Race, Geography, and School Choice Policy: A Critical Analysis of Detroit Students’ Suburban School Choices

The purpose of this study is to advance our thinking about race and racism in geospatial analyses of school choice policy. To do so, we present a critical race spatial analysis of Detroit students’ suburban school choices. To frame our study, we describe the racial and spatial dynamics of school choice, drawing in particular on the concepts of opportunity hoarding and predatory landscapes. We find that Detroit students’ suburban school choices were circumscribed by racial geography and concentrated in just a handful of schools and districts. We also find notable differences between students in different racial groups. For all Detroit exiters, their schools were significantly more segregated and lower quality than those of their suburban peers. We propose future directions for research on families’ school choices as well as school and district behavior at the intersection of race, geography, and school choice policy.

Applications of geospatial analyses in health research among homeless people: A systematic scoping review of available evidence

BackgroundThe coronavirus pandemic visualized the inequality in the community living standards and how housing is a fundamental requirement to ensure a livable environment. However, even before the pandemic, unequal housing access resulted in more than 150 million homeless people worldwide, and more than 22 million new people were added to this inventory for climate-related issues. This homeless population has a counterproductive effect on the social, psychological integration efforts by the community and exposure to other severe health-related issues.MethodsWe systematically identified and reviewed 24 articles which met all three requirements we set forth-i. samples include homeless people, ii. focused on public health-related issues among the same group of people, and iii. used geospatial analysis tools and techniques in conducting the research.ResultOur review findings indicated a major disparity in the geographic distribution of the case study locations-all the articles are from six (6) countries-USA (n = 16), Canada (n = 3), UK (n = 2), and one study each from Brazil, Ireland, and South Africa. Majority of the studies used spatial analysis tools to identify the hotspots, clustering and spatial patterns of patient location and distribution. ArcGIS is the most frequently used GIS application, however, studies also used other statistical applications with spatial analysis capabilities. These studies reported relationship between the location of homeless shelters and substance use, discarded needles, different infectious and non-infectious disease clusters.ConclusionAlthough, most studies were restricted in analyzing and visualizing the trends, patterns, and disease clusters, geospatial analyses techniques can be used to assess health problems such as disease distributions and associated factors across communities. Moreover, health and services and accessibility concerns could be well addressed by integrating spatial analysis into homelessness-related research. This may facilitate policymaking for health-issues among the homeless people and address health inequities in this vulnerable population.

Biogeographical regionalisation of Colombia: a revised area taxonomy

This study proposes a biogeographical regionalisation of Colombia based on geospatial analyses of plant species turnover and a revised area taxonomy. The spatial patterns of species turnover are calculated for 20,342 plant species in continental Colombia with distributions estimated from 271,568 georeferenced records aggregated to 414 (~50 km) grid cells across Colombia. The proposed biogeographic regions are defined by applying an agglomerative cluster analysis using a matrix of pairwise Simpson’s beta (bsim) dissimilarity values. Three main centres of species richness and 25 areas of endemism were identified across Colombia, complementing the definition of regionalisation. Biogeographical regionalisation comprises two dominions (Pacific and Boreal Brazilian), six provinces (Chocó-Darién, Guajira, Magdalena, Paramo, Sabana and Imerí) and thirty-five districts. The revised area taxonomy provides an updated and objective biogeographical classification for Colombia and is the first biogeographic regionalisation exclusively based on the taxic distributional overlap of Colombia´s land plants.

Density of tobacco advertising around schools

BACKGROUND: Indonesia has the second highest smoking prevalence among adult males in the world, with over 61.4 million current smokers. However, there is no national regulation on outdoor tobacco advertising.OBJECTIVE: >To assess the density of outdoor tobacco advertising around schools in Semarang City, Indonesia.METHODS: We conducted geospatial analyses using buffer and hotspot analyses based on advertising and school data in ArcMap 10.6. We statistically tested the significance of different densities, including between 100 m and 100–300-m buffers from schools using Stata 15.1.RESULTS: We found a total of 3453 tobacco advertisements, of which 3026 (87%) were at least medium in size (1.3 m x l.9 m), and 2556 (74%) were within 300 m of schools. We also found hotspots with a 45% higher density of adverts within 100 m of schools (compared to within 100–300 m). A total of 378 schools (39%) were in these advertising hotspots.CONCLUSION: There was high density of outdoor tobacco advertising, with significant clusters in close proximity to schools in Semarang City. The policy implications of this are discussed.

Rivers as political borders: a new subnational geospatial dataset

Rivers are commonly used to define political borders, but no global study has quantified the importance of rivers on territorial delimitation at subnational scales. This paper presents Global Subnational River-Borders (GSRB), a first comprehensive geospatial dataset of subnational, as well as national, political borders set by large rivers. GSRB incorporates three previous vector datasets (GAUL, GRWL + +, and WDBII) to map and quantify the use of large rivers as political borders at local, state, and national scales. GSRB conservatively finds that at least 58,588 km (23%) of the world's interior (non-coastal) national borders, 199,922 km (17%) of the world's interior state/province borders, and 459,459 km (12%) of the world's interior local-level political borders are set by large rivers. GSRB finds 222, 2,350, and 14,808 dyads sharing river-borders at these three administrative scales, respectively. While previous studies have emphasized transboundary rivers separating nations, GSRB highlights the abundance of river-borders at subnational scales, where numerous domestic stakeholders share jurisdiction in water resource management. These participants, identified with GSRB, ought not to be ignored when crafting water policy and instituting whole-basin management regimes. GSRB should prove useful for global, geospatial analyses of riparian stakeholders across administrative scales. The GSRB dataset (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3906566) can be found via the following link https://zenodo.org/record/3906567#.XvN-GGhKjIU.

Regional Ways of Seeing: A Big-Data Approach for Measuring Ancient Visualscapes

Archaeologists have long acknowledged the significance of mountains in siting Greek cult. Mountains were where the gods preferred to make contact and there people constructed sanctuaries to inspire intervention. Greece is a land full of mountains, but we lack insight on the ancient Greeks’ view—what visible and topographic characteristics made particular mountains ideal places for worship over others, and whether worshiper preferences ever changed. This article describes a data collection and analysis methodology for landscapes where visualscape was a significant factor in situating culturally significant activities. Using a big-data approach, four geospatial analyses are applied to every cultic place in the Peloponnesian regions of the Argolid and Messenia, spanning 2800–146 BC. The fully described methodology combines a number of experiences—looking out, looking toward, and climbing up—and measures how these change through time. The result is an active historic model of Greek religious landscape, describing how individuals moved, saw, and integrated the built and natural world in different ways. Applied elsewhere, and even on nonreligious locales, this is a replicable mode for treating the natural landscape as an artifact of human decision: as a space impacting the siting of meaningful locales through history.