Week 8 Lab Assignment – Census Data

For each of the following maps, I used 2000 US Census data and the North American Lambert Conformal Conic projection. I decided to use a light blue background because none of the color schemes I chose to map involve light blue. Accordingly, the counties with no data are not easily mistaken as falling under a particular classification. Finally, I labelled each map "Population Distribution" even though these maps don't show where America's Asian populations, for example, live as a percent of the total Asian population in the US. Rather these maps show whether particular counties have many or few residents of a particular race. Nonetheless, I think the titles are still easy to understand without being misleadingly simplistic. 

The above map shows the percent of Asians in each county across the US. I chose a purple to pink color distribution because the colors are dissimilar enough to demonstrate a strong contrast without looking discordant with one another. At first I wanted to change the classification of this map because so much of it the data fell into the lowest bracket. However, I ultimately decided to just add another break and leave it on the "natural breaks" setting because I do find this map to be a fair reflection of the Asian population distribution in the US.  

In comparison to the map showing the Asian population, there are many more counties with very higher percent of black residents. In fact, the largest percent of Asians in an American county was 46%, whereas the largest percent of black people in an American county is 86.5%. I was also surprised by how concentrated this distribution was in the South. I was aware that more African-Americans live in the South than in any other part of the US, but perhaps because the counties there are relatively small, it seems more exaggerated on this map.

The "Other" racial category is for individuals who don't identify with any of the races listed on the Census form. I actually worked for the US Census of 2012 as an enumerator in Beverly Hills. I was able to observe first-hand how complex the question of race is, and how some individuals were very unsure of what to say because they identified with multiple races or because they didn't identify with any of the races stated as options. While I had an idea about what the distribution of Asians and black people in the US would be, I had no idea where individuals identifying as "other" would live. I am particularly interested in why New Mexico seems to have such a large concentration of "other" races, since I don't usually associate New Mexico with racial diversity. If I had seen this map and had to guess  which race this map showed without knowing that it was "other" races, I would have probably guessed Mexican-Americans or Native Americans. 

My overall impression of GIS at this point has come a long way since the first few weeks of class. Before we had started doing any labs with ArcGIS, I had really broad ideas of all of the ways that GIS could be used to demonstrate really interesting relationships between data and other components. Once we started using the program, I was still sure that there are a variety of cool things that could be done using GIS, but my ability to do them was limited due to lack of experience. However, I was surprised how easily I remembered the steps from the tutorial in this lab, and how easily I was able to construct these three maps and make them look aesthetically pleasing. This lab in particular, despite being relatively simple, really helped to demonstrate how much I'd learned since the beginning of the course. Things that used to seem complicated or tricky to me (much of the basic tools and utilizing the different views) come naturally and I no longer have to think about them. I am already excited for the next lab and the chance to get more creative with ArcGIS!