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ArcIMS

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

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"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 KaleidocadeTM 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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Connect 2-1-1: Enabling Social Services to Be Searched Geographically

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"For years, ... people would turn to 911 as a way to get answers, in some cases, overburdening county emergency call systems."

For years, residents seeking heath and human service assistance in the Delaware Valley have faced a maze of options like Medicare, county assistance, Social Security, disability programs, job training, and drug counseling – with no single source for information about them. Without an easy alternative, many people would turn to 911 as a way to get answers, in some cases, overburdening county emergency call systems.

Azavea partnered with the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC) and six United Way organizations serving Southeastern Pennsylvania to develop Connect211.org, a web-based application that enables the public and social workers to find and route their way to more than 12,000 organizations and service providers for health, family, education, employment, food, and shelter in the region.

Visitors to the site can easily identify service providers based on where they live and can use the routing function to plan a trip between their homes and the providers they have selected. In addition to driving directions, the system also includes bus, subway, and train routes on the maps. Users can search the database for services at a range of geographic levels including county, township, zip code, neighborhood, and distance from a specific address. Results are listed by address and displayed on a map that enables users to select specific search results, zoom in and out, and pan in any direction. DVAEYC updates the data and service provider information on an ongoing basis to fill in gaps. Connect211.org is free and for Philadelphia residents who lack access to the internet, the Free Library of Philadelphia has provided a Connect211.org link on its computers.

While the application uses Microsoft .Net framework, Microsoft SQL Server, ESRI’s ArcIMS, ArcSDE and ArcWeb Services, a few years have passed since we originally developed it and the technology has evolved, so we are currently working with DVAEYC and the United Way to build a Phase II for Connect211.org that will leverage more contemporary technology.

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Tracking the Fraud-ulators with GIS

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"...it will be an important new tool for the City, legal professionals, and law enforcement to fight property fraud."

Photo courtesy of PhillyHistory.org, a project of the City of Philadelphia Department of Records.

As if declining home sales, a credit squeeze and predatory lending practices were not enough, there has been a substantial rise in mortgage and deed fraud throughout the boom and bust of the real estate market. While this trend has been most apparent in the hottest real estate markets, Philadelphia’s homeowners have not been spared from this crime. The methods run the gamut from simple to complex, seemingly innocent to downright treacherous. But the outcome of what is known as ‘property conveyance fraud’ is often the same — a homeowner is bilked out of their equity or the deed to their home. The City of Philadelphia has been combating this phenomenon with a multi-agency task force organized by the Philadelphia Bar Association. The Property Conveyance Task Force is an ad hoc committee of City agencies, law enforcement officials, title insurance companies, non-profit legal assistance organizations, and the district attorney’s office. The group meets every few months to discuss and share information on fraud schemes and develop strategies for detecting and mitigating the damage.

The task force has made progress in terms of developing strategies, but the most serious impediment remains the lack of information available to all members of the group. Azavea was asked by the City’s Department of Records — where deeds and mortgages are recorded as legal documents — to help develop a GIS-enabled fraud tracking system. The result is a set of web-based tools that use ESRI’s ArcIMS map server and the City’s web services API’s to enable all members of the task force to register fraud reports, search the results, and subscribe to geographic alerts. While it will not be available to the general public, it will be an important new tool for the City, legal professionals and law enforcement to fight property fraud.

If you are interested in learning more about the effects of property conveyance fraud, there was a series of articles in the New York Times last year that may prove interesting:

“Mortgage Fraud Is Up, but Not in Their Backyards“

“New Scheme Preys on Desperate Homeowners”

“Fraud Cases Are Rising, F.B.I. Says”

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GIS and Trauma Center Siting

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"The difference between life and death for severely injured people depends upon the amount of time it takes to get them to a trauma center hospital."

The difference between life and death for severely injured people depends upon the amount of time it takes to get them to a trauma center hospital. The siting of trauma center hospitals, however, is more complex than just maps of land area coverage showing ringed bands around each hospital. Surrounding helicopter and ambulance locations and speeds, the number and location of trauma centers in a region, and the spatial relationships between these facilities also need to be considered. To be viable, the hospital must serve a large enough population of severely injured people to maintain the skills of its healthcare providers and offer high quality care.

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University set out to develop a mathematical model to assist with trauma center siting while taking these important considerations into account, and to make that model accessible through the Internet. They have developed the Trauma Resource Allocation Model for Ambulances and Hospitals (TRAMAH), a mathematical optimization model that uses population and access to existing trauma centers based on geographic relationships to ambulances and helicopters to simulate the effects of newly sited trauma centers.

Azavea partnered with the researchers and the Cartographic Modeling Lab to develop an interactive website enabling visitors to specify timeframe (access within 45 or 60 minutes) and transportation mode (ambulance, helicopter, or both), and identify the locations of current hospitals and trauma centers and their accessibility. The application provides a map and coverage information based on percentages of population and land covered by the existing system.

This website, which leverages ESRI’s ArcIMS and ArcSDE technologies, is now accessible to the public at http://tramah.cml.upenn.edu.

Many other factors may need to be taken into consideration in siting trauma centers, and the TRAMAH system will be best used alongside, rather than instead of, the specialized knowledge of trauma systems planners. It does, however, demonstrate the very real value that GIS can add when dealing with limited resources that must be allocated over extensive geographic areas.

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