Alexandre Nobajas
s0790123

Introduction

Jamaica, like many other former colonies, has had turbulent times since its independence in 1962. Urban areas, and especially Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city with a population of over 600,000 people, have suffered from gang and political violence since the end of the seventies and specially the eighties, and that, together with the colonial urban division background, has helped to create social segregation throughout the city. By using housing census data, and the subsequent aggregation and classification of it, this paper intends to describe and explain the social segregation of the city and how it is distributed throughout space. This data has been mapped to allow the study of the spatial distribution of social status using traditional GIS methods, but also cartograms have been used to expand the scope of the study. Ways of making the results available are explored and a web based PPGIS has been created in order to allow citizens to become an active part of the research process and make results available. The PPGIS system also allows Kingstonians to create and participate in virtual communities which help to share experiences between people from rival neighbourhoods.

Figure 1. Kingston Metropolitan Region 2001 in the Jamaican context (upper image) and in detail (lower image). Source: Author’s work.

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Housing Methodology

The necessary data to carry out this project was provided by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), the Jamaican statistical agency. They created and provided the censual and the cartographical data which was acquired by David Howard using the Moray Endowment Fund. All data had to be extensively treated in order to meet appropriate levels of consistency and to ensure that datasets were using the same scale, units, coordinate system and other compatibility issues. A diagram of the processes followed can be seen in figure 2.

Figure 2. Data processing Diagram

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Housing Results

Here you can see the resulting map created from the data treatment and integration. Figure 3 helps visualising the distribution of the different housing classes across the KMR, but it does not reflect other important information like how many people lives in each ED, so it is not possible to know if many people are affected by high quality housing or not.

Figure 3 . Housing index of the KMR classified in quintiles. Source: Author’s work.

The cartogram shown in figure 4 has been distorted so each ED has an area relative to the population living in it. In contraposition to the previous figure this allows seeing at a glance that, the amount of people living in the first and second quintile of the index is quite large in downtown Kingston, while the wealthy areas of east Saint Andrew shrink because even though they are large in area they are small in population, so few people live there. If Portmore is considered, it can be observed that most people live in EDs where a majority of households lay inside the fourth and fifth quintiles of the housing index.

Figure 4 . Cartogram created using the population variable. Colours represent the housing index of the KMR classified in quintiles. No scale is applicable. Source: Author’s work.

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PPGIS & Examples

High levels of crime and the existence of garrison constituencies in the KMR makes it difficult to have any kind of positive flow between garrison constituencies. These areas concentrate high levels of poverty and violence, making them closed communities with little external influence, as their name suggests. Since garrison communities supporting different parties will not have ways to share their common issues or even know if the same problems affect them in a similar way, alternative contact ways should be created. One of the available options to create a space for sharing knowledge is a web based Public Participation GIS (PPGIS). A website is an ideal way to implement a PPGIS in Jamaica because the level of access to the Internet by its citizens is one of the highest in the Caribbean. The website can be accessed here: http://www.gisngeo.com/jamaica/home.html

Figure 5. Website map. Source: Author’s work.

Some examples of the functionalities of the PPGIS website have been included in this page as an example. This is just a tiny part of the PPGIS website, so it is highly recommended to try the full version.

• The Maps section holds an easy to use GI system to render statistical data from the census:

• A Wiki called Jamaikedia was created using Media Wiki:

• A custom made Image Gallery was created using PHP and MySQL. It allows citizens to upload their pictures to create a gallery:

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Conclusions

From the time Jamaica gained its sovereignty back from Britain the spatial segregation between races and social classes has been blurred and many citizens have been able to exit poverty. Even though, garrison communities have maintained or increased their levels of poverty making them a crime and violence focus. All these patterns can be followed by studying the housing characteristics of each neighbourhood, which has been achieved by the creation of a classification which has proven to be useful to find spatial trends when combined with GIS techniques. The creation of a PPGIS will allow obtaining more detailed information than the census provides about the issues concerning the KMR to continue this research in the future. It will also allow Kingstonians to establish communication bridges between separated communities and to discuss issues which concern them, while helping researchers, NGOs and government agencies to know which issues worry citizens the most.

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Key references:
Clarke, C. (1975). Kingston, Jamaica: Urban Development and Social Change, 1692 to 1962 Oxford University Press
Clarke, C. (2006a). Decolonizing the Colonial City: Urbanization and Stratification in Kingston, Jamaica Oxford University Press
Clarke, C. and Howard, D. (2006) ‘Contradictory socio-economic consequences of structural adjustment in Kingston, Jamaica’ The Geographical Journal 172(2): 106-129
Henry-Lee, A. (2005) ‘The nature of poverty on the garrison constituencies in Jamaica’ Environment and Urbanization 17:83
Moser, C. and Holland, J. (1997). Urban Poverty and Violence in Jamaica World Bank Latin American Studies
National Research Council (2007) Putting People on the Map: Protecting Confidentiality with Linked Social-Spatial Data National Academies Press
Nobajas, A. (2008a) Census Data and PPGIS: Housing in the Kingston Metropolitan Region, Jamaica Unpublished MSc Thesis, University of Edinburgh
Nobajas, A. (2008b) Census Data and PPGIS: Housing in the Kingston Metropolitan Region, Jamaica. Technical Report. Unpublished MSc Thesis, University of Edinburgh
United Nations (1997) Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses Revision 1 United Nations New York, 1997