Assessment of Livability in the City of Vancouver
Project Summary
This project aimed to measure the liveability for lone parent family with young children (under 12 years old) in the City of Vancouver. Livability was based on several indicators: housing affordability, safety and community services/facilities i.e. schools and healthcare centres. The ultimate goal was to create a resource that would aid a lone-parent family identify the specific neighbourhoods in Vancouver that would be the most suited for a family of such a profile.
Data Management
The data used in this project was very easily retrieved given it was from open governmental databases. This also meant that all of the data that was being presented was of a high quality, whereby the data sets were all complete and very reliable.
GIS Analysis
The project enabled us to incorporate various skills obtained throughout the course and apply it when trying to meet a common objective. The most valuable gain with regards to the process of the analysis has been developing the ability to intuitively decide which tools are best applicable to obtain the results of interest.
Project Management
Tasks were allocated on the basis of individual preferences to ensure everybody was satisfied with their task and make the entire process as smooth as possible. During the allocation, individual strengths were also taken into consideration i.e. the team members with the strongest writing skills edited the final document. The design of the final maps was a team effort as we wanted to ensure everybody was satisfied with the final product we were presenting. Given that access to ArcMap was restricted to the School of Geography, this made it quite challenging to meet as all members had to be available simultaneously and specifically on campus nonetheless, as a product of compromise the set out goals were met. The experience has highlighted that in future projects whereby there is a team effort, it would be necessary to impose strict deadlines for all tasks to maximise time efficiency and ensure that all tasks are completed within a reasonable time.
Key Findings
With the results from final three maps, the areas that have been shown the most favourable for the needs of lone-parent families include areas in East Vancouver including Mount Pleasant, South Cambie, Riley Park and Little Mountain. These neighbourhoods are all in areas of low risk from crime and hazards from roads. The needs of lone-parent families are best addressed in these locations as they are conveniently nearby to transportation and roads as well as schools and other cultural services.