Connecting Information & Urban Space

Yesterday's New York Times featured a review of Steven Johnson's new book, “The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World” (Riverhead).

Johnson's also the author of several other books, including one of my favorite about technology and society, "Interface Culture," which offers a compelling analysis of the ways computer interfaces and real-world concepts (think "desktop") shape our thinking.

In his latest endeavor, Johnson blends the book and blog formats by addressing both, here's an excerpt from the Times piece, including a quote from Johnson (linked above):

In “The Ghost Map” Mr. Johnson makes an explicit connection between the subject of the book and the Internet.

“The influence of the Broad Street maps extends beyond the realm of disease,” he writes. “The Web is teeming with new forms of amateur cartography, thanks to services like Google Earth and Yahoo! Maps. Where Snow inscribed the location of pumps and cholera fatalities over the street grid, today’s mapmakers record a different kind of data: good public schools, Chinese takeout places, playgrounds, gay-friendly bars, open houses. All the local knowledge that so often remains trapped in the minds of neighborhood residents can now be translated into map form and shared with the rest of the world.”

This has real significance for those working in public health today. What might it mean to map the threats to disease, injury, and illness and make those available online for everyone?

Johnson's related website, outside.in, allows anyone to add content to geographically-specific maps. So far, he and other contributors have been mapping the kinds of things he mentions above like schools and take-out places, but there's no reason that those interested in public health, could use the map to add health-related information. Johnson's insight is to take the important work of John Snow in public health and translate it beyond public health for the Internet-era. The next step might very well be to combine John Snow's and Steven Johnson's insights and see how it these might work together to benefit public health at a time when many people are more likely to access a computer than a water pump.