Food_Mapping

Project Motivation

We approached this project with ambition, inspired by the impact that could be achieved by creating a strong foundation for understanding Boston’s food system. From the outset, we saw the potential for a tool that could support conversations around food access and equity by making complex information easier to see and understand.

Design Approach

The challenge was intentionally open-ended, giving us flexibility in how we shaped the project. Faced with highly fragmented data, we focused on building a complete and coherent view of Boston’s foodshed while prioritizing an interface that would be intuitive and accessible to non-technical users.

Technical Implementation

We built the project by architecting our data into a standardized structure that unifies different food distribution units across the city. This structure reflects existing food availability while remaining flexible enough to incorporate new datasets as additional research becomes available.

Challenges and Future Expansion

One of the primary challenges was incorporating food production data. While production is essential to an equitable food system, limited public availability constrained the scope of our analysis. However, the system we designed can seamlessly integrate this information in the future,such as through CSV ingestion, demonstrating both scalability and long-term potential.