Storytelling is a powerful tool.
So is this Map.

welcome to the supply chain Story MAP

At FuturePorts, we have our eyes on factors that impact the Southern California region’s ability to stay competitive, things that could drive cargo away from our Ports. You know what they are: bottlenecks in the supply chain, congestion, a hostile regulatory environment, pretty much anything that adds cost to cargo or uncertainty to the supply chain ecosystem. 

Working collaboratively for almost two years, the Workforce and Competitiveness committee diligently prepared what we thought was going to be a white paper. As we worked, we realized that there were plenty of places where the data we were aggregating and analyzing appears, but there were precious few places where the data was used in a compelling way to tell the story of the Ports and the supply chain, and the jobs they support right here in our own backyard.  

Thanks to a partnership with the Center for International Trade and Transportation at Cal State Long Beach, the white paper became instead an interactive online tool that visually shows the information and adds a narrative element so that the data and the details come together to tell the story of our sustainable supply chain. So, rather than an endpoint with a white paper that would be published and almost immediately become outdated, we could instead have a launch pad for a dynamic map. A living document, the Supply Chain Story Map will be able to stay current with new data added to it as it becomes available. Even better, the story map is accessible to our partners and is a powerful tool to SHOW not tell people how important the supply chain is to Southern California’s economic resiliency. The Supply Chain Story Map may be the culmination of the first phase of our efforts, but it is just the starting point for a larger future scenario planning effort. We invite you to join us. Together we can write the next chapter for the sustainable Southern California supply chain.

how to use the map

Click on the button below to access the map. You’ll be taken to a new page that has a column on the left and looks just like this landing page. To explore the information on the map, pick a category from the list on the left and scroll through the information that is shared on each layer of the map. If you are interested in downloading some of the information shared in the Supply Chain Story Map, select a PDF fact sheet, located at the bottom of this page.

Just the Facts

As part of the Supply Chain Story Map project FuturePorts is developing fact sheets for each of the map layers that you can access here. We’ll be posting more soon, but we’re startining with the high level overview of trade in our region. Credit to Jim MacLellan for data supporting this effort.