John Snow, and OpenStreetMap by Arthur Charpentier.
From the post:
While I was working for a training on data visualization, I wanted to get a nice visual for John Snow’s cholera dataset. This dataset can actually be found in a great package of famous historical datasets.
You know the story, right? Cholera epidemic in Soho, London, 1854. After Snow established that the Broad Street water pump was at the center of the outbreak, the Broad Street pump handle was removed.
But the story doesn’t end there, Wikipedia notes:
After the cholera epidemic had subsided, government officials replaced the Broad Street pump handle. They had responded only to the urgent threat posed to the population, and afterward they rejected Snow’s theory. To accept his proposal would have meant indirectly accepting the oral-fecal method transmission of disease, which was too unpleasant for most of the public to contemplate.
Government has been looking out for public opinion, not to say public health and well-being for quite some time.
Replicating the Snow analysis is important but it is even more important to realize that the equivalents of cholera are present in modern urban environments. Not cholera so often but street violence, bad drugs, high interest rate loans, food deserts, lack of child care, etc. are the modern equivalents of cholera.
What if a John Snow like mapping demonstrated that living in particular areas made you some N% more likely to spent X number of years in a state prison? Do you think that would affect the property values of housing owned by slum lords? Or impact the allocation for funds for schools and libraries?
Enjoy!