.

Parcels, points, and boundaries drawn from the record, at whatever scale the question needs. This is the layer where the counting happens: what changed, where, and who was there before. Pan to a block and the numbers follow.

  • In productionThe hosted web map is being prepared; the StoryMaps and the library stand until it arrives

Open live map

Illustration: two people at a table reading an open book beside stacked volumes, photographs, a map, and charts, with a shelf of books and a globe behind them.

03 · The source layer · Library

Research library

Participatory studies and critical scholarship behind the work. The ground, evidenced.

Every map above rests on this layer: the studies, the counts, and the community knowledge that say where a line came from. Nothing is drawn on this site that cannot be traced back here, which is why the library sits at the base of the stack and not beside it.

Browse research

Registration

Every layer lines up with the same ground

In a map, layers only mean something because they register: a story about a block sits over the parcels of that block, which sit over the record of who held them and how it changed hands. The three layers here register the same way. The StoryMaps quote the studies; the live map draws from the same records; the library is where both are footnoted, so a claim made in one can be checked in another.

Built on ArcGIS — StoryMaps, the Maps SDK for JavaScript, Dashboards, Experience Builder, Survey123 — each takes its place here as it is published. Where a layer is still in production, this page says so.

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