While working on Assignment 3, I got a chance to look through various maps of the Bulfinch Triangle throughout different points in time. Originally, I was unsure as to whether or not I would be able to find definitive trends and patterns in land use. It seemed to me that one would need to investigate a larger section of the city in order to identify any clear patterns. However, I was mistaken. By identifying how land was used in the Bulfinch Triangle and then identifying the key new technology or mode of transportation, patterns became very clearly visible even within the scale of 4-8 blocks. These patterns of course hinted towards larger trends that could be confirmed by the required readings.
The most helpful tool in identifying how land use changed over time was the Sanborn maps. It was very easy to identify both commercial and industrial land use on these maps. However, the only indication I found of residential land use were buildings marked “Loft”. The Sanborn maps gave no indication as to whether small business owners lived in the upper floors of their shops, which is fairly common. Since it was impossible to identify any hybrid land use, I decided to favor commercial land use over residential, and marked all of these possibly hybrid buildings as commercial. Because of this, the distribution of land use is more skewed towards commercial than it was in actuality.
The Bromley map was useful in confirming observations made when looking at the Sanborn maps. Since the Sanborn maps mainly identify buildings with potential fire hazards, the Bromley maps were used to identify whether unmarked buildings in the Sanborn were commercial, residential, industrial or institutional.