Today we did not have class, but I finalized the map exports for my group’s project. Below is a sneak peek of one of the maps I created to answer one of the questions we decided to focus on. This map shows how unemployment affects labor demonstrations in the continental US.

We can see how some counties experienced more labor-related protests due to a combination of population density, industrial concentration, historical labor activism, and socioeconomic conditions. Urban and industrial regions—like Los Angeles County (CA), Cook County (IL), and Philadelphia County (PA)—tend to have:

• Higher concentrations of workers, particularly in unionized or service-based sectors, where labor disputes are more common.

• A longer history of organized labor and civil demonstrations has made protests a more normalized form of civic engagement.

• More visible inequalities in wages, benefits, and workplace protections can spark mobilization.

 

LaborGroupDemonstrations2

This week in class, we discussed the accuracy of near neighbor classification. Mahnoor had brought up the question “How well can we predict which demonstrations will be violent?” She came up with the “Poison the pool” algorithm, looking at the nearest neighbors, and if one of the closest neighbors is violent, then the original event you were looking into will be violent. As always Mahnoor had a very interesting presentation.

 

Regarding our project, I spent the rest of class time continuing to clean up data to be able to create the necessary maps.

This week in class, we added Sumbul to our group!

Originally, Lavania and I had planned to answer two questions with GIS. This week we decided to add two more questions, incorporating some statistical coding, for a total of four questions.

1. Why did some counties have protests related to labor laws over others?
2. Which organizations are involved most in violent demonstrations?
3. What is the ratio of violent protests to peaceful protests?
4. Is there a year that stands out with more violent protests than others?

 

As I will be answering the first two questions using GIS, I took class time to edit the data so that it could be mapped more effectively.