geo509

Geography 509:
Community Mapshop

University of Kentucky
Matthew W. Wilson

Site Analysis Louisville

Preston Avenue Corridor

(last update: 26 July 2021)

In this assignment, you will complete an initial site analysis of the study area using GIS, to include primary and secondary spatial data. Feel free to partner with other members of the class. Each student must submit their own site analysis.

For those who have not used QGIS or data from the US Census, you are encouraged to complete a practice lab to become more familiar with this technology and the use of census data.

Read an article and go on a ‘virtual’ walk.

To complete the site analysis, you need to read an article and go on a ‘mapwalk’ using Google Street View:

  1. Read Shelton, Poorthuis, Zook. 2015. Social media and the city: Rethinking urban socio-spatial inequality using user-generated geographic information. Landscape and Urban Planning, 142. pp. 198-211.
  2. Complete a ‘mapwalk’ using Google Street View along the Preston Avenue corridor in Louisville. You might want to start here and ‘walk’ south (away from the waterfront). You’ll pass the U of L Hospital, here; the I-65 overpass that breaks traffic along Preston Avenue, here; and then south through neighborhoods that are nearer the airport.
  3. Take notes and screenshots of things you notice about the landscape. Note the architecture, lot-size, building quality, presence of driveways, sidewalks, etc.

Schedule some computer time.

You also need to explore some aspects of Louisville using data from the US Census. Read more about the difference between the American Community Survey and the Decennial Census. You’ll then need to do some work using GIS:

  1. Use the Louisville Metro Open Data to download shapefiles for your basemap of Louisville.
  2. Use TIGER/Line Shapefiles to download shapefile boundaries for census tracts and census block groups in Kentucky.
  3. Use Data.Census.Gov to download census tabular data (as CSV) for Louisville based on a theme of interest (housing, employment, income, race and ethnicity, transportation, veteran status, etc.). You may want to explore census data first using Social Explorer.
  4. Perform a table join to connect the tabular data with your census geometries.
  5. Create a few choropleth maps showing aspects of this data.

Assemble materials into a PDF.

To complete the site analysis, assemble your notes, photos, and maps into a single PDF describing some aspect of the Preston Avenue corridor in Louisville. Analysis should highlight and prioritize more formal lines of inquiry that may be pursued throughout the semester. You may want to identify potential community partners that could be engaged during the studio. Make note of any work completed with other class members. Upload the PDF to Canvas for full credit.