Welcome to Joining The Dots

Welcome to Joining The Dots, a research project concerned with the mapping and analysis of data related to housing, planning and property in Ireland.

What Is Joining The Dots?

Joining The Dots attempts to trace the links between data points, statistics, and the places they represent, in order to help better understand their relationships and tell their stories.

Bridging the Gap Between Data and Place

Data about housing and planning can feel abstract: rows in a spreadsheet or points on a chart are qualitatively removed from the places and people they describe. Joining The Dots will try to close that gap by layering different kinds of information together.

By looking at the same issue from several angles, and combining official statistics with local context, the aim is to build a richer, more representative picture of what is happening and why. This will be achieved using a range of means including interactive maps, charts, written analysis, multimedia and street-level observation.

Deeper than the Map

Our approach draws on the idea of deep mapping, which goes beyond plotting locations on a map to explore the many dimensions of a place, including its history, its communities and the policies that shape it. It also takes seriously the need to check what the data says against what people actually experience, making sure the numbers don’t tell a misleading story.

What to Expect

Through this blog we will be sharing visualisations, analysis and narratives that explore how housing, planning and property data work in context and on the ground.

To find out more about the project and the ideas behind it, visit the About page.