The first part of lab 4 was all about using the different methods of dividing up the data present in an area, using different classification methods. The map can be found below. (“Dataclass”)
MAP: dataclass
From the maps generated using different methods of classification with the same data, we can see the variation of what we see want other people to see, against the reality.
For example,
If I were a journalist, I would use the manual break classification as it shows a significant emphasis on the housing prices in certain areas, for example, around UBC, and the North Shore area.It shows concentration areas of high housing costs. This will have more of a story to write about, as well having able to manually input the intervals will be easier to read for the intended audience.
If I were a real estate agent preparing a presentation for a potential homebuyer near UBC, I would choose to use the Natural Breaks, as it shows that the area around UBC is not the most expensive area to purchase a house. As it is in the same colour as a lot of other areas around the lower mainland. This will give the illusion that housing prices are not as high around UBC as everywhere else. This creates some implications as it somewhat skews the data, as it can show what you would want it to show depending on the different classification methods used. Which may be unethical especially concerning this case of drawing in potential homebuyers and changing the views of the housing prices to influence them to buy houses.
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The second part of the lab was about housing affordability, comparing Ottawa, and Vancouver. Affordability in this lab is measured by comparing the average income to the average housing costs. This is a better indicator of housing affordability than just housing cost alone, as some areas where housing costs are low, income may be low as well, which makes the hosing unaffordable even though cost is low. The map below shows the link between income, and housing costs in both Ottawa, and Vancouver, we can see from the maps that Vancouver does not have any areas with affordable housing, whereas in Ottawa, there are more areas with affordable housing.
The housing affordability rating categories are affordable, moderately unaffordable, seriously unaffordable, and severely unaffordable. Personally, I feel like affordability is not a good indicator of a city’s “livability” alone. Taking Vancouver as an example, housing can be seen from the results of this lab that it is fairly unaffordable, yet it is one of the most livable cities in the world. Livability should not be defined by housing affordability itself but rather taking into account factors like weather, public transit systems, etc.
MAP: affordability-2
