Week 3 Lab: Aston Villa Map

View Aston Villa 2009/2010 Season in a larger map

The Pitfalls of Neogeography

The primary pitfall of neogeography has to do with its validity. Much like how teachers admonish students to not rely on Wikipedia as a reliable source of information, neogeography suffers from the same problem. By definition, neogeography is a usercentric set of tools, ie. Google Maps, that are far less technical and complex as the tools that traditional Geographic information systems use. Consequently, there is a plethora of information that is uploaded onto the web, which has not been checked for its credibility. For example, when I was creating my Aston Villa map, I could have easily included typos or misinformation that would have misguided potential viewers.

The second most apparent setback of neogeography is its technical limitations. Neogeography uses basic user-friendly tools in order to enable people who have no experience in GIS to engage in map making. I’m no expert with Google Maps, but I was frustrated that I could not include a description to complement a video that I included for the Bolton Wanderers versus Aston Villa game. These simple tools can never reach the depth that GIS programs like ArcGIS can offer. In that sense, the information derived from neogeography is mostly confined to non-academic purposes. It can be interesting to see a person’s journey through Europe and the different sites they stopped at, but something like that can rarely serve a higher purpose.

USGS Topographic Maps Assignment

1. The quadrangle is named: Beverly Hills, CA

2. The adjacent quadrangles are called Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood.

3. The quadrangle was first created in 1966.

4. The Datum used to create this map is called the North American Datum of 1927, the North American Datum of 1983 and the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929

5. The scale of the map is 1:24,000

6.

A. 1200m

B. 1.893miles

C.2.64 inches

D. 12.5cm

7. The contour interval is 20 feet

8.

A. Public affairs location: (34˚4’30”N and 118˚27’0”W) or (34.075˚N and 118.45˚W)

B. Tip of Santa Monica Pier location: (34˚0’30”N and 118˚30’0”W) or (34.008˚N and 118.5˚W)

C. The Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir location: (34˚7’15”N and 118˚25’30”W) or (34.12˚1N and 118.5˚W)

9.

A. Greystone Mansion Elevation: 600ft or 196.85m

B. Woodlawn Cemetery Elevation: 140ft or 42.67m

C. Crestwood Hills park Elevation: 680ft or 207.26m

10. The UTM zone is 11

11. 3763000m North 362000m East

12. 1,000mx1,000m= 1,000,000m^2. Each cell square contains 1 million square meters.

13.

14. 14˚east

15. From North to South

16.

The World at Night

Here is a map that came from a website named http://rosalieee.files.wordpress.com, under the title "interesting maps." It is a sattelite image of the world at night, which captures the light different cities from around the world give off. The more light an area gives off refers to its level of urbanization. It is only natural that the more densely populated and wealthier areas of the world give off the most light. The Eastern U.S., for example, is probably the brightest location in the world at night. Most of Europe is on par with the U.S. The one area that stands out among the rest is Japan. This map interested me because there was no input of data, instead it is merely a physical image. Nonetheless, the map gives us many insights about the world and reveals interesting patterns to us. Even the most simple maps can be the most revealing.

How Easy is it to Find a Doctor?

This map comes from the Doctors of the World organization, which is a non-governmental humanitarian aid organization. The map shows the countries of the world represented by the ratio of doctors to inhabitants. Generally speaking, the Western countries have ratios around 300 inhabitants to every doctor. However, around Southeast Asia and Latin America, this ratio increases to about 900 inhabitants for every doctor. The reason I chose to include this map was that it showed certain, most likely poverty stricken, areas of Africa which have ratios that reached up to 50,000 inhabitants for every doctor! This map emphasizes the disparity in living standards that people enjoy all around the world. Health is an important issue for everyone and it is frightening to see such astounding data.

US Income Distribution

This map comes from the U.S. 2000 census and shows the income distribution (unequal or equal) throughout the United States. The general pattern of this map reveals that the income disparity is highly correlated with a state's North/South orientation within the U.S. It seems that the Southern states tend to have a higher income disparity. With the exception of Nevada, most of the equal distribution states are clustered in the Northeast. This map appeared interesting to me because it has a loose connection to the politics of those states. The democratic states generally have a more equal income distribution within their population.