1. Tan Hoang GEOG 362 – Final Project
Automated Population Density Calculations within Specific Neighborhoods
Tan Hoang
GEOG 362 – Final Project

2. Purpose and Goals Automatically calculate population density
Use U.S. Census block data
Based on City of Sacramento neighborhood boundaries
Other possibilities:
Any boundaries
Any features
Provides important data for planning decisions

3. Geoprocessing Tools Select Feature by Attribute
Queries specific feature attributes
Select Feature by Location
Intersect grabs all spatially connected features
Copy Features (writes new shapefile outputs)
Calculate Fields
Feature to Point (provides non-cluttered view of final data)

4. Hide Unnecessary Fields
Census block GIS data contains many fields
Population is only relevant field
Parameter within the MakeFeatureLayer tool
Not much help in ArcGIS Resource Center
Ultimately recreated task in ModelBuilder, exported python script, and modified it

5. Very Important: Exists and Delete
Used multiple times…

6. Calculate Areas and Add Fields
Calculate Areas_stats tool saves the step of having to create a new field and for the area and field calculate (in sq ft)

7. Delete Unnecessary GIS Files Created During Process
Code written after final process, cleans up file folder, leaves behind only original data files and final output

8. Successful Python Script

9. Conclusion Automatically calculate area and population density
Reduces as much extra steps as possible through use of built-in calculations
area calculation, acreage expression
Pseudo-code helpful in planning script
Delete unnecessary GIS files
Process helps provide useful population data for important planning purposes