MCVD: A New Environmental Justice Tool for Chicago Communities

The UIC School of Public Health (UIC-SPH) Emergency Management and Resiliency Planning (EMRP) program, in collaboration with the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) and content experts, is presenting a series of Midwest Comprehensive Visualization Dashboard(s) (MCVD) focusing on environmental justice (EJ) issues in this region. In this current MCVD, after a six-month interaction with community groups and policymakers, we developed representations of data that community members can understand and findings to substantiate their EJ claims. Policymakers benefit from these interfaces since they make visible the EJ issues (e.g., rail yards in the SW section of Chicago) requiring an equitable resolution. This proximity to the hazards dashboard (PHD) places individual community members at the center of a cognitive frame. The PHD interface allows end-users to enter an address and identify the surrounding places of interest. It provides an answer to a common question raised during our meetings: "which polluters are near my home?" (or the school of my children).