Part 1.1: Reference Map

Part 1.2: Mexico City Taxi Drop-offs

This New York Times dot density map indicates the number of coffee shops present within Seoul, South Korea. This map was part of a larger editorial examining the massive number of cafes that have recently opened in the capital. The design elements are fairly simple with a dark grey background, a somewhat medium grey fill for the area’s larger boundary, and a small orange dot to represent each shop. Other design elements shown include the white municipality labels, dots outside of the city context, and major roads in black. The cartography on the map is simple since it is only intended to show the count of coffee shops within a small distance, which is also why the scale bar is there for reference. I replicated the dot density design, labeling, and boundary styles from the reference map. The hardest aspect to replicate was the annotation indicating that dots represent a single taxi trip. This is primarily due to a lot of guesswork in R to try and match its location. A few things that were compromised within the recreated map were the scale bar and the addition of roads to the area.

Part 2: Projection Data

The two projec

The original map was done in September 2024 during my Modeling Geographic Objects class using ArcGIS Pro. The map highlights where farmers markets have SNAP-eligible locations (in green) and non-SNAP-eligible locations (in white) within Philadelphia. The main issue with the original map is the legend and the coloring of both data points. The legend is hard to read and far off in the corner. Additionally, the white dots for non-SNAP-eligible locations are hard to see against the light grey basemap. The primary changes I made are with the legend, the basemap, and the dot coloring. I added parks and water for context to where farmers markets exist within the city. I then made the legend more simplistic, highlighting the color of which markets are which. I also zoomed in on the extent of the map of Philadelphia, removing unnecessary context and labels. The final change was with the basemap colors, making them pink and grey so that SNAP eligible locations stand out and are easily legible. The audience for this map includes general policymakers looking to add more SNAP eligible farmer market locations. Ideally, this map would accompany additional data showing which neighborhoods have populations that rely most on SNAP benefits. The big idea for this map: to close Philadelphia’s food access gap, policymakers must direct new SNAP-eligible farmers market investments toward Northeast and Southwest Philadelphia, where their presence remains absent.