Designing a Multiple-Scale and Multiple-Metric Data Analysis

Abstract

This describes the choice of 109 heritage attraction places, more than 30 variables that measure demographic, environmental, health and local attributes, as well as statistical tools. The national park study used county-scale data because of the enormous size of nearly all the national parks, and the reality that few people live near the access points to the most popular parks. Regarding grand concourses, I drew snake-like linear polygons from the center line of the roads out to one-half mile distance in both directions from the center of the roads. Most of the sites are in urban centers, and therefore considerable space is devoted to the use of census tract data, which was a key building block in the urban attraction site studies. I used 1-mile-radius circles in cities and conservative statistics to avoid a few high or low values distorting the results. Data from EJScreen, the 500 cities project, CDC and the U.S. Bureau of the Census were incorporated into the analyses, and I review the strengths and weaknesses of those data sets and underscore the reality that these data bases stand as a remarkable contribution to our ability to assess social and environmental justice issues in the United States.