Early in my career, I had the great opportunity to work at a firm that specialized in park and recreation planning, which not only gave a fabulous perspective on municipal planning (and reinforced my love of both the large ad the small scale) as well as the inventive use of mapping to illustrate particular schema. A recent post on People and Place featured a map that drove this point home, in particular the cause and effect between parks and childhood obesity. For reference: ““Areas with fewer parks (lighter rather than darker green) have higher rates of childhood obesity (larger red circles)”

:: image via People and Place

Some info, via a link to a great story in the Economist, ‘Mapping a better world’. A quote worth showing: “But mapping technology has matured into a tool for social justice. Whether it is to promote health, safety, fair politics or a cleaner environment, foundations, non-profit groups and individuals around the world are finding that maps can help them make their case far more intuitively and effectively than speeches, policy papers or press releases.”