Map alert: How toxic is your North Brooklyn ‘hood?

A new interactive map shows the state of environmental pollution in North Brooklyn. On the map you can toggle through layers like “waste transfer stations,” “future flood risk” and “asthma rate.”
The Greenpoint-Williamsburg ToxiCity Map is the work of a trifecta of Brooklyn concerns. It was commissioned by the North Brooklyn group Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG) and designed with Pratt’s Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative (SAVI) using mapping technology from Bushwick startup CartoDB.
“As many locals know, Greenpoint and Williamsburg have a robust industrial history,” NAG wrote in a blog post:

Unfortunately, this rich manufacturing past may have a hidden cost: many residents are concerned that chemical contaminants from past industrial uses are impacting the health and well being of current residents.
…
Specifically, the map aggregates publicly available data to plot properties subject to environmentally-related regulation by government agencies, locations of prior oil and other chemical spills, plumes of various chemicals, brownfields, the area’s Federal and State Superfund sites, as well as other potentially polluted sites. The map also indicates the locations of waste transfer stations and the area’s truck routes.

Here's our toxic sites map! https://t.co/QJ1OS1P1od pic.twitter.com/dNKe1JqdDG

— North Brooklyn Neighbors (@nbklynneighbors) October 21, 2015

This is exactly the kind of work CartoDB has hoped would be created with its product. Talking with the founder and members of the team at CartoDB’s recent Bushwick headquarters opening, they explained that aside from making money, mapping can have a real impact on understanding communities.
“What I do is think about cities critically and deeply and about data that frames the invisible structures of our world, such as zoning or the rate of increase in rent prices,” explained Santiago Giraldo Anduaga, a civic technologist for the company, last month. “It’s about leveraging the power of the analysis using data.”