Linking Geography and Data Can Help Fight Crime, Find Customers and Protect Nature
By CATHERINE GREENMAN
HOT SPOTS A map used to show where controlled burning should take place.
Companies use them to plan store locations, watchdog groups to track discrimination and law enforcement agencies to fight crime.
Geographic information systems, as they are called, are increasingly ubiquitous computerized mapping programs that help corporations, private groups and governments make decisions.
These G.I.S. programs work by connecting information stored in a computer database to points on a map. Information is displayed in layers, with each succeeding layer laid over the preceding ones, like transparent sheets on an overhead projector. The resulting maps often reveal trends or patterns that might be missed if the same information was presented in a spreadsheet.
A series of slashings in a Brooklyn neighborhood several years ago, for example, first appeared to police investigators to have little in common with one another. But when their locations were displayed on a map with other data, like known sites where gang members gather, connections were made. A local gang, it turned out, had been conducting initiations, and part of the initiation process had involved slashing attacks.
Although such programs bring hidden truths to light within countless industries, the technology itself is little known to those who do not work with it. Developed in the early 1960’s by Roger Tomlinson, who owns a consulting firm called Tomlinson Associates in Ottawa, it was originally used under a contract with the Canadian government for analyzing data for natural resource preservation. Continue reading “Turning a Map Into a Layer Cake of Information”
The City’s Geographic Information System (GIS) staff provides information about the City to its citizens and employees. We maintain accurate corporate limits, streets, zoning, and many other layers of information in our City’s GIS system.