Laura Kurgan, Eric Cadora, David Reinfurt, Sarah Williams, Spatial Information Design Lab, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
Architecture and Justice from the Million Dollar Blocks project
2006
ESRI ArcGIS (Geographic Information System) software
Not on view
Of the more than two million people in jails and prisons in the United States, a disproportionate number come from just a few neighborhoods in the country’s biggest cities. In 2006 many states were spending upwards of one million dollars annually to incarcerate residents from single city blocks. Using data from the criminal justice system, two New York–based research labs created maps of these “million-dollar blocks” in five cities. Kurgan, director of the Spatial Information Design Lab (now the Center for Spatial Research), explains that with the help of these maps “urban planners, designers, and policy makers can identify those areas in our cities where, without acknowledging it, we have allowed the criminal justice system to replace and displace a whole host of other public institutions.”
2022
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