Mapping Census 2000

This assignment was to map different information from the 2000 Census of the United States of America. The first of the four maps I made displays the number of people in the US in the year 2000. These values were calculated from the Census information of that year in which the US surveyed as many households as they could asking about how many people live in the household. The color ramp I selected shows the lower values in lighter colors and the higher numbers in the darker values. This selection of colors is a good choice because it allows the viewer to make clearer distinctions between the number of people in areas. 

The second map I made shows the difference of the number of people from 1990 to 2000 in the US. These values are calculated by comparing the Census information from 1990 to 2000 in the US and measuring the positive and negative difference of people in each area. The color ramp selected displays darker greenish colors for the positive difference, and pink colors for the more negative population differences. This allows the viewer to clearly see a color contrast based on the positive or negative difference. 

The third map I made displays the percentage difference from 1990 to 2000 in the US. These values are calculated by difference of the population of the decade and diving by the amount of people in 2000. The color ramps for this map is similar to the previous map where it has two different colors displaying the positive and negative percent change from 1990 to 2000. The purple colors are the positive change and the yellow colors are the more negative changes. This is good because it allows the viewer to make the clear distinctions of positive and negative percent change in population from 1990 to 2000. 

Finally, the fourth map I made shows the population density of the US in 2000. The values of this map are calculated by dividing the population by the area. The color ramp is similar to the first map, where the darker blue colors mean a higher density, and the lighter greenish colors are then lower density of that area. These maps are helpful in letting us know the amount of people there are in the US and which areas are developing faster in comparison to those that are losing people. 

DEMs in ArcGIS

 

This lab consisted of raster data and how to create digital elevation models. The first step was to download a plot of land from the USGS Seamless Data server text, but unfortunately the server was not working for me even though I would try to do it over and over so I was having a few problems. After trouble shooting, I obtained a parcel of land in Colorado. This area is located SW of the White River National Forest and consists of Aspen, Snowmass Village, and the Williams Mountains. These places are known for their ski-resorts, recreation, and wildlife and is a great spot for a vacation with the family, especially during the winter holidays. 

Extent:

Left: -107.117777776646

Right: -106.306388887702

Top: 39.3427777772078

Bottom: 38.7847222216147

Spatial References: GCS_North_American_1983

Datum: D_North_American_1983

Source Type: Continuous

ArcGIS Intro

This lab consisted of doing five exercises in an introduction to ArcGIS. Prior to this introduction I have never experienced using ArcGIS and was very confused with the first few steps. I started coasting through it after the first steps and noticed that the pictures in the tutorial were really helpful. The first exercise guided us through the basics such as knowing the difference between layout view and data view, and how to insert data layers, titles, legends, scales, and a compass. I also learned how to zoom into areas to see whether or not a school lies within a noise contour, and how to choose a graphic for the features on our map. 

The second exercise was more complex in my opinion since it had various different components to it. First, I added a new data frame because I was focusing on another aspect of the area. In this data frame I focused on the land noise contour. I was trying to figure out what the majority of the land within the noise contour was used for, and after looking at the graph, I concluded that residential areas make up most of the land use in the noise contour. 

The next exercise focused more on the population density of the area. I used many tables to gather and join information of the population densities to display on the map. From the map, you can see that the majority of the population lies near the center of the map. You can also see that the arterials intersect near the center of the map, where the population is most dense. In the fourth exercise, I learned how to make and add a road, and how to make the street parallel to other streets, and how to add perfect tangent curves. I completed a street near the airport, and displayed the street names for the rest of the streets so that our first map is complete. 

The final exercise was to add the final touches to the other maps and make the information cleaner and easier to understand. This lab allowed me to lean a lot about ArcGIS and how it can be great to display information, but you must be very careful and cautious about your work. ArcGIS allows you to separate layers and data frames if you want to focus on only certain things, but in doing so, you have to go through many steps and if you do one little mistake in one of these steps, you may have to start all over again. Although ArcGIS requires one to know how to use many features, once they master the program, and are able to zip-though exercises, it can be a great program to help display information on maps. 

Neogeography

West Hollywood- A Great Place to Live

This is a map that takes us from Melrose Ave. & Van Ness, to Fairfax & 3rd Street while pin-pointing attractions such as shopping, dining, entertainment, public parks, schools, and libraries and their proximity to the surrounding community. The purpose of this map is to let viewers get a feel for the community of West Hollywood and what it has to offer.

View West Hollywood- A Great Place to Live in a larger map

Neogeography is a new form of geography in which anyone can make and share maps of anything using tools which already exist. Programs such as My Maps on googlemaps allows virtually anyone to make and publicly share a map on anything they choose. This seems like a great idea, but there are consequences for this. For example, the information displayed on these maps may not be correct since random people are making these maps. A person using these maps can be misguided or given wrong information. Not only can these maps provide wrong information, but these maps may also provide opinionated information. For instance, if someone does not like a certain cafe, they may write something negative about it under the description which may negatively affect this cafe.

These maps can also use information collected to publicly display personal information. For example, someone has made a map of Proposition 8 supporters. They took information of who or which businesses donated money and how much to this proposition, which was against gay marriage. This can be bad for these businesses or can create problems for those who donated because this is a very sensitive issue which should be kept private for the safety of everyone. Information like this can be incorporated into programs such as this which is a major pitfall of neogeography. Neogeography is a great new form of geography, but users must be really careful in what information they use and how they display it.