Mapping a Movement: Exploring a Proposed Police Training Facility in Atlanta and its Opposition Movement through Online Maps

Fig. 1. A sample of maps retrieved from online sources that describe aspects of a proposed police training facility (colloquially known as Cop City) in Atlanta, Georgia, from proponents of the facility, the mass media, and activists who oppose the plan.

In 2021, the City of Atlanta and Atlanta Police Foundation launched plans to build a large police training facility in the South River Forest in unincorporated DeKalb County, GA. Residents of Atlanta and DeKalb County, environmental activists, police and prison abolitionists, and other activists and concerned individuals formed the movement in opposition to the facility, known as the Stop Cop City / Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. Social media and digital maps became common tools for communicating information about the facility and the movement. Here, we examine online maps about the facility and the opposition movement, originating from grassroots organizations, the City of Atlanta, news media outlets, the Atlanta Police Foundation, and individuals. We gather and examine 32 publicly available maps collected through the Google Search API, Twitter (now X), Instagram and reddit. Using a framework of critical cartography, we conduct a content analysis of these maps to identify the mapping technologies and techniques (data, cartographic elements, styles) used by different stakeholders and roles that maps and mapping technologies can play in social movements. Finally, we examine the extent to which these maps provide data to confirm or contradict concerns raised by grassroots organizations and local residents about the facility. We find that stakeholders and mapmakers use geo-spatial tools in different ways and likely have varied access to mapping technologies. We argue that documenting the use of maps to communicate information about a contentious project can help enumerate community positions and perspectives and we advocate for accessible mapmaking tools. We conclude by discussing the implications of accessibility of mapping technology and posting maps to social media, and share example map images that extend the geographic information systems (GIS) techniques seen in the retrieved maps.

CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI; Geographic visualization.