Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

Vol. 3 Issue 4
August 2008

It's that time of the year when we jump into our swimsuits and get our sombreros out of the closet. And we count Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, California, and the Southwest U.S (reminiscent of Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson furiously galloping after some bad-looking villains -- think Spaghetti Western here) among our summer plans. And what would have our summer been without the Summer Olympics? After the breathtaking swimming races between the Americans and the French, the bets were flying in the office as to who would win the medal count! But between taking off to some exotic destinations and watching the Olympics, we have been working on great projects. We're thrilled to introduce you to MPIP's MetroPhilaMapper and a fun internal application of our DecisionTree technology. Welcome to another edition of the Azavea Journal.

MPIP Launches MetroPhilaMapper and Makes Hundreds of Local and Regional Indicators Available to the Public for Free

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

"With over 250 local and regional indicators ... MetroPhilaMapper holds about 250,000 pieces of data."

The growing interdependence of people, markets, and institutions across the country requires a multitude of agencies, businesses and non profit organizations to analyze and understand social, economic, and environment patterns within the regional context in which they operate, helping them to better serve their constituents. But while raw data rarely tells a compelling story on its own, figures buried deep in databases do have a story to tell. Many organizations maintain enormous databases full of information critical to their mission, but too often they lack a convenient way to effectively utilize or present the data in a way that informs people’s decisions.

In June, Temple University’s Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project (MPIP), a project that promotes data-driven regional civic dialogue, launched MetroPhilaMapper, a free, online mapping application. With over 250 local and regional indicators, MetroPhilaMapper leverages Azavea’s Kaleidocade^TM Indicators Framework (KIF) to enable the public to easily find, geographically view, display in charts and tables, and compare data that used to be scattered across multiple agencies.

Regional in focus, MetroPhilaMapper displays aggregated quality of life data including land use patterns, SAT scores and school enrollments, population characteristics, health statistics, business and job locations, housing, real estate and mortgage information, voter registrations, income and wage data, and crime patterns that cover the two-state, nine-county region. The system provides detailed and nuanced indicators at several geographic levels including boroughs and townships, school districts, and zip codes. MetroPhilaMapper currently holds about 250,000 pieces of data and will grow substantially later this summer when the project adds data at the Census tract level as well as additional economic and employment data.

Azavea’s Kaleidocade Indicators Framework uses ESRI’s ArcIMS 9.2 and ArcSDE, and enables MetroPhilaMapper’s users to make and save their own maps by selecting the sets of indicators and levels of geography of their choice; choose to view the same information in tables, charts or reports; upload addresses to create their own maps on the fly; and download and save all maps, tables, and reports for use in their own reports or analysis, among many other features.

For more information, visit MetroPhilaMapper. You can create an account, if you want to save your work, or click on “Anonymous Login” if you just want to experiment with the application.

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What is PhillyStat?

By Robert Cheetham Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

"... what really gets us jazzed is the central role that GIS and statistics play in the [PhillyStat] process."

Beginning in the mid-1990’s, the New York Police Department, under William Bratton, Jack Maple and John Timoney, created a system that became known as CompStat, short for ‘computer statistics’. Under this program, precinct commanders met on a regular basis with the NYPD executive team to review statistics and conditions in their precincts. Despite the name, in some sense, CompStat had nothing to do with computing. It was an organizational management tool for law enforcement agencies. The key innovations were measurement of results, regular review, and relentless follow-up. All of these activities were directed at performance and accountability with lower levels of crime being the key performance metrics. But computing, and GIS in particular, played an important role. GIS software had become sufficiently inexpensive and easy to use that it could be run on desktop PC’s. Maps and stats became the mechanism by which the results would both be measured and reviewed. CompStat would become inextricably associated with mapping and GIS.

The results were spectacular. Over the course of several years, New York City saw dramatic drops in crime. Obviously, this could not all be attributed to CompStat – there were many factors – but the idea was conceptually simple and clearly brought results, setting the stage for its replication in other parts of the country. When Bratton, Maple, and Timoney left the NYPD, they took the program to Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, and it was quickly picked up by other cities. Baltimore took the process one step further, extending the performance management concept to all municipal agencies to create CitiStat. Similar programs now exist in Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, and dozens of other cities. In 2006 Washington DC added an important innovation: live data feeds for much of its operations. Why was this important? Good government is frequently related to the degree of transparency provided to the public. DC took a huge leap toward greater transparency by making its actual operational information freely available to all.

Philadelphia’s new Mayor, Michael Nutter, made implementation of a CitiStat program a key part of his election campaign and began implementing the concept within weeks of taking office. PhillyStat was launched in March.

Why does Azavea care? Well, there’s obviously the abstract sense that our tax dollars are being more effectively spent and that these efforts may eventually result in better city services. But what really gets us jazzed is the central role that GIS and statistics play in the process. The meetings are open to the public, and having now attended a couple of the PhillyStat meetings, I am amazed by the range of maps and data being used to more effectively communicate and collaborate. People are not just making maps of crime, but using aggregated maps of deeds and mortgages to examine the impact of foreclosures, examining the changing geographic patterns real estate tax to understand how the real estate market is changing in each neighborhood. Having just rolled out the new public crime mapping application in Philadelphia, I’m also looking forward to seeing the PhillyStat data made available to the public.

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ESRI President’s Award 2008 Awarded to City of Philadelphia’s MOIS GIS Applications

By Robert Cheetham Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

"The President's Award ... is a special recognition to an organization that is "a model for others to follow in implementing GIS successfully as well as making a positive impact on the environment and society."

Jim Querry of Division of Technology accepts award from President Jack Dangermond

At the ESRI User Conference earlier this month, the City of Philadelphia was presented with the President’s Award by Jack Dangermond, President of ESRI. The President’s Award is given to one organization each year and is a special recognition by Mr. Dangermond to an organization that is “a model for others to follow in implementing GIS successfully as well as making a positive impact on the environment and society.” Previous winners have included the U.S. Department of the Interior, the City of New York, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, and the Hong Kong Information Center. Though the award is seldom given to the same recipient twice, this is the second time the City of Philadelphia has received the award (the last time was in 2000).

The award was accepted by Jim Querry, the Director of Enterprise GIS for the City. The award was presented in the Plenary Session of the annual ESRI User Conference in San Diego before a crowd of more than 12,000. Several efforts were cited including: the public crime mapping web site, PhillyHistory, the work order management system at the Streets Department, a new mobile GIS system at the Airport, the Unified Land Record System, CityMaps and ParcelExplorer. We’re happy and proud that some of Azavea’s work was part of this recognition for the innovative GIS work being done by the City of Philadelphia.

To read more about the award ceremony visit the ESRI User Conference blog here.

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What the Heck Is … FLEX?

By Chip Hitchens Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

"Flex is an excellent choice for applications that need animation or complex controls that push the bounds of what is possible in a web browser."

Since Apple started automatically pushing out Safari to Windows users, nerds everywhere have been metaphorically beating each other up over browser benchmarks, hackability, and anti-aliasing schemes. But regardless of any particular loyalties, it’s a fact that things on the web look (and sometimes act) differently in different browsers.

Web pages are, at some level, just a set of instructions that need to be interpreted by a web browser to make the picture on your screen. Differences in web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and the various versions of each (and even differences between the same versions on different operating systems) make it hard for web developers to provide a consistent experience to users. Abobe’s Flex is an open source collection of tools that help developers make consistent, rich Internet applications, independent of a person’s choice of browser.

Applications made with the Flex framework run in Flash Player, a common browser plug-in which has been around since the late 1990’s. Flash was initially a popular way to add interactive graphics, animations, or video to websites, but has evolved into a platform for developers to build entire web and desktop applications. Flex includes a standard set of user interface objects (such as buttons, forms, and the usual features that people expect to see on web and desktop applications), and an object-oriented programming model familiar to web developers. Flex makes it easier for a developer to create feature rich applications that operate consistently regardless of the user’s operating system or browser. While there are other similar platforms for web-based user interfaces, such as ExtJS (a JavaScript library we use) and Microsoft’s Silverlight, Flex is an excellent choice for applications that need animation or complex controls that push the bounds of what is possible in a web browser.

The Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive’s The Root – Example of a Flex- enabled mapping interface that lets users map their family trees.

Azavea has already used Flex in a couple different scenarios, both in and out of map applications. The “Roots” section of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive’s www.theroot.com uses Flex to display an interactive graphical family tree. While the data is stored in a conventional database and uses a conventional server behind-the-scenes, the interface is implemented in Flash using Flex and Flex-based diagramming tools. The Flex application interacts with the back-end server using web services (check out “What the Heck is a Web Service?”). Azavea’s DecisionTree uses Flex to power the interactive map page, providing enhanced browser interoperability and enhanced graphics, such as overlays with variable transparency that can be adjusted by the user on the fly.

We’re excited by what we’ve been able to do so far with Flex, and are looking forward to the forthcoming release of ESRI’s ArcGIS API for Flex, which brings the visual sparkle of Flex to ArcGIS Server applications.

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Why Make a Wild Guess on Where to Sit in the Office When You Can Use Geoprocessing?

By admin Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

"It's exciting to see how our staff research bears fruit at unexpected times ... Who knows what will crop up next?"

Recently Azavea went through another round of office expansion, almost doubling our office size. We knocked down walls, carved up new conference rooms, added a bike garage (as opposed to a bike tree), and more. We now have lots of new space, and quite a few new people. One of the questions that simmered while we watched the work complete was: where are we going to sit? Our staff is full of busy, smart, sophisticated people who can’t be bothered to do their own spatial analysis. Can’t we come up with some way to take the thinking out of this equation? In addition, this question is inherently spatial, so it sounded like a great opportunity to leverage our spatial research.

Map of Azavea’s office showing an employee’s ideal desk location based on entering weighted preferences in DecisionTree.

The basic premise is that when individuals moved their desk, they will move toward something they desire, and away from something they don’t. If you are allergic to printer toner, you don’t want to sit next to the printers, and if you really like the sun, you definitely want to sit next to the windows. The ultimate location of an employee’s desk takes into account all sorts of factors, and comes to a solution that is often unique to the individual. Does this sound familiar? Indeed! Managing these types of decision factors is the basis for Azavea’s DecisionTree® framework.

Using these principles, it became apparent that software developer, David Zwarg’s research was well suited to address this problem. One of David’s ongoing research projects at Azavea is collaborating with Dana Tomlin at the University of Pennsylvania to develop an advanced raster cost-distance algorithm. The innovation behind this raster cost-distance algorithm is a wave propagation model, which is not constrained to the grid imposed on the raster data. Bonus!

To start, David picked some key landmarks in the new office, and generated a cost-distance raster for each of them. His list of raster datasets generated include: cost-distance to the refrigerator, cost-distance to the bike garage, cost-distance to the printers, cost-distance to the windows, and more. In all, there were 14 layers — or decision factors — that David was able to incorporate, based on the new office floor plan.

Next, he converted the raster datasets to the Azavea Raster Grid (ARG) format. What is this format, and why convert data from raster grids? ARG is a grid format that we use internally (not to be confused with “Argh!”, which is also used internally) and has been optimized for fast processing and storage speed, in addition to being the format used by DecisionTree.

Finally, David plugged the raster datasets into a demo DecisionTree application, and published the application on the Azavea Intranet a couple weeks prior to the completion of the office expansion. The application contains a base map that is the architectural floor plan of the new office space. Azavea staff members could now use DecisionTree to locate the places in the office that suited their preferences. Adjust a few sliders, click update, and the application shows the best place in the office, based on your criteria! No more guesswork required.

It’s exciting to see how our staff research bears fruit at unexpected times. Across the gamut, from Open Source projects to geoprocessing to pro-bono cartography, our staff research brings a wealth of experience to their work (and play) – who knows what will crop up next?

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Conference Highlights

By admin Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

Early in the morning on August 4th, Robert and Megan happily joined the throngs of people descending on the San Diego Conference Center for the 2008 ESRI International User Conference. The annual event, with over 14,000 attendees, is chock full of presentations, technical workshops, and good times. We were particularly pleased to cheer for the City of Philadelphia, recipient of the 2008 President’s Award in recognition of its groundbreaking enterprise GIS applications.

Over the course of the week-long conference, we presented five of our clients’ projects including Asheville, NC’s Priority Places, the LandStat and Property Fraud applications for the Philadelphia Department of Records, an election incident mapping system designed for the Committee of Seventy, and lead a discussion of automated map development for analysis of campaign contribution origins, which touched on research by both Common Cause New York and MapLight.org.

As always, we enjoyed the opportunity to see the latest and greatest that ESRI and GIS users around the world have to offer, and look forward to applying what we’ve learned to future projects.

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Puzzle: Explore MetroPhilaMapper’s Indicators and Learn About the Region

By Deb Boyer Published in

Vol. 3 Issue 4, August 2008

Sample map from MetroPhilaMapper, powered by Kaleidocade^TM.

Temple University’s MetroPhilaMapper, powered by Kaleidocade^TM, provides the public with a powerful tool for learning about and analyzing regional demographic and quality-of-living data. This month’s puzzle will take you on an exploration of the application. Be the first to send in all three correct answers and receive a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble!

Open the MetroPhilaMapper application. Either log in annonymously or register for a free account. Click on the ‘Make a Map’ button. Select ‘All Municipalities’ from the drop down menu. In the ‘Category’ drop down menu select ‘Arts & Culture/ Federal and State Funding for Arts and Culture, 2004′. Click on the ‘Add’ button to add this choice to your ‘Project’. Then name your project and click the ‘Save’ button to proceed.

1. MetroPhilaMapper enables users to view results in five ways: map, table, statistics, scatter, rank. Click on the ‘Table’ icon to view the amount of funding various municipalities received in 2004. How much funding did Philadelphia receive? Hint: Use the arrows in the ‘Federal and State Funding’ column to sort the results into descending value.

2. MetroPhilaMapper provides information on the Greater Philadelphia region. Now, click on the ‘Map’ tab. Click the arrows next to ‘Search’ (first link in the map legend area on the left of the map) to access the address search function. Enter “Downingtown, PA” into the search box and click ‘Find’. What is the range of funding that Downingtown received in 2004? Hint: The colors on the map correspond to the map legend visible under the ‘Search’ function.

3. Since the range of any indicator can be quite large, MetroPhilaMapper provides some additional statistics. Click on the ‘Statistics’ tab. What is the mean for ‘Federal and State Funding for Arts and Culture, 2004′?

Send your answers to info@azavea.com. Be the first to send in all three correct answers and receive a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble! The winner will be announced in our next newsletter.

The winning caption from the last newsletter’s PhillyHistory.org mystery photo puzzle was sent in by Nikki Cross, City Planner for Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Winning Entry: “Philadelphia scientists test an early protype of an underwater breathing apparatus. Their big secret? A common garden hose.”

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