The People's Map of Manchester

As part of the Miles Platting map display at the Peterloo bicentennial commemoration, we created a blank map of Manchester and invited visitors to the exhibition to add their own community organising, challenges and mysteries onto the map. Visitors used stickers and icons to pin point things they wanted to draw attention to on the Manchester map. In some instances, people provided more detail in a note book provided at the exhibition. This map formed a record of the visitors accounts - sharing what they valued, had lost, were promised, or was a mystery in their own areas. By displaying the ‘People’s Map of Manchester’ back to back with the Miles Platting map, the exhibition illustrated that these issues are much broader than one neighbourhood alone.

Since the exhibition, we have used the information provided on the map and in the note book to create this interactive online map. The interactive map displays the information added to the exhibit by visitors themselves. The comments and stickers have not been checked or edited, and therefore represent the real-life feedback generated during the exhibition. Thank you to all the visitors who contributed.

We will use this map in our research to reflect on our core question: “whose knowledge matters in urban development”? We hope it can be used to discuss how policies and decisions can take into account local knowledge.

Click on the icons on the map for more information and stories.

Click here to see the interactive version of the Pidgeons, Platting and PFI map.