Purpose

"All models are wrong, but some are useful"

-George Box

The goal of our project is to estimate the number of houses that lie within the borders of the city of Scottsdale. To do this, we will be using online resources, measurement tools, and mathematics to create a functional model to achieve a semi-accurate estimation for the total number of houses.

Fig. 1: Image of Scottsdale Landscape (Provided by Google)

Background Information

Scottsdale, Arizona is located in the beautiful Sonoran Desert just at the foot of the McDowell Mountains. It is bordered by multiple landmarks, the city of Phoenix to the west, the Tonto National Forest to the North, the McDowell Mountains to the east, and the Salt River to the south. The city is loosely divided into four major areas: South Scottsdale, Downtown Scottsdale, Central Scottsdale, and North Scottsdale. Scottsdale is a wonderful place to live. It is filled with nature preserves and beautiful mountains for hiking, and there is unrestricted access to spas, shopping centers, and other attractions. However, it might be important to note that Scottsdale is also a bustling urban community with a large percentage of its land usage dedicated to housing units.

The Mission

Through the use of maps, measurement tools, team communication, and mathematics. Our mission is to use the resources available to us to develop a functional algorithm that will help us determine the total number of houses within Scottsdale. Using this collected data, we can cross-reference the data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau to verify our results within a margin of accuracy.