DETROITography began as a personal effort to better understand the City of Detroit and teach myself Geographic Information Systems (GIS). By 2013, I realized that I had been making a lot of maps of Detroit and had been talking with a lot of Detroit geographers and cartographers. I wanted a place to share my maps, the maps of other great cartographers, as well as historical maps. I also saw a void not being filled in connecting maps and data to the stories and situations of people.
Date
2013 – Present
Client
Self-initiated / DETROITography
Awards
2015 Knight Cities Finalist
Grants
2014 Awesome Foundation
Exhibitions
2022 Fisher Building, Detroit in 5 Maps
2022 UM Clark Library, Map ≠ Territory: Distortion and Power in Cartography
2019 College for Creative Studies, Faculty Now!
2018 Detroit Center for Design and Technology, Intersections: The City Through Cartography
2016 University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery, Mapping Detroit and Public Policy
2016 Queens Museum, Map Mosaic: A Focus on Detroit
2015 INTERMINUS Gallery, Ecologies of Detroit
2015 Chicago Design Museum, The State of Detroit
2015 Praxis Center, Social Justice Mapping in Detroit
2014 Trumbullplex, Alley Culture
2014 FOSS4G, Map Gallery
Media
Article Axios Detroit, October 2022
Article New York Times, ‘You Are Here’: Mapping Climate Change, Make Believe, and Murder, December 2021
Article Wayne State Magazine pp. 36-43, Spring/Summer 2021
Article Curbed Detroit, February 2018
Article Eater Detroit, April 2017
Article Michigan Daily, November 2016
Article CultureSource, November 2016
Audio Michigan Radio, October 2015
Article Windsor Star, October 2015
Article Shareable, September 2015
Article Deadline Detroit, June 2015
Article Model D Media, March 2015
Article Gawker, February 2015
Article Daily Detroit, October 2014
Article Metro Times, October 2014
Article WDET, September 2014
Article Model D Media, September 2014
Article Al Jazeera America, 2013
Publications
Articles
2022 Detroit Research Journal v3, Critical Bunge: Reviewing History of a Radical Geographer’s Legacy in Detroit
2022 Detroit Research Journal v3, Drawing Detroit
2017 Antipode Online, “Nothing Changes”: Community Mapping Practice in Detroit
2016 Detroit Research Journal v2
2015 Detroit Digital Justice Coalition: Opening Data Zine, Finding Land for the Community
2015 Progressive Planner, Urban Agriculture in Detroit: It’s not a ‘Food Desert,’ it’s about Food Sovereignty
Books
2021 Detroit in 50 Maps
2018 The People’s Atlas of Detroit
2018 The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities
2017 4D Hyperlocal: A Cultural Toolkit for the Open-Source City
2016 Making Maps, Third Edition: A Visual Guide to Map Design for GIS
Alex B. Hill 