It seems that this particular Lab had some statistical challenges. The density is based on the number of housing units per square mile. Good intuition tells one that there are obviously more units in the more highly populated areas, rather than being evenly distrubuted over the entire county area. After the initial computation of housing units per square mile, I reviewed county maps of Florida that showed the cities and towns and tried to place the dots in the higher population centers. So there is a lot of "artistic liberty" in placing the dots (and some wild guesses in my case) in the correct postion. With that said, I believe the map does show the general pattern of housing density for the state. Perhaps the housing units needed to be computed by city in each county? Or some other statistical break?
Overall a very long involved process to get roughly 2200 dots into this map. I did learn a few things: 1) a dot map is time consuming, 2) not necessarily accurate but to show a general pattern 3) and finally this process can give you a stiff neck and carpal tunnel syndrome dragging a placing dots for hours and hours. But I'm glad that I had a chance to do it at least once in my life. I also learned a few more shortcuts using
Adobe Illustrator. Also if I had the time, I would have liked to go back and get the scale of the map a little larger, so that it would be easier to read, but I already spent a number of days working with it. Very experiential!
No comments:
Post a Comment