Minding the (diversity) gap in street names.

An interactive project that maps the remarkable lack of diversity in Italian street names.

To create a fairer society, it certainly isn’t enough to change street names. At the same time, a gender-equal society needs to question stereotypes and imbalanced representation so we can create a better collective future for all humankind.

What we did

  • Data journalism
  • Data visualization
  • Web design
  • Front-end dev.
  • UX

Client

European Data Journalism Network

The idea
It’s not just a matter of naming

In partnership with the EDJNet, Mapping Diversity aims to engage a broader audience in recognizing the gender gap in Italian street names. Through scrollytelling and simple visualizations that facilitate the reader’s understanding, the project reveals how few women are honoured in Italian street names. It's not just a matter of labelling; street names have symbolic power. They’re the result of decision-making processes rooted in the legitimisation of the past and in the construction of collective historical memory. It's a matter of honouring the women who shaped our past and including them in the city streets that we use every day.

The impact
Spread the word!

If data is the new oil, we should be aware of the new environmental consequences, too. We mean: data may be wrongly collected, may be unprecise, partial, or simply partial, not representing the whole phenomenon. Consequences of wrong data may be serious. For this reason before taking decision, or simply considering data, we should check twice where do they come from, how they were collected, in which way, what/who they represent or exclude. Despite it is a fancy and funny project we tried to give it a social vocation to warn and raise awareness one more time on the hype around data.

Triggering civic awareness through truly interactive regional data.
Reinvesting open-data portals.
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Sheldon.studio connects data technology and design to unfold the complex things through great projects.