Index for Ranking African American Quality of Life

Index for Ranking African American Quality of Life:
As growing numbers of U.S. citizens have migrated to cities in recent decades, urban
quality of life issues have been increasingly measured and analyzed. In particular,
several popular business-oriented magazines, such as Forbes, Kiplinger, and Money
publish annual rankings of cities based upon a variety of social, economic, environmental
and other criteria. It has been noted that the "best" places determined by the met

David A. Padgett is an Associate Professor of Geography, and Director of the Geographic Information Sciences
(GISc) Laboratory at Tennessee State University (TSU) in Nashville, Tennessee. He is currently in the process of
building a Geography/ Environmental Justice curriculum with a strong emphasis upon service learning. He has
previously developed and taught geography and geographic information systems (GIS)-related courses at Austin
Peay State University (Tennessee) and Oberlin College (Ohio). Since establishing the GISc Lab in the summer of
2000, Padgett has supervised several undergraduate research assistants on a variety of service learning projects
the topics of which include: community-based global positioning systems (GPS) mapping to improve public transit
accessibility, GIS-supported urban forest conservation, and GIS-based impact assessment of an interstate highway
upon a predominantly African American community. The GISc Lab has developed working relationships with a
variety of grassroots groups, non-profi t organizations, and government agencies. Many of the students Padgett has
taught over the past 12 years have graduated and are now gainfully employed in GIS-related occupations.