Vacancy in U.S. Cities

Lab Overview

A guided exploration of vacant properties in a U.S. city of your choice (500K+ pop)

Topics

• Selecting features in a feature class (layer)

• Working from the project geodatabase

• Review basics of working in ArcGIS Pro: adding layers, basic symbolization

• Using GIS data resources

Case example

Environmental racism and vacancy in St. Louis, Missouri  

St. Louis has an unusually high number of vacant properties, primarily in North City and in the southeastern portions of the city. More than 40% of the city’s census tracts have at least 10% vacant properties, ranking St. Louis as one of the worst cities in the nation for “hyper-vacancy.” The situation has gotten progressively worse in recent decades. 

The City’s vacant properties, which include both abandoned structures and vacant land, impose heavy burdens on nearby residents. 

• Abandoned buildings may contain asbestos in insulation and in floor and ceiling tiles, lead-based paint, and, in the case of commercial or industrial buildings, oil, PCBs, or other chemicals. The longer abandoned buildings are left to deteriorate, the more likely they are to grow dangerous mold, especially in humid areas such as St. Louis. In addition, the demolition of vacant buildings exposes residents to harmful dust, lead, and/or asbestos and contributes to the air pollution. 

• “One additional consequence of St. Louis’ high vacancy rate is that deteriorating buildings and untended lots are attractive targets for those seeking to dump trash. Unscrupulous contractors, many from outside of the city, illegally dump construction waste, used tires, and other trash rather than pay to use licensed disposal facilities. Illegally dumped trash poses many kinds of health risks. Trash may contain chemicals that are harmful to breathe or touch, nails and sharp edges can cause cuts and infections and the trash may attract animals or insects that carry disease.”--- excerpted from the Environmental Racism in St. Louis report prepared by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic at Washington University School of Law [2019]

Readings (see Brightspace)

• Environmental justice for all by Bullard, Robert D

• The ecological and evolutionary consequences of systemic racism in urban environments

• (optional) Environmental Justice (Mohai et al.)

• (optional) Not in My Backyard: Executive Order 12,898 and Title VI as Tools for Achieving Environmental Justice

• (optional) Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty 1987—2007 (pages 10-21 of the PDF document)

PART 1

OPTION 1: Explore a U.S. city of your choice.

OPTION 2: Explore St. Louis, Missouri

OPTION 1: Explore a U.S. city of your choice.

***Start here if you want to explore a metropolitan area other than St. Louis. Jump to OPTION 2 if you want to explore St. Louis, MO.***

• Note: you can not use spaces in a layer name, and you can not use a number as the first character in the layer name.

• Click run at the bottom right of the panel, and a new layer should be added to your geodatabase. To add it to your map, open the catalog pane again and drag the new feature layer under your geodatabase to your map.

Delete the initial temporary selection layer from your contents, only your newly created feature class from your geodatabase and the base map layers should remain.

Symbolize your metro area polygon by clicking on the symbol under the layer name in the Contents pane. Select “Black outline (2 pts)”

Set a custom extent equal of the map to the city boundary layer

• right click on map title in the drawing order → Properties → Extent → “Use a custom extent” → Your feature layer name under “Extent of a layer”  → OK, 

Change the name of your project map (in General → “Name”) to  “Vacant Housing and Environmental Justice in [YOUR CHOSEN METRO AREA]” 

REMINDER: Save your project (remember to save your project periodically while working on your assignment).

REMINDER: Setting a custom extent will not change anything visually on your map. Setting the extent is more important when using different geoprocessing tools that would slow your computer down if they had to operate on an entire data set, but setting an extent makes it so that the different geoprocessing tools only run over the more important parts of your data. 

***NOTE: Skip to PART 2 if you chose a metropolitan area other than St. Louis***

OPTION 2: Explore St. Louis, Missouri

Add data from Portal → My Organization, using the search term “St. Louis” and add the feature layer, “St. Louis City Boundary” to the map. Once added, the name of the feature layer appears with underscores in the Contents pane; change the name so it appears without these. 

Set a custom extent equal to the city boundary layer 

• Right click on map title in the drawing order → Properties → Extent → “Use a custom extent” → “st louis mo boundary”  → OK

• Change the name of your project map in the Contents pane to “Vacant Housing in St. Louis, MO” (General → “Name”) 

• Save your project.

PART 2: Vacancy and Race/Ethnicity Social Groups

In the Contents pane, expand and examine the legend for this layer carefully. The individual race or ethnic origin populations are symbolized by unique colors and an additional attribute, strength of predominance. The more dominant an attribute value, the darker color the census tract polygon. To learn more about this smart mapping symbolization technique available in ArcGIS Online, visit What is a Predominance map? 

MAP 1: Create a map image: 

• Share and Export your map (Share → Export Map and save it as an image file (.png, .jpg, .jpeg), naming it ““ej_lab_1_race_{YOUR LAST NAME}”

Short writing response: 

• Briefly the racial/ethnic social group geography of the metropolitan area? 

Turn off (deselect) the ACS race origin layer temporarily.

Add data from the Living Atlas > use the search term “vacant housing” and add the feature layer, “ACS Housing Units Vacancy Status Variables – Boundaries.” Note again, the Tract layer is active with the extent set to the city boundary layer. Remove the vacancy status State and County layers. NOTE: change the symbology so that the layer displays the vacancy rate (hint: change the field being displayed to that which shows percentage of vacant housing units).

Explore the tract dataset by clicking on the census tract polygons within the metro area boundary to show the attributes of each tract. The darker the color, the greater percentage of vacant housing units within the census tract. 

MAP 2: Create a map image showing vacancy: 

• Share --> Export your map and save it as an image file (.png, .jpg, .jpeg), naming it “ej_lab_1_vacancy_{YOUR LAST NAME}”

Short writing response: 

• Briefly describe the spatial distribution of vacancy in the city.

Turn your “ACS Race and Hispanic Origin Variables – Boundaries” Tract layer back on. 

Adjust the transparency of the ACS Housing Units layer in the Feature Layer tab to make sure the ACS Race and Hispanic Origin tract layer underneath can be readily seen

MAP 3: Create a map image showing race/ethnicity predominance and vacancy (proportional symbols): 

• Share →  Export your map and save it as an image file (.png, .jpg, .jpeg), naming it “ej_lab_1_race_w_vacancy_{YOUR LAST NAME}.” 

Short writing response: 

• Briefly, is there any observable spatial relationship between vacancy and race in the city?

PART 3: EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)

Explore and compare the location of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of sites producing or working with toxic chemicals, the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). 

From the Catalog Paneselect “Portal” on the top menu bar →  select “Living Atlas” to search the ESRI ArcGIS Online repository of data for “EPA Facility Registry Service - Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)”. Add this to the layer to your map of race/ethnicity predominance. Keep the Housing units vacancy layer toggled unselected/off of the map display so only the TRI and race/ethnicity layers are showing.

MAP 4: Create a map image showing race/ethnicity predominance with TRI sites: 

• Share --> Export your map and save it as an image file (.png, .jpg, .jpeg), naming it “ej_lab_1_race_w_tri_{YOUR LAST NAME}”

Short writing response: 

• Briefly describe the geography or spatial distribution of TRI facilities. 

• Briefly describe the relationship between the indicators you have mapped. For example, what do you see when you compare each layer?

PART 4: Get to know GIS data resources

What additional data would help you better understand the spatial distribution of the indicators you have mapped thus far?

Use the Supplemental Resources provided on the ArcGIS Tutorials site to identify a relevant data set. You will need to find a dataset from outside of the ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Living Atlas.

• Add the data set as a feature class in ArcGIS Pro

• Appropriately symbolize the layer

Map 5: create a map image of your map with this layer featured, naming it “ej_lab_1_additional_data_{YOUR LAST NAME}”

• This map should clearly display the spatial distribution of your chosen indicator (it should be the most prominent layer).

• You are welcome and encouraged incorporate other layers from this exercise in your map.

Short writing response: 

• After viewing your map, reading the article from Science, and the description of vacant housing in the St. Louis example above on page 1, describe the spatial relationship between vacant housing, urban environments, and race/ethnicity in the city? What do you see when you compare each layer? 

Submit on Brightspace

Along with the five map image files (.png), upload your answers to the short writing responses in a word processing document (Word or Google Doc link) or PDF to Brightspace Assignments.