Principal Investigator Sarah Williams
Project Website http://www.civicdatadesignlab.org/#/new-gallery/
As many of you know, the Garment District has been under enormous pressure to rezone over the past several years. This proposal could possibly erode the way in which designers are able to work and innovate. During Summer of 2011, the Spatial Information Design Lab, in partnership with Elizabeth Currid, set out to quantify the importance of manufacturing firms in the Garment District. In this project we used smart phone technology to perform a survey of the spatial patterns of New York City design firms. We believe that their spatial patterns will show that the density of manufacturing in the garment district matters to the industry.
In order to survey the spatial patterns of the fashion industry workforce we will ask participants in the study to use anonymously generated FourSquare accounts to “check-in” to fashion related locations. These “check-ins” will allow us to see how and where fashion industry workers use the Garment District. We believe the findings will show that proximity matters to New York City’s fashion industry.