PennTags Feed for /tag/GIS

NHGIS National Historical Geographic Information System

Shapefiles and data at the census tract, county, state, and other geographic levels going back to 1790 for counties, and 1910 for tracts. Also includes some data for downloading.

Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA)

Pennsylvania's official geospatial information clearinghouse. Included are Philadelphia municipal, census, and environmental shapefiles, as well as parcel maps.

BIG GIS Sources

google maps election results

A nice google maps mashup about election results.

The National Map Seamless Server

NRIS Geographic Information

GIS and Agent-Based Modelling: A Land Use Transport Model for London

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

A Land Use Transport Model for London

Mike Batty at CASA has been working on a Land use transport model for London. The model simulates the location of the residential population as a function of this employment, floorspace and generalised travel cost. The model is currently, a partially constrained spatial interaction/residential location model disaggregated by four modes of transport – road, heavy rail, light rail (tube and DLR) and bus, with walk-cycle-other the fifth residual mode.

Historic Preservation GIS

This is a guide created to help students in Historic Preservation learn about the resources available for studying Philadelphia places.

cartographic modeling lab Home

Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA)

Pennsylvania's official geospatial information clearinghouse. Included are Philadelphia municipal, census, and environmental shapefiles, as well as parcel maps.

HSPV GIS

National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS)

The NHGIS is a project at the University of Minnesota designed to collect GIS data for the United States at the smallest possible Geographic level. Currently the geographic boundary files include states and counties from 1790 to the present and census tracts from 1910 to the present.

Social Explorer

The Social Explorer produces maps and reports of US Census Tract level data from 1940-2000. Using high quality maps and data, they make available the full contents of the tract data for the United States for the full period. The data can also be exported as excel spreadsheets for easy reuse.

PennDesign course folders

Campus Labs List

Philadelphia Shapefiles

GIS Shapefiles from the City of Philadelphia. Includes building outlines, street centerline files, administrative boundaries, aerial photos, parcels, curbs, and contours.

Philadelphia GeoHistory Network Maps and Atlases

Includes beautiful maps and atlases of the Hexamer Volumes from the 1850's through Philadelphia Land Use maps 1960's.

CML: Downloadable Data from the Cartographic Modeling Lab

The Cartographic Modeling Lab provides shapefiles for download of several Philadelphia files, most notably the Philadelphia Neighborhoods file used in the creation of the Neighborhood Base.

PASDA Geospatial Data and Shapefiles for Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access Center files on Philadelphia. Includes shapefiles from the City of Philadelphia, as well as some state resources. Important files here are Street Centerlines, local area boundaries (planning commission, police, councilmanic districts) and aerial photos.

NHGIS National Historical Geographic Information System

Shapefiles and data at the census tract, county, state, and other geographic levels going back to 1790 for counties, and 1910 for tracts. Also includes some data for downloading.

PASDA Geospatial Data and Shapefiles for Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access Center files on Philadelphia. Includes shapefiles from the City of Philadelphia, as well as some state resources.

Town of Blacksburg, Va.: Planning and Engineering Department

Town of Blacksburg Planning & Engineering department provides engineering information for town infrastructure, gis information, and town planning documents.

Philadelphia neighborhoodBase

NeighborhoodBase includes maps and data from a number of city agencies, plus census data. All data is available for aggregation at a range of geographic levels (ie, wards, census tracts, etc). A great source for data and maps about life in Philadelphia.

UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis

The Google Map Creator

The Google Map Creator is a freeware application designed to make thematic mapping using Google Maps simpler. The application takes a shapefile containing geographic areas linked with attributes and automatically generates a working Google Maps website from the data. It does this by pre-creating all the necessary files and saving them into a directory. Publishing the map on the web is then just a matter of copying files onto a web server, allowing Google Maps to be used with the majority of ISPs.

SMART - Socioeconomic Mapping and Resource Topography

The Socioeconomic Mapping and Resource Topography (SMART) system provides users a mapping capacity along with resource information about federally-funded programs to address delinquency and crime. Users can create maps and retrieve statistics using the socioeconomic, crime, and resource data provided at various geographic levels, including the state, county, and local levels. Users can also map their own data using addresses they have, bookmark locations, save analyses, and print reports.

Addressing the needs in terms of geographic inf

Mapping environmental injustices: pitfalls and potential of geographic information systems in assessing environmental health and equity.

Title: Mapping Environmental Injustices: Pitfalls and Potential of Geographic Information Systems in Assessing Environmental Health and Equity

Source: Environmental health perspectives [0091-6765] Maantay yr:2002 vol:110 pg:161

Abstract:

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been used increasingly to map instances of environmental injustice, the disproportionate exposure of certain populations to environmental hazards. Some of the technical and analytic difficulties of mapping environmental injustice are outlined in this article, along with suggestions for using GIS to better assess and predict environmental health and equity. I examine 13 GIS-based environmental equity studies conducted within the past decade and use a study of noxious land use locations in the Bronx, New York, to illustrate and evaluate the differences in two common methods of determining exposure extent and the characteristics of proximate populations. Unresolved issues in mapping environmental equity and health include lack of comprehensive hazards databases; the inadequacy of current exposure indices; the need to develop realistic methodologies for determining the geographic extent of exposure and the characteristics of the affected populations; and the paucity and insufficiency of health assessment data. GIS have great potential to help us understand the spatial relationship between pollution and health. Refinements in exposure indices; the use of dispersion modeling and advanced proximity analysis; the application of neighborhood-scale analysis; and the consideration of other factors such as zoning and planning policies will enable more conclusive findings. The environmental equity studies reviewed in this article found a disproportionate environmental burden based on race and/or income. It is critical now to demonstrate correspondence between environmental burdens and adverse health impacts--to show the disproportionate effects of pollution rather than just the disproportionate distribution of pollution sources.

Historic Preservation Data

Home - User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS

The User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig) is both a GeoSpatial application and a platform through which developers can create new, derived applications. uDig is a core element in an internet aware Geographic Information System.

uDig has been developed with a strong emphasis on supporting the public standards being developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium, and with a special focus on the Web Map Server and Web Feature Server standards.

Applied environmental economics : a GIS approach to cost-benefit analysis / Ian J. Bateman, Andrew A. Lovett and Julii S. Brainard.

Bateman, Ian. . Applied environmental economics : a GIS approach to cost-benefit analysis / Ian J. Bateman, Andrew A. Lovett and Julii S. Brainard. [0521809568 (hardback) ] Cambridge, UK ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Call#: Lippincott Library HD75.6 .B38 2003

GIS Class 2007 : GSAPP : Columbia University : google maps vs gis

Introductory summer class on integrating GIS and Goolge Mpas

-------------

GSAPP : columbia university
google maps vs gis an introduction summer '07

Current Syllabus
Week 1 In Class
Week 1 Out of Class
Week 2 In Class
Week 2 Out of Class
Week 2 3D Modeling
Week 3 In Class
Week 3 GPS Handheld Manual
Week 4 : GPS & Making Your Own Point Symbology
Final Mapping Assignment

Spatial Scale and Population Assignment Choices in Environmental Justice Analyses - Prof Geographer, Volume 56 Issue 4 Page 574-586, November 2004

The Professional Geographer

Volume 56 Issue 4 Page 574-586, November 2004

To cite this article: Michael T. Most, Raja Sengupta, Michael A. Burgener (2004)
Spatial Scale and Population Assignment Choices in Environmental Justice Analyses1
The Professional Geographer 56 (4), 574-586.
doi:10.1111/j.0033-0124.2004.00449.x

Abstract

Environmental justice laws protect certain populations against discriminatory actions that may result from a myriad of enterprises, including transportation activities. Previous environmental equity studies examining the effects of transportation-engendered externalities have been criticized on several points, including (1) that the choice of a reference population for comparison to the criterion variable may influence the outcome of research results and (2) that the selection and use of inappropriate methodologies intended to identify and characterize populations may foreordain research outcomes. This article examines the potentially confounding effects of selected spatial scale and population assignment strategies as applied to a study of excessive noise levels at a large Midwestern airport, finding that reported outcomes can vary significantly as a function of methodological choices.

Blackwell Synergy - Prof Geographer, Volume 59 Issue 2 Page 193-208, May 2007 (Article Abstract)

The Professional Geographer

Volume 59 Issue 2 Page 193-208, May 2007

To cite this article: Selima Sultana, Joe Weber (2007)
Journey-to-Work Patterns in the Age of Sprawl: Evidence from Two Midsize Southern Metropolitan Areas*
The Professional Geographer 59 (2), 193-208.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00607.x

Among others, one commonly identified negative consequence of urban sprawl is an increase in the length
of the journey to work. However, there has been more discussion of this than serious scrutiny, hence
the relationship between urban sprawl and commuting patterns, especially at the intraurban level, remains
unclear. Using the 2000 Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) data for two Southeastern metropolitan
areas, this research investigates the extent to which workers living in sprawl areas commute farther to
work than those living in higher density areas. The analysis of variance confirms that workers commuting from
sprawl areas to urban areas experience a longer commute in terms of time as well as mileage, though this varies
when workplace and home locations are taken into account. However, multivariate statistical results suggest that
there are limits to the utility of sprawl as a predictor of travel behavior compared to workers’ socioeconomic
characteristics, as other factors appear to be equally or more important.

Measures of Visual Clutter: Some Intuitions

We have developed and tested two measures of visual clutter: the Feature Congestion measure, and the Subband Entropy measure.

Feature Congestion measure: This measure of visual clutter is based on the common experience of going to put a note on a colleague's desk. If the desk is uncluttered, it's easy to find a place to put the note where we are confident our colleague will notice it. However, if the desk is cluttered, we tend not to be confident they will notice the note, and perhaps will leave the note on a chair so they will spot it.

This suggests that clutter is related to the difficulty in adding an attention-grabbing item to a display. Visual search models typically attempt to predict the difficulty of searching for a particular target among particular distractors. However, our Statistical Saliency Model can easily make the dual prediction of how difficult it would be to add an attention-grabbing item to a display, and what features that item should have in order to draw attention. Our Feature Congestion measure of visual clutter is based upon this model of visual search.

Subband Entropy measure: This measure of visual clutter is based upon the intuition that a scene or display is less cluttered the more "organized" it is, i.e. the more items "group" together perceptually, whether through use of similar colors, or alignment, or other tricks. A related question to ask is to what extent each part of the display or scene is predictable from the rest of the scene? How redundant is the visual information in the scene?

IBM and Singapore's Land Transport Authority Pilot Innovative Traffic Prediction Tool

August 01, 2007: 09:17 AM EST

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the successful completion of a pilot test on traffic prediction in Singapore's Central Business District.

Using historical traffic data and real-time traffic input from the Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA)'s i-Transport system, IBM's Traffic Prediction Tool predicted traffic flows over pre-set durations (10, 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes). Overall prediction results were well above the target accuracy of 85 percent. With these predictions, LTA's traffic controllers will be able to anticipate and better manage the flow of traffic to prevent the build-up of congestion.

At a global level, this innovative use of technology represents another option in the response to the complexity of mega-urban congestion, especially in the developing world.

While infrastructure growth is required in many cities, it cannot be the only solution to congestion given the significant budgetary, social and environmental costs. IBM believes innovation can and needs to be applied to the challenge of mega-urban congestion. For example, technologies such as the Traffic Prediction Tool enable more intelligent use of a city's existing infrastructure.

The Traffic Prediction Tool was developed by IBM Research. The pilot was supported by a global IBM team, with resources from Singapore, the UK and the USA, working closely with a team from the LTA. The pilot took place from December 2006 to April 2007.

Both speed and volume predictions covering the Central Business District were above the target accuracy of 85 percent. In addition, during peak periods where more real-time data was available, the average accuracy of the volume forecasts on the District was near or above 90 percent from 10-minutes all the way to the predictions 60-minutes into the future.

The Geography of Transport Systems

The Geography of Transport Systems
Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Claude Comtois and Brian Slack, New York: Routledge, 284 pages. ISBN 0-415-35441-2

Detailed Table of Contents
Chapters
1) Transportation and Geography
2) Transportation Systems and Networks
3) Transportation Modes
4) Transport Terminals
5) International and Regional Transportation
6) Urban Transportation
7) Economic and Spatial Structure of Transport Systems
8) Transport and Environment
9) Transport Planning and Pol

icies Conclusion: Issues and Challenges in Transport Geography

Locational Models, Geographic Information and Planning Support Systems -- Harris and Batty 12 (3): 184 -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 12, No. 3, 184-198 (1993)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X9301200302
© 1993 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Locational Models, Geographic Information and Planning Support Systems
Britton Harris

Michael Batty

Geographic information systems (GIS) are becoming widespread in management and planning, affecting the very organization and operation of the planning process itself. In this paper we address the problems and potential of such systems, particularly in relation to the analytical, predictive, and prescriptive models on which strategic planning processes are based. Current GIS are not rooted in the sorts of functions which drive these processes and here we will identify the difficulties and possibilities for developing more appropriate GIS which are sensitive to the simulation, optimization, and design activities which define spatial planning. To this end we will describe the development of planning support systems (PSS) in which a wide array of data, information, and knowledge might be structured, and within which GIS develop ment must take place. We will identify the sorts of urban system and locational models which characterize strategic planning and whose data-demands might be accommodated using GIS. Our critique of GIS is positive and constructive in that we are concerned to embed GIS into planning processes in the most appropriate way. In conclusion we will identify a series of requirements which PSS must meet.

UrbanSim: Modeling urban development for land use, transportation, and environmental planning

UrbanSim: Modeling urban development for land use, transportation, and environmental planning

Paul Waddell. American Planning Association. Journal of the American Planning Association. Chicago: Summer 2002. Vol. 68, Iss. 3; pg. 297, 18 pgs

Abstract (Summary)

Metropolitan areas have come under intense pressure to respond to federal mandates to link planning of land use, transportation and environmental quality; and from citizen concerns about managing the side effects of growth such as sprawl, congestion, housing affordability and loss of open space. The planning models used by metropolitan planning organizations are generally not designed to address these issues, creating a gap in the ability of planners to systematically assess them. UrbanSim is a new model system that was developed to respond to these emerging requirements and is now been applied in three metropolitan areas. This article describes the model system and is application to Eugene-Springfield, Oregon.

VISUM

VISUM is a comprehensive, flexible software system for transportation planning, travel demand modeling and network data management. VISUM is used on all continents for metropolitan, regional, statewide and national planning applications.

Designed for multimodal analysis, VISUM integrates all relevant modes of transportation (i.e., car, car passenger, truck, bus, train, pedestrians and bicyclists) into one consistent network model. VISUM provides a variety of assignment procedures and 4-stage modelling components which include trip-end based as well as activity based approaches.

Pedestrian Crashes - Tools for Prevention

pedestrian crashes

PBCAT

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool (PBCAT) is a crash typing software product intended to assist state and local pedestrian/bicycle coordinators, planners and engineers with improving walking and bicycling safety through the development and analysis of a database containing details associated with crashes between motor vehicles and pedestrians or bicyclists. Version 2.1 is now available for

c u b e -base

advanced transportation planning functionality

Cube Base is the user interface for the entire Cube system and provides interactive data input and analysis, GIS functionality via ArcGIS, model building and documentation, and scenario development and comparison.Links between the model, the data, and GIS are a single click away, making the development and application of models easy to use. Cube Base allows you to run models developed with Cube Voyager, Cube Cargo, Cube Analyst, Cube Dynasim, Cube Polar, TP+, TRIPS and TRANPLAN.

Transportation Technology and Policy Graduate Group Institute of Transportation Studies, the University of California, Davis

Modeling Transportation Related Emissions Using GIS
Peng Wu
Ph.D. candidate

Transportation Technology and Policy Graduate Group Institute of Transportation Studies, the University of California, Davis

November 2006

Abstract
There are increasing requirements on the efficiency and accuracy of vehicular emission modeling due to significant contribution of the transportation sector to air quality problems. Because the essential component (i.e. ransportation activities) of vehicular emission modeling is inherently spatially dependent, this study aims to move the existing oldfashioned Direct Travel Impact Model (DTIM), the Californiaspecific transportationrelated emission inventory estimation model, towards a GISbased model. The strengths of ArcGIS in data management, spatial analysis, and raster modeling are incorporated into three critical steps of emission modeling: disaggregating zonal travel activities (i.e. interzonal trip ends and intrazonal travels), combining travel activities (i.e. speeds and VMT) and emission factors, and gridding emissions into cells. This GISbased method can promote an integrated transportation and air quality analysis. This proposed method was used to estimate vehicular emissions in the San Joaquin Valley, California.

Highway Safety Information System: safety analysis tools

Safety Analysis Tools

In addition to conducting research, HSIS resources are also used to develop products that can be used by practitioners in the analysis of safety problems.

HWA GIS Safety Analysis Tools v.4.0

Computerized crash analysis systems in which crash data, roadway inventory data, and traffic operations data can be merged are used in many state and municipalities to identify problem locations and assess the effectiveness of implemented countermeasures. By integrating this traditional system with a geographical information system (GIS), which offers spatial referencing capabilities and graphical displays, a more effective crash analysis program can be realized. The analysis tools include five separate programs to evaluate crashes:

Spot/Intersection Analysis
Strip Analysis
Cluster Analysis
Sliding-Scale Analysis
Corridor Analysis

Welcome to GIS-T.org

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials sponsors the annual GIS for Transportation Symposium. It is a chance for persons in government and private industry who are interested in the use of GIS for transportation purposes to get together and share experiences, see state-of-art software, and learn more about this field. The Symposium annually attracts over 400 Symposium registrants in addition to the 50 exhibitors in the technology hall.

The Symposium offers keynote speakers, discussion forums, workshops, presentations, and technology hall where exhibitors showcase their services. Organizations and individuals with information related to GIS in transportation are encouraged to share their experience by presenting at the Symposium.

GIS-T 2008 marks the 21st year this Symposium has been hel

Pennsylvania Cultural Resources Geographic Information System

Cultural Resources Geographic Information System
A cooperative venture of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH CIRCULAR E-C106 -Environmental Geospatial Information for Transportation

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH CIRCULAR E-C106
Environmental Geospatial Information for Transportation
A Peer Exchange
May 3-4, 2006 Washington, D.C.
Edited by ELIZABETH HARPER
for the Transportation Research Board
Spatial Data and Information Science Committee and Ecology and Transportation Task Force

GIS in Transportation - Planning, Environment

State and Local GIS Practices

This webpage is a gateway to numerous GIS transportation applications currently being employed across the nation.

Each application in the State and Local GIS Practices Index provides the following information: GIS practice title, "subject area" of Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) responsibility, state, city, contact information, and a brief description of the practice. Contact information is provided so that you may directly contact your colleagues and learn more about the ways they are implementing GIS in transportation activities. Additional State DOT contacts who work in GIS are available on the GIS-T website.

GIS in Transportation - Planning, Environment

about this Site

The purpose of the GIS in Transportation site is to:

* Highlight noteworthy practices and innovative uses of transportation GIS;
* Announce opportunities for sharing information and experiences with GIS such as conferences, meetings, and peer exchanges;
* Highlight Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) GIS applications;
* Provide access to resources such as reports, spatial data, and GIS training opportunities; and
* Offer contact information for GIS experts at FHWA and in the field.

ESRI - GIS for Transportation

ESRI transportation

Grengs - Cars Not Geography: Job Accessibility and Reconceptualizing Spatial Mismatch in Det

Urban + Regional Research Collaborative Working Paper

Title
Cars Not Geography: Job Accessibility and Reconceptualizing Spatial Mismatch in Detroit

Author Joe Grengs

Abstract

Transportation scholars are challenging traditional formulations of the spatial mismatch hypothesis because it disregards the considerable difference between travel modes. This case study of the Detroit metropolitan region uses 2000 census data and a gravity-based model of transportation accessibility to test differences in jobs access among places and people, and provides support for recent calls for reconceptualizing spatial mismatch. It shows that even though Detroit experiences the greatest distance between blacks and jobs of any region in the country, most central-city neighborhoods offer an advantage in accessibility to jobs compared to most other places in the metropolitan region - as long as a resident has a car. Policies aimed at helping carless people gain access to automobiles may be an effective means of improving the employment outcomes of inner-city residents.

GIS and mapping: Pitsfalls for planners

GIS and mapping: Pitsfalls for planners

Robert B Kent, Richard E Klosterman. American Planning Association. Journal of the American Planning Association. Chicago: Spring 2000. Vol. 66, Iss. 2; pg. 189, 10 pgs

Abstract (Summary)

The widespread availability of geographic information systems (GIS) and computer mapping software allows individuals with little or no cartographic knowledge and experience to prepare maps for planning purposes. While these maps are often satisfactory, they may not serve their intended purposes. Some of the common mistakes that planners make in preparing maps are identified and ways to avoid them are suggested. Some key considerations in map making are introduced and a series of practical tips that will help planners produce more effective maps are offered.

ESRI Press -- Transportation GIS

Transportation GIS

Transportation professionals increasingly rely on geographic information systems to manage equipment and infrastructure.

Whether it's monitoring train locations, tracking flight paths and noise levels, planning for highway maintenance, or improving bus routes, GIS helps private organizations and public agencies improve safety and reduce costs. Transportation GIS presents a dozen fascinating case studies from the following organizations, which use GIS in a wide range of transportation planning and management activities:

* New York State Department of Transportation
* Spokane Transit Authority
* Korea Road Traffic Information Centre
* Conrail
* Missouri Department of Transportation
* Orange County Transportation Authority
* Southern California Association of Governments
* Virginia Department of Transportation
* Tri-County Commuter Rail Authority
* Road Commission for Oakland County
* Metropolitan Airports Commission
* City of San Leandro, California

This richly illustrated volume is an excellent introduction to GIS in the transportation industry. Its easy-to-read style and relevant case studies will appeal to industry professionals, students, and lay people alike.

Air Rights: a teaching laboratory for an integrated land use and transportation planning course

uthor Info

David King
Kevin Krizek
David Levinson (liame2('edu','umn','m7i7','dlevinson')dlevinson@umn.edu) (Nexus (Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems) Research Group, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

David Matthew Levinson

Abstract

The intersection of land use and transportation policy is becoming an increasingly important focus for all urban planners. This focus, however, challenges the academic community to design effective courses that teach the concepts and professional skills required for professional experience. Integrated land use and transportation courses should engage students to develop interdisciplinary skills while becoming familiar with, for example, travel behavior and zoning policies. Laboratory courses (or segments of courses) as part of graduate curricula provide platforms to further emphasize skills. A common pedagogy problem is devising laboratory assignments that are integrative, cumulative, practical, and interesting for students. Furthermore, laboratory projects should introduce students to real-world problems and techniques while exploring broad planning themes. This paper presents uses four years of laboratory segments from a land use-transportation course (LUTC) at the University of Minnesota to evaluate the needs and results of practitioner-oriented land use and transportation planning education. The laboratory used group projects where students proposed integrated developments using air rights above existing (and sunken) urban freeways in the Twin Cities. The projects provided a practitioner-oriented project through a collaborative and reflexive learning process. This article describes the completed projects, as well as the technical skills, integrated approach and visionary planning necessary for successful execution. The students addressed complicated problems associated with large-scale development by researching neighborhood demographics, characteristics, and pertinent regulations. They used their research to analyze traffic impacts, propose zoning regulations, and outline costs and benefits from their proposal using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), statistical analyses, assessor data and traffic engineering manuals. Using the completed student projects and comparisons with other land use-transportation course and laboratory projects the authors demonstrate how these laboratory components serve multiple pedagogy goals.

Evaluating the Effects of GIS Technology: Review of Methods -- Nedovic-Budic 13 (3): 284 -- Journal of Planning Literature

Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 13, No. 3, 284-295 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/08854129922092405
© 1999 SAGE Publications
Evaluating the Effects of GIS Technology: Review of Methods
Zorica Nedovic-Budic

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois-Urbana

Geographic information systems (GISs) are being introduced into many planning agencies in the United States and abroad. Urban planners find GISs to be effective tools that can help with information management, processing, dissemination, and communication. Yet, initial evidence on the implementation of GIS technology in local governments and planning agencies points to difficulties in getting the systems established and in realizing expected benefits. Technological, database, and organizational factors make it most challenging to get a GIS to fit and adapt to the needs of planning practice. The main sources of evidence to guide the mutual adjustment between GIS technology and planning are evaluative studies of existing systems that examine how these GISs affect planning processes and functions. To date, these studies are scarce. To promote and facilitate assessment of GIS technology in the planning context, this article reviews the frameworks, methods, and criteria that are employed in the fields of organizational studies, information management, and decision support systems.

Geographic information systems for transportation in perspective

Author: Thill J.-C.1

Source: Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Volume 8, Number 1, February 2000 , pp. 3-12(10)

Publisher: Elsevier

Library Holdings: This item is not owned by Columbia University. You may request this item through the gateway unless restricted by copyright holder or delivery fee exceeds limit.

Abstract:

The late 1980s saw the first widespread use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in transportation research and management. Due to the specific requirements of transportation applications and of the rather late adoption of this information technology in transportation, research has been directed toward enhancing existing GIS approaches to enable the full range of capabilities needed in transportation research and management. This paper places the concept of transportation GIS in the broader perspective of research in GIS and Geographic Information Science. The emphasis is placed on the requirements specific of the transportation domain of application of this emerging information technology as well as on core research challenges.

Keywords: GIS-T; Geographic information systems

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1016/S0968-090X(00)00029-2

Affiliations: 1: Department of Geography and National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, State University of New York at Buffalo, , NY 14261, Buffalo, USA

Title: Geographic information systems for transportation : principles and applications / Harvey J. Miller, Shih-Lung Shaw.

Author: Miller, Harvey J.
Title: Geographic information systems for transportation : principles and applications / Harvey J. Miller, Shih-Lung Shaw.
Physical Description: xi, 458 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Series: Spatial information systems

LC Subjects: Transportation --United States --Planning.
Transportation --Europe --Planning.
Transportation --Japan --Planning.
Geographic information systems --United States.
Geographic information systems --Europe.
Geographic information systems --Japan.
Material Type: Book

Location (guide): Business
Call Number: HE206.2 .M55 2001
Status: Not checked out

Integrating Transportation and Geographic Information Systems: A Problem-solving Approach

Book Title

Integrating Transportation and Geographic Information Systems: A Problem-solving Approach
Authors

Becky P.Y. Loo, P.C. Lai and Hui Lin
Executive Summary

This book (approximately 800 pages) aims to integrate transportation knowledge with geographic information systems (GIS) in Hong Kong. The major problem encountered by the transportation and GIS students is that the former find the use of GIS software difficult and the latter do not fully understand the transportation model and algorithms underlying the GIS software. This teaching package allows both groups of students to integrate some basic models and theories of transportation, and the applications of GIS in transportation (GIS-T).

This book is supplemented with a CD-ROM containing the data required for the use of the applications. A Questions and Answers Handbook (approximately 32 pages) will also be provided to proven course or training providers.

Locational Models, Geographic Information and Planning Support Systems -- Harris and Batty 12 (3): 184 -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Michael Batty

Land Use and Transportation Interaction: Implications on Public Health and Quality of Life -- Frank 20 (1): 6 -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 20, No. 1, 6-22 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/073945600128992564
© 2000 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Land Use and Transportation Interaction
Implications on Public Health and Quality of Life
Lawrence D. Frank, Ph.D.

College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Increases in per capita vehicle usage and associated emissions have spawned an increased examination of the ways in which our communities and regions are developing. Associated with increased vehicle usage are decreased levels of walking and biking, two valid forms of physical activity. The Surgeon General's 1996 report, Physical Activity and Health, highlights the increasing level of physical inactivity as a growing cause of mortality. The costs and benefits of contrasting land development and transportation investment practices have been the subject of considerable debate in the literature. Findings have been refuted based on methodological grounds and inaccurate interpretation of data. Several of these studies, their methodological approaches, and their critiques are analyzed. While most agree that the built environment influences travel, considerable disagreement exists over the likely impacts of increased density, mix, and street connectivity on air quality, and on transportation system performance and household activity patterns.

Teaching Integrated Land Use-Transportation Planning: Topics, Readings, and Strategies -- Krizek and Levinson 24 (3): 304 -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 24, No. 3, 304-316 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X04267731
© 2005 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Teaching Integrated Land Use-Transportation Planning
Topics, Readings, and Strategies
Kevin Krizek

University of Minnesota

David Levinson

University of Minnesota

Planning pedagogy is increasingly focused on teaching interdisciplinary topics in an integrated and synergistic manner. The intersection of land use and transportation is that of two topics that have risen to be front and center for the planning profession. This article focuses on the manner in which planning programs and, in particular, specific courses address land use and transportation planning. After describing the context in which such courses exist, this article analyzes syllabi from fifteen courses in North American planning programs in two respects. The first examines the list of topics covered within each course by discussing the nature of primary, secondary, and peripheral topics. Second, the analysis uncovers the frequency with which specific readings are employed in each course. The article closes by discussing the nature of a land use-transportation course from the University of Minnesota in which there is a lecture and laboratory component.

Key Words: transportation planning • land use planning • teaching • interdisciplinary • pedagogy

Common Ground for Integrating Planning Theory and GIS Topics -- Esnard and MacDougall 17 (1): 55 -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 17, No. 1, 55-62 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X9701700106
© 1997 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Common Ground for Integrating Planning Theory and GIS Topics
Ann-Margaret Esnard

Department of city and regional planning Cornell University, Ithaca, New Yorkame7@cornell.edu.

E. Bruce MacDougall

Department of landscape architecture and regionalplanning, University of Massachusetes, Amherstebm@1arp.umass.edu.

The basic premise of this article is that planning theory and geographic information systems (GIS) course topics should be integrated in the planning curriculum. The increased use of GIS technology for informing planning and public policy decision making is discussed in the first section, followed by a summary of related technical and theoretical disparities. The concept of links is then introduced and used in the final section to demonstrate the contexts in which common themes can be identified for integrating planning norms (ethics, values, communicative rationality, planning process, and context) and GIS methods (data creation, analysis, and presentation).

Extending the Revolution: Teaching Land Use Planning in a GIS Environment -- Drummond 14 (4): 280 -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 14, No. 4, 280-291 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X9501400405
© 1995 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Other
Extending the Revolution: Teaching Land Use Planning in a GIS Environment
William J. Drummond

For planning educators the ultimate worth of the GIS revolution will be measured not by the number of new GIS courses offered, but by the integration of GIS technology into the traditional, substantive areas of planning. In the field of land use planning this integration remains in its infancy. The article suggests a general, modular approach for the incorporation of GIS technology into land use planning course work, using a combination of GIS, database, and spreadsheet software. Numerous specific examples are provided, including major applicauons in data collection, preliminary analysis, plan formulation, and plan evaluation.

How We Watch the City: Popularity and Online Maps

Microsoft Research

Danyel Fisher

ABSTRACT
One way of conceptualizing physical spaces is to look at
where people notice, remember, or note them. Computer-
assisted methods give us new tools based on implicit, rather
than explicit, data about how users have examined and
travelled online through cities. “Hotmap” is a tool that
visualizes how people have used maps.live.com, an
interactive mapping service, looking at what parts of the
maps they find most compelling.

Hotmap from Microsoft Research

map showing how many times different places have viewed using Microsoft's mapping service

Exploring Changes in Income Clustering and Centralization during the 1990s -- Dawkins 26 (4): 404 -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 26, No. 4, 404-414 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X06298820

© 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Exploring Changes in Income Clustering and Centralization during the 1990s
Casey J. Dawkins

Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech, Virginia Center for Housing Research

This article employs a new "spatial ordering index" to describe and explain changes in the degree of income clustering and centralization within U.S. metropolitan areas during the 1990s. The results suggest that while the spatial pattern of household income became more decentralized and less clustered during the 1990s, the patterns established as of 1990 were highly persistent over the decade. Factors associated with metropolitan area size and growth affected changes in both the degree of centralization and the degree of clustering. Although traditional determinants of suburbanization were associated with increases in income decentralization during the 1990s, densely developed cities with an increase in the percentage of white residents saw increases in income centralization during the decade. Furthermore, changes in the patterns observed were shaped by various policy influences, including the number of Low Income Housing Tax Credit units, urban containment policies, and the degree of local government fragmentation.

Key Words: economic segregation • spatial analysis • metropolitan governance • urban containment • growth management

Mapbuilder

About Mapbuilder

MapBuilder is a powerful, standards compliant geographic mapping client which runs in a web browser.

GeoTools - Home

GeoTools is an open source (LGPL) Java code library which provides standards compliant methods for the manipulation of geospatial data, for example to implement Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The GeoTools library implements Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications as they are developed, in close collaboration with the GeoAPI and GeoWidgets projects. The capabilities of Geotools are presented in the feature list.

Geotools is used by a number of projects including Web Feature Servers, Web Map Servers, and desktop applications, as is described on this page. Some screenshots of Geotools in action are also available.

Programmers wishing to use GeoTools in their own applications can get more information from the Use page and the User Guide. Developers wishing to extend the GeoTools library can get started on the Develop page and the Developer Guide.

GeoTools releases can be found on the downloads page. The Geotools code base is maintained in a subversion repository.

GeoServer

GeoServer is an Open Source server that connects your information to the Geospatial Web.

With GeoServer you can publish and edit data using open standards. Your information is made available in a large variety of formats as maps/images or actual geospatial data. GeoServer's transactional capabilities offer robust support for shared editing. GeoServer's focus is ease of use and support for standards, in order to serve as 'glue' for the geospatial web, connecting from legacy databases to many diverse clients.

GeoServer supports WFS-T and WMS open protocols from the OGC to produce JPEG, PNG, SVG, KML/KMZ, GML, PDF, Shapefiles and more. More information on specific features of GeoServer can be found here, and some samples of GeoServer in action are in the gallery.

GeoServer is built on Geotools, the same Java toolkit that udig uses. GeoServer is a truly open community, with a well documented and modular codebase, so don't hesitate to get involved.

Transportation Research Board - Journal Article

Measuring Change in Small-Scale Transit Accessibility with Geographic Information Systems: Buffalo and Rochester, New York

Journal Transportation Research Record
Publisher Transportation Research Board of the National Academies
ISSN 0361-1981
Issue Volume 1887 / 2004
Category Public Transit
DOI 10.3141/1887-02
Pages 10-17
Online Date Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Abstract

A new method has been developed to measure directly changes in transit accessibility—the combined spatial effect of shifts in land use patterns and transit service—between metropolitan jobs and census tracts with high proportions of the people who most depend on good transit. Through focused analysis of transit routes serving one neighborhood in Buffalo and one neighborhood in Rochester, New York, two main questions are addressed. First, did transit-dependent poor people who lived in inner-city neighborhoods lose capacity to access jobs by transit during the 1990s? Second, if so, how much of the reduction in accessibility was due to changes in transit service rather than to dispersion of land use? Steps include formulating a gravity model using geographic information systems (GISs), calculating an accessibility index at two times during the 1990s at the census tract level, and disaggregating the accessibility change into subcomponents of change in land use and change in transit service by holding relevant variables constant to a base year. Findings do not support the a priori expectations: the transit component of change does not appear to contribute to a loss in accessibility from high-poverty neighborhoods. The model provides insights into the causes of accessibility change, the geographic distribution of accessibility change, and better assessments of whether transit agencies are successfully adapting to changes in land use.

Application of a Travel Demand Microsimulation Model for Equity Analysis

Castiglione, Hiatt, Chang, Charlton

Application of a Travel Demand Microsimulation Model for Equity Analysis

TRB 2006 Annual Meeting

ABSTRACT
This paper describes the application of a state of the art tour-based travel demand microsimulation model to estimate impacts on mobility and accessibility on different populations to support development of a countywide transportation plan. Equity analyses based on traditional travel demand forecast models are compromised by aggregation biases and data availability limitations. Use of the disaggregate (individual person-level) San Francisco tour- based microsimulation model made it possible to estimate benefits and impacts to different communities of concern based on individual characteristics such as gender, income, auto availability, and household structure. In this paper, the concepts and policy context of equity analysis in transportation are first presented. Identifying communities of concerns and relevant measures of transportation system performance are then outlined. The San Francisco Model structure is briefly described, and finally, the results of the equity analysis are presented.

Using GIS to Assess the Environmental Justice Consequences of Transportation System Changes

Authors: Chakraborty, Jayajit; Schweitzer, Lisa A.; Forkenbrock, David J.

Source: Transactions in GIS, Volume 3, Number 3, June 1999 , pp. 239-258(20)

Publisher: Blackwell Publishing

Abstract:
Although environmental justice research has typically focused on locations of industrial toxic releases or waste sites, recent developments in GIS and environmental modeling provide a foundation for developing measures designed to evaluate the consequences of transportation system changes. In this paper, we develop and demonstrate a workable GIS-based approach that can be used to assess the impacts of a transportation system change on minorites and low-income residents. We focus specifically on two adverse affects: vehicle-generated air pollution and noise. The buffer analysis capabilities of GIS provide a preliminary assessment of environmental justice. We integrate existing environmental pollution models with GIS software to identify the specific locations where noise and air pollution standards could be violated because of the proposed system change. A comparison of the geographic boundaries of these areas with the racial and economic characteristics of the underlying population obtained from block level census data provides a basis for evaluating disproportionate impacts. An existing urban arterial in Waterloo, Iowa, is used to illustrate the methods developed in this research.

Places and Spaces

An exhibition created to demonstrate the power of maps to understand, navigate, and manage not only physical places, but also abstract information spaces.

Justice Mapping Center

Mapping studies of criminal justice population concentrations, including adults and juveniles going in and out of prison and jail; people on probation and parole; and, juveniles in detention.
Graphics and other charts of administrative, political, social, educational, and other boundary aggregations, such as school districts, city council jurisdictions, neighborhoods, or police precincts.
Supportive contextual maps of socio-demographics, such as single parent households, disconnected youth, home ownership rates, poverty, income, and many other census bureau statistics.
Maps of other government health and human services, child welfare, and labor populations, such as TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid, and Unemployment Insurance recipients, as well as Foster Care clients and reports of Abuse and Neglect.
Mapping studies of prison and jail expenditures.
Spider mapping analyses of probation and parole caseload distributions.
Maps of geographic and neighborhood overlaps between criminal justice and other government client populations.
Prisoner reentry mapping studies.
Maps of community institutional networks, such as the location, capacity, and performance of schools, or government institutional networks, such as federally qualified health centers.

About the Digital Chart of the World Data Server

The Digital Chart of the World (DCW) is an Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) product originally developed for the US Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) using DMA data. We used the DCW 1993 version at 1:1,000,000 scale. The DMA data sources are aeronautical charts, which emphasize landmarks important from flying altitudes. This explains why there is a separate aeronautical theme with all conceivable airports, yet why on some themes small islands and lakes are simply unnamed points. ESRI, in compiling the DCW, also eliminated some detail and made some assumptions for handling tiny polygons and edgematching. Also, note that the completeness of the thematic categories present in each layer will vary. Please read the layer descriptions (through links in the following table).

2006 Baghdad Reference Map

Huge map of baghdad

Iraq Maps - Perry-CastaC1eda Map Collection - UT Library Online

Great collection of maps.

Iraq Data & Maps

The war in Iraq has thrust GIS and Geospatial technologies into the limelight. Each day the public is presented with maps, imagery, and other spatial data products in an effort to provide a visual representation of the latest developments. The following directory provides some valuable pointers and descriptions of companies that are providing GIS-based solutions to help the public follow the war in Iraq. If you know of additional resources that are of interest please send us some details.

National Historical Geographic Information System

Social Explorer

Worldwide Digital Maps for GIS - GfK GeoMarketing

Global Mapping International Home

Data for GIS Analysis Available at NACJD

Lists data from NACJD that can be used in GIS.

Flickr: The GIS / Maps Pool

photo pool of GIS/Maps from Flickr

The Philadelphia Inquirer

mapping of homicides in philadelphia - jan1 - sept 30th

Welcome to Idaho State University's GIS Center

To Drill down to a Raster:

Select the point layer file

Select the raster layer into which you want to drill

Enter a field name to store the drilldown values

Click "Compute Drilldown"

OASIS Map

Map of Manhattan, New York, USA

neighbor.pdf (application/pdf Object)

gCensus - Census Data and Google Maps

Platial.com

Map Projections Poster

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

YouTube - Steven Johnson on THE GHOST MAP

youtube trailer

bITS

Building Information Technology Skills (bITS) among North Philadelphia Youth is a project funded by the National Science Foundation, ITEST Program and sponsored by the Information Technology and Society Research Group of Temple University. It involves the participation of approximately ninety high school students per year over a three-year long program. bITS is carried out year round and includes five hours of instruction each week for twelve weeks each semester. In addition, students participate in a summer intensive workshop.

Jeremy Mennis Homepage

This is the home page of Jeremy Mennis, Assistant Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University. My interests are in the theory and application of geographic information systems and science.

GIS@Temple

Temple University offers a broad array of Geographic Information Science resources, including GIS and RS software, dedicated high-quality computing labs, and a range of courses. Research activities address both theoretical and applied topics.

Jeremy Mennis Homepage: Research: Dasymetric

Environmental Justice
Case Study: Air Toxic Releases in New Jersey
(from Mennis, J. and Jordan, L., 2005. The distribution of environmental equity: exploring spatial nonstationarity in multivariate models of air toxic releases. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95(2): 249-268)
Introduction
Geographic information systems (GIS) and multivariate regression are used to analyze socioeconomic inequity in the spatial distribution of New Jersey air toxic release facilities listed in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxic Release Inventory (TRI).

LeadDog Consulting, LLC: Worldwide GIS Mapping

LeadDog creates and maintains GIS street and road maps for Iraq, the Middle East, Africa, Mexico, and the rest of Latin America. We offer GIS and postcode maps for virtually every country in the world.

With a Cellphone as My Guide - New York Times

June 28, 2006
With a Cellphone as My Guide
By JOHN MARKOFF and MARTIN FACKLER

Think of it as a divining rod for the information age.

If you stand on a street corner in Tokyo today you can point a specialized cellphone at a hotel, a restaurant or a historical monument, and with the press of a button the phone will display information from the Internet describing the object you are looking at.

NYS GIS Clearinghouse - GIS Data Set Details

Data Set Name	Description	Theme	Metadata
Digital Soils (Ontario County)	In-house digitized soils boundaries for 3/4 of Ontario County.	Boundaries Land Use/Land Cover Soils	n/a

NYS GIS Clearinghouse

Gutenkarte B; Book Catalog

Gutenkarte is a geographic text browser, intended to help readers explore the spatial component of classic works of literature. Gutenkarte downloads public domain texts from Project Gutenberg, and then feeds them to MetaCarta's GeoParser API, which extracts and returns all the geographic locations it can find. Gutenkarte stores these locations in a database, along with citations into the text itself, and offers an interface where the book can be browsed by chapter, by place, or all at once on an interactive map. Ultimately, Gutenkarte will offer the ability to annotate and correct the places in the database, so that the community will be able construct and share rich geographic views of Project Gutenberg's enormous body of literary classics

China Historical GIS splash

ALG: About ALG

The primary goal of the Automated Learning Group is to extend the state of the art in the field of data mining. Toward that end, we collaborate with researchers to invent new approaches and tools that wil

New York City Housing and Neighborhood Information System

Like the NIS in Philadelphia, this site provides lots of information about New York at various levels of geographic specificity.

New York City Housing and Neighborhood Information System

PC-AXIS, el formato de las publicaciones electrsnicas

Shapefiles for three levels of political boundary in Spain.

Mapping the DuBois Philadephia Negro

This blog is dedicated to updates on the research project, Mapping the DuBois Philadelphia Negro. This project is being funded by the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation and National Endowment for Humanities and is based out of Penn’s School of Design. Our goal is to recreate the foot survey W.E.B. DuBois conducted for his 1899 classic, The Philadelphia Negro, using GIS. Eventually, we will develop a website with interactive mapping, research results, and teaching materials.

ACME Laboratories

Acme Mapper shows DOQ and Topo maps for the US and allows lots of other cool things.

SALB - Administrative Boundaries

The SALB dataset is a global digital dataset consisting of digital maps and codes that can be downloaded on a country by country basis. In order to insure consistency from one country to another, the database uses an international border standard developed in the context of the UN Geographic Database. This dataset is downloadable at no cost from this website. Due to the difference in the quality of the documents compiled, the digital maps part of the dataset are more adapted for thematic mapping than for precise location or modeling. It is therefore recommended not to use this data at a scale below 1:1 000 000.

Building livable communities : sustaining prosperity, improving quality of life, building a sense of community.

Building livable communities : sustaining prosperity, improving quality of life, building a sense of community. [0160503973 : ] Washington, DC : Livable Communities : For sale by the U.S. G.P.O., Supt. of Docs., 2000.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HN79.C6 B85 2000

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

The maps presented on this website are cartograms, otherwise known as density-equalising maps. The maps of the world you are used to seeing attempt to represent countries according to their land area. A cartogram re-sizes each country (or other geographical unit) according to some other variable - for example population, GDP, number of people with AIDS, etc. In the population example, densely-populated country such as the UK will appear much larger than it does on a standard map, and sparsely populated countries will appear smaller.

NYC Building 3D Prints

The 3D buildings OGLE'd from Google Earth are not ready to be 3D printed off the bat. Each building is a composition of multiple vertical volumes that have walls and a ceiling but no floor. By computationally (i.e. hacked up OBJ-file-processing perl script!) copying all of the roof polygons to floor polygons, we got the job done:

Cartographica extraordinaire : the historical map transformed / David Rumsey, Edith M. Punt.

Rumsey, David, 1944- . Cartographica extraordinaire : the historical map transformed / David Rumsey, Edith M. Punt. [1589480449 (alk. paper) ] Redlands, Calif. : ESRI, c2004.
Call#: Fine Arts Library Folio GA197.R86 R86 2004

Philadelphia : work, space, family, and group experience in the nineteenth century : essays toward an interdisciplinary history of the city / edited by Theodore Hershberg.

Philadelphia : work, space, family, and group experience in the nineteenth century : essays toward an interdisciplinary history of the city / edited by Theodore Hershberg. [0195027523] New York : Oxford University Press, 1981.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HN80.P5 P487

A View Of Urban Sprawl From Outer Space

Measuring urban sprwal from space

Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC)

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is a non-profit, international, voluntary consensus standards organization that is leading the development of standards for geospatial and location based services. Through our member-driven consensus programs, OGC works with government, private industry, and academia to create open and extensible software application programming interfaces for geographic information systems (GIS) and other mainstream technologies. Adopted specifications are available for the public's use at no cost.

OneMap

Our world map is incrementally built by many submissions from various sources.

Transformations / NITLE - NITLE - GIS In Higher Education

An issue devoted to GIS in higher ed, mostly from small liberal arts colleges.

The Ghost Map - by Steven Johnson

Building livable communities : sustaining prosperity, improving quality of life, building a sense of community.

graphic of iraq war fatalities

Map Projections Poster

Here are examples of different ways of projecting the Earth's surface and a brief discussion of the pros and cons of each of the methods.

Thematic Maps from The United States Census

The US Census provides thematic maps at various levels of geography and for many data points.

Platial.com

Allows users to store, tag, and share locations -- based on google maps, but does interesting things. Users add photos of places, and lots of other tagged info about the places.

Valley of the Shadows TheTheater

The Valley of the Shadow is a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War. Here you may explore thousands of original documents that allow you to see what life was like during the Civil War for the men and women of Augusta and Franklin.

This section shows the routes of battles of union and confederate soldiers in the area.

A vision of Britain through time | Your national on-line library for local history

The Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System is a unique digital collection of information about Britain's localities as they have changed over time. Information comes from census reports, historical gazetteers, travellers' tales and historic maps, assembled into a whole that is much more than the sum of its parts.

New York City Maps from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

Historical Maps plus GIS from the David Rumsey Collection.

Gulf Coast Areas Affected by Hurricanes Katrina,Rita, and Wilma:

While many businesses were in the path of these storms, some were affected and others were not. Knowing where affected businesses are concentrated can guide efforts by Federal, State, and local agencies, service organizations, and entrepreneurs to respond to the storms and rebuild the economies of these areas.

LDEQ Geographic Information Systems

State of Louisiana EPA map-making site.

Windows on Urban Poverty

In this interactive web site, you are able to select a city or metropolitan area and view the location of high-poverty census tracts and observe the growth of high-poverty areas over time. In addition, you may view the changing demographics of the population. All of the maps here are based on U.S. Census data from 1970 through 2000. The data are summarized at the neighborhood level, using Census Tracts as proxies for neighborhoods.

Thematic Maps using the American Factfinder

The United States Census provides thematic maps for many of the data elements available through the Census.

style.org > Mapping Votes by County

Maps votes in the 2003 California Election by pixel rather than county to show a more accurate view of the vote distribution based on population rather than area.

Historical Atlas of the 20th Century

Twentieth century conditions in maps.

gCensus - Census Data and Google Maps

The map images as well as the satellite imagery belong to Google and are pulled from maps.google.com. The data is extracted from the 2000 United States Census and can be downloaded from www.census.gov.

STAMPS Project Page

System for TAgging Messages, Post-Inferential Semantics

Volkswagen and Google develop revolutionary navigation system - Automotoportal.com

"Volkswagen and Google are working together to develop a revolutionary new navigation system."

Columbia - spatial in-form-a-tion design lab

GIS and MetaData- A White Paper by ESRI (pdf)

Platial - google maps add your own

neat application of google maps

NSGIC Metadata Primer

Section 1 -- Metadata: What is it and Why is it Important? Section 2 -- Get Acquainted with the Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) Section 3 -- Where Does One Begin? Section 4 -- Select the Proper Metadata Tool Section 5 -- Start Out Simple Section 6 -- Other Metadata Issues

NSGIC Metadata Primer - where to begin

This primer started with a discussion of the importance of metadata. This was followed by a review of the Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata. Now is the time to roll up our collective sleeves and tackle the task. This section outlines a strategy for collecting metadata at the agency or corporate level. The first step often involves getting an organizational committment to "do metadata."

A review of metadata: a survey of current resource description formats - FGDC

Metadata Tools for Geospatial Data

This page leads to summaries of most of the known metadata tools used for documenting geospatial data and serving geospatial metadata. It includes tools for entering and editing metadata and utilities for preprocessing, extracting, postprocessing, validating, and viewing metadata. Most of these tools were designed to help complete Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) metadata, but several have been tuned to produce specific local metadata profiles.

PASDA - Metadata Resources

Geospatial Metadata - Federal Geographic Data Committee

Equity analysis of capital improvement plans using GIS: Des Moines urbanized area

Sanchez,TW . "Equity analysis of capital improvement plans using GIS: Des Moines urbanized area" Journal of urban planning and development [0733-9488] 124.1 (1998). 33-43.

Social Explorer Home

CensusTrax.com

GSAPP Spatial Information Design Lab

Columbia's GIS lab

Million Dollar Blocks

Geospatial Metadata - Federal Geographic Data Committee

FGDC, Meet the DDI: Adding Geospatial Metadata to a Numeric Data Catalog - (ppt 224k)

Linden, Julie. "FGDC, Meet the DDI: Adding Geospatial Metadata to a Numeric Data Catalog." Presented at the annual meeting of the International Association of Social Science Information Services & Technology, Ottawa, Canada, May 2003. (PPT 224K)

FGDC to USMARC

The following crosswalk was done by Elizabeth Mangan, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress.

OpenGLExtractor

OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam

Geoarchiving News - North Carolina Geospatial Data Archiving Project

The North Carolina Geospatial Data Archiving Project is just one of many recent or current projects focused on the issue of preservation of digital geospatial data. Following is a brief overview of other projects.

NCGDAP: North Carolina Geospatial Data Archiving Project

The joint project of the North Carolina State University Libraries and the North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis will focus on collection and preservation of digital geospatial data resources from state and local government agencies in North Carolina.

The objectives of the project include:

Identification of available resources through the NC OneMap data inventory
Acquisition of at risk geospatial data, including static data such as digital orthophotos as well time series data such as local land records and assessment data
Development of a digital repository architecture for geospatial data, using open source software tools such as DSpace
Enhancement of existing geospatial metadata with additional preservation metadata, using Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) records as wrappers
Investigation of automated identification and capture of data resources using emerging OpenGeospatial Consortium specifications for client interaction with data on remote servers
Development of a model for data archiving and time series development

GRADE Documents

GRADE Project - Scoping a Geospatial Repository for Academic Deposit and Extraction

GRADE will investigate and report on the technical and cultural issues around the reuse of geospatial data within the JISC IE in the context of media-centric, informal and institutional repositories.

The aim of GRADE is to lay the foundations for a sustainable infrastructure (both cultural and technical) that underwrites the communities' substantial and ongoing investment in the utilisation of geospatial resources within the learning, teaching and research environments of UK academia.

Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI)

Create digital maps that display a wide range of cultural material by using place and time as a common element.

ECAI technical infrastructure illustrates the vision of sharing distributed data and using time enabled mapping tools.

GIS at NITLE: A Geographic Information Systems Initiative

PACSCL Geo History Conference

GIS technology is proving itself to be a valuable tool for organizing data for both the public and private sectors -- for municipal infrastructure maintenance and record-keeping, regional planning, real estate, land use, and tourism. At the same time, scholars are using the technology in disciplines that embrace the humanities, the social sciences, the physical sciences, and medicine.

Now, PACSCL invites current and potential GIS users to gather to think about new uses for a geographic based resource, new users from a range of disciplines, and new ranges of contributors and contributions. The purpose of this symposium is to focus less on the "how" of building a GIS and more on the "why." We will concentrate on finding ways that data from all of these sectors -- when organized with a sense of place and time -- can offer new insights into connections across these disciplines.

Panel discussions in the mornings will be followed by facilitated small group discussions and information sharing in the afternoons. Participants will be grouped according to potential GIS uses (history, social sciences, city/regional planning, human services, public health, etc.) and users (professional affinity groups) for the small group discussions. PACSCL's objectives in hosting this event are to foster increased cooperation among a widened range of current and potential GIS users and to give participants the opportunity to consider issues of how best to work together in the presence of a lively and informed group of colleagues. The results of this symposium will be used to further shape the Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network.

Find your way around open source GIS

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software relies on data sets that cover the whole planet. To cope with the flood of GIS data and their formats, programmers have created several open source libraries and GIS suites. This article gives a short introduction to the range and depth of GIS tools and libraries available for UNIX® and Linux®.

Geolib Public Library Database

EDINA : Global and Regional Mapping

EDINA is actively seeking global and regional geographic datasets which can be made available to the UK Higher and Further Education community. Many global datasets are now being published via web map servers and are accessible through the use of interoperability standards. EDINA have created a Web Map Viewer, which will allow anyone with Internet access to view geographic data available through web map servers around the World.

Hurricanes and Tropical Stroms Information

Census page listing Hurricane Katrina related info.

Hurricane Katrina Disaster Response

List of data sets available from USUS. Huge and quite up to date.

Hurricane Katrina Disaster Response

List of data sets available from USUS. Huge and quite up to date.

Katrina

he World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and GIS for Public Health (WHOCC) at LSU is dedicated to the application and advancement of geographic information science (GISc) and geographic technologies for Public Health and disease modeling.

Hurricane Katrina Response Mapping

From LSU, this site links to many federal and local sources of data and maps.

Atlas: The Louisiana Statewide GIS

Geospatial Data from the State of Louisiana. Download Census data, topo maps, digital elevation models, DOQQ's.

GOS - Geospatial One Stop - Hurricane Katrina Resources

Federal Gateway to information about Katrina in New Orleans. Includes maps, GIS data, interactive mapping packages, etc.