Environmental geography: urban blight

Environmental geography: urban blight

GEOG 130 Online

Chapter 23 Activity 1: Urban Blight

Introduction: In this activity you will investigate how communities are using GIS to address urban blight.

Instructions: Please respond to the questions below. Be sure to use a distinct font color or highlighting of your responses so I can identify them within the document. Once completed, save your answers and upload to Blackboard before the deadline. Please read this article from Esri and then answer the following questions.

1. What “disturbing pattern” was revealed when the city mapped the locations of abandoned parcels?

2. How did the city do to deal with the distressed properties? Now visit this interactive map to view Surplus Properties in New Bern, NC. When you open the link, click on the down arrow in the bottom center of the page.

3. Click through the map to view some of the properties available. Since you’ve done some work with GIS this semester, you should have some understanding of how maps like this are created and used. Please comment on how this mapping interface can be useful to the city of New Bern. Finally, visit this application (click “View Application, then sign in as “Guest”). This application was created to be used by communities for collecting information about blighted properties.

4. Explain how the collection of this data could then be later used in a GIS map to help communities understand the spatial patterns of property conditions.