West Philadelphia Landscape Project

Digital Database Demonstration
The database is stored in the Cartographic Modeling Lab (Rm 323) of the Computing Center at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, and is not available on-line, but to give you an idea of what is possible, we've put together a demonstration of how one might use the Digital Database to explore aspects of the West Philadelphia landscape. This sequence of images looks at the relationships between the incidence of vacant land and the hydrology of the Mill Creek watershed. A list of available maps can be found in the Digital Database Atlas.

Base Map
	The database has a basemap of West Philadelphia as its starting point. Maps of other types of information are placed on top of this basemap. The process is like placing transparencies on top of each other, allowing all of the information to show through.
The Menu
	The process of overlaying the maps is done by using a custom Menu. This Menu appears to the right of the map on the screen. The Menu has two columns. When a category of information, such as Hydrology, is selected from the left-hand column, a series of on/off buttons appears in the right-hand column. Pressing an "ON" or "OFF" button for a particular map causes it to appear on the screen over the basemap.
Neighborhoods
	To give you an idea of the extent of the Project, we've "turned on" the Project Boundary (magenta line) and Neighborhood Boundaries (brown lines w/ white type) by clicking the "ON" button for those maps.
Topography
	A map of topography where each line represents a 5' difference in elevation, can by overlaid on the base map to show how the land slopes and where the high points and low points are. The database includes topographic maps with contour lines of 1', 2', 5' and 10' intervals as well as digital terrain models.
Watersheds
	We used the topographic information to delineate watersheds in West Philadelphia. The largest of these is the Mill Creek watershed which drains over half of West Philadelphia. In the image to the left, we've turned "ON" an outline of the Mill Creek watershed (blue) to give you an idea of its limits as defined by the ridgelines of the watershed.
Combined Storm and Sanitary Sewer
	Next, the main line of the Storm and Sanitary Sewer (thick orange line) is turned on. This approximately follows the original path of Mill Creek prior to urbanization. Mill Creek now flows below ground in the main sewer. The submains (yellow lines) have also been turned on to show how the main line branches. The database is capable of displaying all municipal sewer lines.
Zoom
	The database is set up so you can zoom in for greater detail and zoom out to get the "big picture." Zoom buttons have been added to the Menu. The image to the left has been zoomed in to show the Mill Creek neighborhood with the sewer main passing through the center of it.
Low Points
	A map of the topographically Low areas (outlined in blue) of the watershed might indicate zones of potential water damage from heavy storms and flooding.
Vacant Land
	By adding a map of Vacant Land to the maps of storm sewage and low points, an interesting relationship emerges. A large amount of the vacant land in the Mill Creek neighborhood is located on or near the path of the storm sewer -- what used to be Mill Creek.
Observations The Mill Creek is a large stream that was buried in city sewers in the late 1800s. The streambed was filled in and roads and houses built on top, but the creek continues to flow beneath the city. In the years since the floodplain was filled, the land has settled, damaging many homes and businesses. Cracks in the sewer have also allowed water to saturate the soil, leaving many buildings in the floodplain with wet basements. The expense involved in upkeep of buildings in these areas probably contributed to their demise. Eventually, entire blocks of housing and businesses were abandoned and demolished, especially where buildings had been constructed over the sewer. In the 1960s the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority cleared land in the Mill Creek neighborhood and built public housing in these low-lying areas. Today, much of this housing is abandoned or in poor repair, subject to the same problems of periodic flooding and subsidence that plagued the former houses. Other low spots in the Mill Creek floodplain lie between Walnut and Market Streets from 43rd to 47th Streets, between Market and Haverford along the 46th Street, and in Clark Park. Large concentrations of vacant blocks create a desolate landscape, one difficult to revive through the efforts of neighborhood residents without the aid of city-wide and regional interests. But they also represent a great opportunity. Potential future uses for this type of vacant land include a combination of community gardens, meeting places, playlots, playgrounds, playfields, parking lots, outdoor markets, paths, orchards, meadows, woodlands, and storm drainage and flood control. Further information on vacant land and the opportunities it represents can be found in the West Philadelphia Landscape Plan -- Vacant Land: A Resource for Reshaping Urban Neighborhoods. For further information on the hydrology of Mill Creek Watershed, see the West Philadelphia Digital Database Atlas and the ongoing Mill Creek Watershed Project.