Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Urban Studies and Planning


11.520: A Workshop on Geographic Information Systems
11.188: Urban Planning and Social Science Laboratory

Lab Assignment 6: Vector Spatial Analysis

Due: Oct. 26, 2009



Please submit your answers to Stellar prior to the start of lab on Oct. 27, 2008
 
Your Name: ________________________________
Your Athena Username: ________________________________

1. Please write a brief (few sentence) description of any interesting spatial pattern that you see for bookstore locations within Cambridge.
 
 
   
   
   
 

2. Create and attach a labeled and annotated map supporting your description in Question 1.
 

3. How many children aged-5-and-under do you estimate were living within 1 km of Ames Street based on the 2000 census?
 
 
 

4. Make a map showing Ames Street and the 1 km buffer on top of a block group thematic map of children aged-5-and-under. Instead of mapping the 'number of children,' you will want to map the density of children in the original block groups. Do you see why? Label one of the larger block groups that partially overlaps your buffer with the percentage of the block group that is within 1 kilometer of Ames Street.
 
 

5. Briefly describe the difference between the output layers (that is, the shapefiles) produced by using the union and intersect operations to combine your Ames street buffer with the Cambridge block groups.

Both maps and the answer sheet should be submitted via Stellar. Your maps may either be in grayscale or, preferably, in color; just make sure they are readable.


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Created by Raj Singh.
Modified for 1999-2008 by Thomas H. Grayson, Joseph Ferreira, Jinhua Zhao, Xiongjiu Liao, and Diao Mi.

Last modified 19 October 2009 by Joe Ferreira.