After completing the training for the ArcGIS software, we learned how to apply it to real world contexts.
Underneath is a map of the City of Vancouver residential break and enter which I got from the Vancouver Police Department website. The message of the map was to show the residential break and enters in Vancouver. The message was made clear through the bolded large title and through a zoomed in and focused map of the city of Vancouver. The time period written underneath the title gives a clear message of the time span of when the data was collected. In addition, each individual case of a break and enter is marked with a triangular point which is placed at the geographic address of the residence. This information can be derived by looking at the key on the bottom left hand corner. The key indicates more information about the meaning of the coloured areas around the triangular points on the map. However it is difficult to determine why these coloured areas take up the space they do and form a circle around each triangular point. This makes the message of the map difficult to understand.
Some of the geographical analysis and the tools they used were adjusting the scale of the map and panned their focus on the Vancouver area. They used rastor data and attributed this data based on location on the map. The lines of borders of regions in Vancouver were attributed by having a darker lines than the lines used to attribute the streets. Layering was also used and this is evident from the various symbols and line types that are present on the map.
The data is gathered from PRIME (Police Records Information Management Environment) and from the crime reported to the Vancouver Police Department Crime Analysis Unit (VPDCAU). There is no specific indication of who made the map, but the credits on the image are given to the VPDCAU. The map might have been produced for the purpose of increasing security in certain regions of Vancouver. Another purpose may have been used to see if there is a correlation between break and enter crimes and their location in the city. This then could be correlated to the living conditions and income of that neighbourhood/area. There is a small amount of bias because information is based on cases of report and based on observations. Not all crimes could have been reported to the police and observations could have been one sided.
Lastly, to analyze the accuracy of the data, the map is relatively simple so it is easy to determine the data. I trust the data; however I believe that it should have been collected over a larger time span to make the location of break and enter crimes more reliable. However it could be made more precise by including more information about the intensity of the crime reports. By looking at the map we don’t know what high intensity means relative to low intensity making it subjective to individual basis.
This map was taken from the Vancouver Police Department data and was used to understand the application ArcGIS software in real life.