Industry & Infrastructure: Cancer Alley, LA and Detroit, MI
Baton Rouge, LA
New Orleans, LA
Detroit, MI
By Michael Stepniak
environmental justice, urban design, infrastructure, industry, cancer alley, detroit, louisiana, michigan
Original research and aggregated, normalized data, mapping a history and effects of industrial and infrastructural works.
For the purposes of this project, the term non-negotiable spaces is deliberately misleading. Clearly, any space can be negotiated, given time and force. It is within a specific temporal context in which certain spaces are a fact that with which there is no bargaining: political and ideological periods, a period before a technological or social advance, a construction season,a commute, or until a class-action lawsuit ends: in short, until some thing changes the physical landscape, again, and again, erecting new barriers while tearing down others.
This project is an exploration of relationships between barriers: hydrological, infrastructural and industrial, and their interaction with populations.
There is one set of shapefiles that is used throughout the project on all but two maps. These are the North American Industry shapefiles. I have traced the footprint of every major industrial site along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, LA, the area known as Cancer Alley. I also traced nearly all industrial sites in Southwest Detroit, and am currently working the East Side of the city and the Downriver industrial suburbs, as well as the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark.
The data tables that are attached to these shapefiles include the year of construction, the product produced on site, the company name and the company website. Many of these companies do not advertise, and much of the initial research, i.e. finding out the name of the company on site, was done through Google Street View. This was accomplished as follows, for example: “drive” past industrial site, zoom in on sign on fence, note that it says “plant 3,” Google “plant 3, Plaquemines (Ex.) Parish, LA, scan the results.” Often it became difficult to discern what was made there or who owned it until numerous court documents, local historical archives, environmental justice blogs, etc, etc were consulted, although several of the corporations were very helpful in publishing the entire plant history on their website.
The North American Industry shapefile set is available on CartoDB at the link posted above.
The first geography explored is Cancer Alley, Louisiana:
The second is Southwest Detroit
Next, is a zoom out to the entirety of Metropolitan Detroit, identifying the geographic center of population and conflict as 8 Mile Road, an enormous piece of infrastructure that segregates race and class, and functions as a county and municipal border between Detroit proper and the northern suburbs.
Then, another zoom out, to the historical, pre -European non-negotiable spaces: the swamps of Southeastern Michigan, surveyed in 1816. These swamps determined the Indian trails, upon which the modern day city was overlayed (top).
8 Mile Road was another superimposition. It was the baseline from which Michigan was surveyed in 1816 (bottom).
Finally, a zoom in to a specific 8 Mile Road Community on the Eastpointe-Detroit border.
