| Note: This is the last edition of MapLab as a standalone newsletter. After today, MapLab readers will receive CityLab’s daily newsletter.
You can manage your newsletter preferences anytime at Bloomberg.com/newsletters. Read more from MapLab founder Laura Bliss below. The best maps are dense and dazzling stories. Whether it’s getting lost in the bygone borders of a vintage globe, poring over shifts in voting patterns of a polarized nation, or zooming into hotspots for disease or disaster, maps can outdo words in compressing information. Done beautifully, they can draw in readers for hours. I founded MapLab in 2017 as a newsletter from CityLab on that simple premise: that maps are inherently interesting. The history of maps is as glorious, complicated and contested as any discipline, and their future is evolving rapidly in the age of machine learning, augmented reality and satellite technologies. By covering the science, art and business of mapping – with a focus on how maps intersect with the news – I wanted to create a space for map lovers and map makers to connect, learn and think. Seven years later, I’d like to think MapLab has reached that goal. Sometimes biweekly, sometimes monthly, we’ve published a steady stream of maps, news and analysis for tens of thousands of readers. Over the past year, we’ve partnered with Bloomberg’s graphics team to showcase their work and technical expertise. MapLab’s impact has gone beyond the newsletter itself: In 2019, CityLab published a series of first-person essays called “The Maps That Made Us” about the power of maps to shape lives. (I highly recommend all the essays in that series, plus readers’ responses to them, in the links below.) From 2020 to 2022, MapLab and its readers were the heart of CityLab’s pandemic mapping project, which gave rise to a book called The Quarantine Atlas – which has now been taught in university classrooms all over the US. (And maybe the world? Let me know.) I did none of this by myself. CityLab’s stellar editor, Nicole Flatow, has been a champion of MapLab since the beginning. Marie Patino, Bloomberg graphics reporter, did an amazing job as primary author for much of 2022 and 2023, and has continued to contribute since. (In fact, Marie and I recently co-authored a chapter together for The Routledge Handbook of Cartographic Humanities.) Jessica Lee Martin, senior audience development editor, was the brilliant co-creator of the pandemic mapping project. Many other colleagues, too many to name, lent their support and contributions along the way. My gratitude goes to all of them. Now it’s time for a bittersweet goodbye. In July, I changed roles at Bloomberg and am now an editor and writer at Businessweek. You can still find me writing there on data, cities and the environment, among other responsibilities. But the new job leaves less room for MapLab, so this will be its final edition. Starting tomorrow, you’ll receive CityLab Daily, featuring top stories, ideas and solutions from cities around the world. CityLab plans to periodically feature MapLab stories there, so that’s the best way to keep up with its ongoing map coverage. You can manage your newsletter preferences anytime at Bloomberg.com/newsletters. I will leave you with two final requests. First, I would love to know what this newsletter has meant to you. Did you learn something new? Discover potential collaborators? Get inspired? It would mean a lot to hear about it if you did. Second, with the fifth anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic coming up, CityLab is looking for an archival home for our pandemic maps. If you have suggestions for a university or library that might be interested, we'd love to know. Please send correspondence to: maplab@bloomberg.net You can also reach me directly: lbliss2@bloomberg.net Thank you for your loyal readership. Writing and editing MapLab has been an honor and a joy. -- Laura Bliss | 
