The city of Eau Claire in conjunction with the University and surrounding partners recently approved an Arts Center Project in downtown Eau Claire. This project when completed is expected to be a landmark when coming to Eau Claire. Many people will experience the arts like never before and be able to in a location with such rich history as the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers.
We took a look at the confluence project in the lens of these six maps. It is important to remember when planning a project such as this to observe all things spatial as you want the location to be flawless.
The Confluence is located in the middle of the City of Eau Claire as you see in the Civil Divisions Map, and it also has the largest population of the surrounding Census Tracts in the "downtown" area of Eau Claire. The Public Land Survey System is a way of breaking down places into geographic grids and the breaking those grids into even smaller grids such as the Quarter Quarter grids depicted in the PLSS Features Map.
The last three maps give us some more background information about the location of the Confluence and surrounding areas. With the project being located on the river there are not that many parcels adajcent to the proposed arts center and it is also located at the corner of two streets making it not too heavily traveled by commuting traffic. The project is located within the Central Business District zoning area of Eau Claire, which only further adds to the aura of downtown. To finish, the project is located entirely within the 31st voting ward of Eau Claire.
All these maps were created using ARC Map and credit is given to the city of Eau Claire and Eau Claire County for the data. Techniques to make these maps included a variety of color and symbol changes. Changing the opacity of these colors allows us to see the aerial images behind giving us a better sense of place. Bright colors were used so that our eyes are drawn to the objects that I felt were important for viewers to see. Maps and their data are only as good as the Cartographic choices that are associated with them. Maps are made so that we can explain data through a spatial manner which allows readers to better understand what the author(cartographer) intends to teach them.
