Atlanta Geographical Expedition

The goal of this group is to:

1. Normalize the use of spatial SQL.
2. Use AI for good.
3. Do geospatial for good.

To achieve these goals, we founded Atlanta Geographical Expedition. An app is in development, it starts with Dekalb. See this repo. It uses CDC's Social Vulnerability Index. Each pop up uses that data to show top 5 drivers of social vulnerability, then top 3 structural drivers of the same. Structural drivers are the focus as they are things like access to insurance/education/housing and can be addressed by policy makers and political leaders. The bottom of each pop up has a link to Grok (example). This uses AI to plan a campaign to address the structural drivers, for the selected census tract. As such, we are using spatial analysis to direct the use of AI for good. It augments our effort to reduce social vulnerability in a targeted way.

William Bunge was a radical geographer and urbanist who thrived on saying no to academic tradition. In doing so, his work was a precursor to the modern concept of Participatory GIS. He was the first in 1968 to run an initiative like this, Detroit Geographical Expedition. It was lead by community representative Gwendolyn Warren and mapped issues important to locals. For example, hotspots in Detroit where children frequently died on sidewalks when hit by cars.

If we are to form a useful geospatial group in Atlanta, then:

1. We can use his original society-focused expedition as inspiration.
2. We can power our efforts with efficient tooling like spatial SQL.
3. We can be confident our time is well spent by using AI for good and indeed doing good through our geospatial acts.