Mapping [DIS]investment in Mexico City

*The original server for the project was shut down, but the above video shows the application in use. 

Misson

To provide an easy to use, accessible platform for citizens and community groups in Mexico City to advocate for key public sector investments. And make the connection between socioeconomic vulnerability and public disinvestment in important infrastructure in order to direct future investment to where it is needed most.

Vision

We created an interactive process that maps citizen-supplied infrastructural assets and deficits in their neighborhoods and overlays it with a spatial vulnerability index. This allows citizens to inform the political process and indicate where infrastructure projects are most needed. We see this being a powerful and flexible tool that can be promoted by community organizations, NGOs, and government agencies to allocate important infrastructure projects in neighborhoods with greater rates of public disinvestment and greater socioeconomic vulnerability.

Methodology

We calculated a socioeconomic “Vulnerability Index” by averaging four values: percentage of unemployment, percentage of illiteracy, and percentage of the population without access to healthcare plus the average of a combination of housing characteristics and infrastructure indicators. We believe that Percentage of Unemployment, Percentage of Illiteracy, and Percentage of Population without Access to Health Care are important socioeconomic indicators that directly affect the characteristics of households. As a result, these three indicators are given the highest weight when compiling the index. The average of the values of all census tracts is used to measure a medium socioeconomic vulnerability. High and Very High socioeconomic vulnerability are values over the medium bracket. Thus Low and Very Low socioeconomic vulnerability are values below the medium bracket.