Socioeconomic topography : inner city economic development and Geographic Information Systems
Name
44052044-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
29.77 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
d26b6c3b5859b5709077dbeb4087d1d7
Author(s)
Sakamoto, Hideo, 1956-
Advisor(s)
Joseph Ferreira, Jr.
Date Issued
1999
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Targeting project areas and defining the objectives are the most important procedures to plan neighborhood economic development, such as the Boston Main Street Program. Which shopping district is to be encouraged and how? However, this has not been an easy task, especially when the neighborhood is in the inner city, because the inner city is so diversified that planners can not find clear spatial patterns on which to base their decisions. This paper attempts to extract patterns of socioeconomic phenomena relevant to economic development and map them. The advancing technology of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has made it easier to apply raster (grid cell or bit pattern) analysis to studying urban spatial patterns. A map that shows socioeconomic phenomena via rasterization and smoothing processing is called "socioeconomic topography" here. Just as conventional topography shows us geographical features, socioeconomic topography illustrates the spatial pattern and clustering of socioeconomic features of a given area. The following maps are created as socioeconomic topography to support planning of inner city economic development: (1) land use allocation, (2) land value, (3) business variation, (4) shopping convenience, and (5) leading industrial clusters. On each map, spatial patterns stand out clearly from the chaos of Boston's inner city. Socioeconomic topography offers a new way of understanding the inner city and illuminates the need of made-to-order projects for each shopping district.
Description
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1999.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-96).
Subjects
Urban Studies and Planning.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Terms of Use
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