MARTA's Yellow Line

Recently a stink has been made about the name given to the MARTA Rail Line formally known as Doraville. The dispute came about from business owners and community members along the northeast line of Asian ethnicity. They were a bit peeved about MARTA labeling the line "The Yellow Line." The yellow distinction was considered racist and MARTA agreed to change the name of the line to gold. This facilitated the use of existing maps while quashing the beef.

This whole dispute made me think, is that really the yellow line? I think that section of town is more Asian than most but is it majority Asian. I created a mp of the MARTA rail system that reflects the composition of the communities surrounding each stop. I looked at proportion of white, black, Latino, and Asian populations from the 2000 census, using all the census tracts within a mile of each stop. This doesn't account for the local business ownership but should give us an idea of which line is yellow or black or white or what have you. It looks like the stops along the gold line have more Asian residents around them than other stops but the majority of people around those stops are of another race (specifically Latino around Doraville and Chamblee). I also looked at populations for only the census tract in which the station fell. The results were similar with fewer Asian proportions at almost every station. At the Lindbergh Station the 1 tract method showed 63% of the population as Latino, while including the surrounding tracts introduced an overwhelming number of white residents.

Secondly, how could the community find a way to embrace this? I have had several conversations with Asian friends who grew up in western countries about who was an egg and who was a banana. Maybe you've talked about twinkies. Tourists in New York, San Francisco, and other cities around the world seek out their Chinatowns for a meal and some souvenirs. DC has a metro stop called Chinatown. At the same time the best examples of those places support a large Asian population that can go about daily shopping activities or find a Majong game. Maybe we should call it La Linea to nod to the Latino populations up there. Still I think formalizing it on documents and websites makes it sting and stirs up the opposition. When it's a colloquial thing like Curry Hill in NYC, does the same opposition present itself? And if it does, at whom is it directed?

I'm interested to hear more of your thoughts on this and on the map. Thanks.

Motor City Blueprint

Right now I am watching a show on PBS called Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City. It is intersesting to me growing up there but there is also a lot of not so subtle analogy comparing the city's history to the need to revision a purpose for the country; a purpose that the makers believe to be investment in infrastructure (namely transit and heavy rail). So it's even cooler than a show that just talks about Detroit. They even mention a volunteer project that I took part in while at Michigan called Blight Busters. And they talk about the reclamation of urban space for agriculture; something unheard of ametroplitan area until now. Definitely check it out and explore the show's site.

The issue of squandered opportunity for rail investment is one that has been on my mind since the day of reckoning for GA with regard to rail a couple of weeks ago. Georgia received ony $750,000 of the $8 billion that the government gave out to states for investment in high speed rail infrastructure. It was a clear sign that the Feds can see how GA is operating and that the state need to get its act together. Here's the dispute between the governor and Representative John Lewis. The fact that $8 billion is a pttance is another issue. A parallel issue on my mind is the cutting of MARTA service (~half the bus service), but I'll get to that later.

If you're interested in more on Detroit check out this post and photos.

Interpretive Inquiry

Yesterday, during my course on advanced planning theory I had the pleasure of relating our in-class discussion to a lyric from Notorious BIG's Juicy. We are in the portion of the course dedicated to epistemology and were discussing the Hermeneutic Circle. Specifically, we were illustrating the concept of idea informing observation by discussing how neo-classical economists tend to observe all actions as guided by rationality (as defined by the discipline). Then we got on to how crime is perceived and how the perspective of the actors tends to influence the interpretation of actions observed. Consider, for example the case of a drug dealer. I used this opportunity to paraphrase Biggy's opening to Juicy in which he dedicates the album to all the people who lived above the building he was hustlin' in front of when he was just tryin' to make some money to feed his daughter. My thoughts drifted from social science philosophy to Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. A fleeting moment of pride in my studies.

New Awesome Randomness

You'd think after a month I'd have something better than this.



But really what could be better. Music video for Dan Deacon's Woof Woof