The posted maps were created for the University of West Florida On-Line GIS Certification Program class, Special Topics in GIS (GIS 4930) as part of the Project 3 - Analysis week assignment focusing on using GIS as a tool for market analysis.


For the analysis week, two additional market areas were defined for the existing Better Books stores to try to determine which market area best represents the distribution of Book Club Lovers Members for each of the stores. Remember, from last week the first defined market area was a 1-mile buffer around the store. The second market area is based on percentage of store sales to book club members wherein 0-60% of a stores sales are made by members within the inner ring and 60-80% of the stores sales are made by members in the outer ring. The third market area is defined based on driving times. It has an inner ring composed of members within a 0 - 1 minute drive time and the outer ring is within a 1 - 3 minute drive time.

Based on comparisons made using data from the GIS obtained mostly through spatial queries (i.e selection by location) and the summarize function, the 0%-60%/60%-80% model was chosen to be the best model to use for market analysis due to it's demographic and sales information being the closest to the actual distribution of Book Club Lovers Members. Further analysis from the data compiled last week shows that the Steiner store should be the model for locating the new site as it has higher sales, higher average sale per order and per customer and has a lot more positive demographics then the Bosworth store based on the 0%-60%/60%-80% market area report (More households, higher average income, net worth and home values, higher population growth, greater diversity).



With the model store identified, new properties can now be evaluated to look for similar demographic information. Six properties are available but only three meet the initial criteria for new sites (one was rejected because it was zoned for industrial use, the other two where with the 1-mile market are of the two existing stores). The demographic information for the three sites will be compared and reported during the Report phase of the assignment.

Special Topics Project 3 Prepare: GIS and Economic Development

The posted maps were created for the University of West Florida On-Line GIS certification program class, Special Topics in GIS (GIS 4930) as part of the Project 3 Prepare Week assignment focusing on using GIS as a tool for market analysis. The project will be focused on locating the best site for a new book store for a family-owned retail chain that has two stores in the San Francisco area called Better Books.

During the Prepare phase we were asked to do some basic market analysis research using GIS to review demographics and competitors as wells as to look at customer characteristics in relation to store locations.

The first map shows demographics by population block groups in the San Francisco area that are indicators of possible book-buying customers along with the locations of competitor stores classified by yearly sales:



The map was fairly easy to create. The biggest challenges being choosing appropriate symbology for all the elements and then deciding on the best possible layout. I chose to use the library symbol to represent the Better Books stores but made each a different color. You'll see why on the second map.

For each of the block group choropleth parts of the map, I wanted to use fairly muted colors so that the store points for both Better Books and it's competitors would show up. The problem with doing that was the low classifications generally had a color value of white which did not look good against the white background. I played with the color ranges a little bit to make sure I good get the colors to pop a little more. I used green for the money demographics for obvious reasons (money is green).

The second map shows the results of establishing a 1-mile market area buffer around each of the Better Books sites and using it to perform calculations on the demographic data from the census blocks as well as from a separate point data layer that contains sales data on the buying habits of members of a book club, Booklovers:



Again, the map was not too difficult to generate but the spatial data within it was used to perform a number of calculations on customers and potential customers within the market areas of each current store. I figured to lend more credence to my choice of store symbol, I'd go ahead and use the library symbol to create a logo for Better Books and used it to fill some empty map space. I envision the motto of Better Books to be, "Twice as good as going to the Library".

As you can see, this weeks work was not as stressful as the last two projects, so I was able to have a little more fun and focus a little more on map design.

Special Topics Project 2 Report: Urban Landscaping

This week concludes the second project for the University of West Florida On-Line GIS Certification course, Special Topics in GIS (GIS 4930) which focused on urban landscaping design concepts.

The first task for report week required summing up and extending the project goals for the previous two weeks in trying to show quantitative reasons for Marin City, California to continue to provide 25% matching funds to a the Marin City Tree Program in order for it to continue to receive federal grants for tree planting and maintenance under the Small Business Stewardship Assistance Act of 2010. I have presented this data via a report which is meant to be presented to the Marin City Manager which can be accessed via this link:

Report to Marin City Manager

The second task focused on a request to determine how many trees need to be planted to offset half the energy use of a proposed project to build the Marin City Center, a multi-use community building in the northwest part of the city. I have also chosen to present the data in the form of a report that can be accessed by this link:

Report on Marin City Center Energy Usage

Project 2: GIS and Landscape Design: Part 2 Analyze

Project 2 in GIS 4930 Special Topics in GIS focuses on GIS and Landscape Design/Management. The scenario involves using a GIS to answer questions related to Small Business Environmental Stewardship Assistance Act of 2010 which encourages communities to plant trees in urban neighborhoods in order to revitalize communities.

In the preparation phase ortho-images of Marin City, CA were reclassified to identify three distinct classes of ground cover - Trees, Grasses and Impervious Surfaces. Once reclassification was completed using ArcGIS Spatial Analysis tools, the analyze phase focused on looking at calculating percent tree cover, carbon storage and carbon sequestration for five selected neighborhoods within the city area. The analysis performed is a good demonstration of the way a GIS can be used to derive quantitative spacial information about an area from a basic image.

Using the reclassified image, each neighborhoods ground cover classifications were extracted allowing for the calculation of the area, acreage and percent of total coverage for each class of land cover. The data from those calculations was used to calculate estimated carbon storage and carbon sequestration values for each neighborhood based on CITYGreen methods and equations. The result is the posted map which shows each of the five neighborhoods statistics allowing for the easy determination of which areas in Marin City are more likely to benefit from tree planting programs.