Duluth Case Study Essay

The city of Duluth, MN is looking to put in new parks around town based on different population and socioeconomic factors. This analysis is based on the block groups in Duluth, MN that come from the source of the census bureau. Then the locating of existing parks came from UMD geodatabase. A buffer of 100 meters was created around these existing park boundaries and then erased (see figure 2) to factor out the areas that already had a park that was within walking distance of households. In addition, Duluth wants to know if parks are distributed equally among the amount of children in each block group. The average number of children under the age of 18 in the block groups was 203, I used this number to set a base line of 200 children. I then preformed a select by attribute (Ageunder18 >= 200) on the block groups that had more than 200 children in it (see figure 3). …show more content…
The average population of the block groups was 1,068 people, this number was then used to set a threshold of 1,050 people. Another select by attribute (Poptotal >= 1050) was applied to the block groups that had more than 1,050 people in them (see figure 4). The last feature that was examined was the average income of the block groups. The average income in Duluth, MN is $61,690. This number was rounded up to $61,700 as a restraint for another select by attribute. This time the select by attribute (income <= 61700) was looking at block groups with incomes of less than average of $61,700 (see figure 5). The source for all of these factors was the UMD Geography Analysis Center. For a visual walk through of these methods, see the flow chart below in figure