App Description: This application is for looking at the total electrical and gas usage from blocks coming from Chicago neighborhoods. The data used for this app provides information for also the total population, the average building height, and average age of the buildings for the buildings in each census block. The first page is for looking at the Near West Side neighborhood in Chicago. In the map the blocks that make up the Near West Side are highlighted in a purple color. Unfortunately the map is unable to show the data for the electrical and gas outputs since there was trouble in trying to combine the datasets. On the side there are several filters to be used to try and manipulate the data that is being seen. One being the different data statistics mentioned earlier, one to filter the specific month where the electricity and gas data was collected, and a third to filter the type of building being shown.
While these filters do not affect the map they do affect a data table to the left of them. This data table has the information for the type of building, either the electricity or gas data (depending on the filter), the total population, average building height, and the average age of the building. The data is limited to just the census blocks from the Near West Side similarly to the map. There is also a search feature at the top of the data table if the user wants to look for something specifically. The search feature is based off of the data presented from the filter.
The next page of the application is for comparing the electrical and gas usage for different neighborhoods in Chicago. On the right is a map of the Near West Side similar to the first page and on the right is a map of the Loop. The maps have a reset button that allows them to go back to their original view after the user has zoomed in or out, or has moved around the location of the map. Once again unfortunately the maps don’t display the data for the electricity and gas usage, and the filters on the side of each map don’t have any effect on them.
The last page has a map of the entire city of Chicago that is similar to the previous maps. This map also has the reset button feature, but it takes a while to load considering that the map is of the entire city.
Data Description: The data used for this application was provided by Chicago Data Portal (https://data.cityofchicago.org/Environment-Sustainable-Development/Energy-Usage-2010/8yq3-m6wp). This data was downloaded from the site as a csv file for microsoft excel. Since the data was already saved as a csv it was already ready to be used for R. The only things left to do was to shorten the file so it could be read in easier. To do this I selected multiple columns that would not be used for the application and right clicked on them and selected “Delete Columns”. In addition to this since the numbers for the census blocks were so large oftentimes the data would convert the last five digits to zero to make the data more simplistic. In order to avoid this the whole column had to be selected and right clicked on. Once this was done the option “Format Cells” had to be picked and the numbers option had to be selected. Once this was done the data was ready to be used in R.
Once the data was read into R there were still some changes to be made to the data. The data for the electrical and gas usage for every month and the total usage has to be converted to numbers instead of characters. In addition to this all the months for the electrical and gas usage and the totals had to be saved into subset datasets to be able to be viewed properly in the data tables.
In order to get the correct blocks to use for the maps and the data the Tigris function blocks the blocks in the cook county area were saved. Other subset datasets had to be made for the neighborhoods being viewed in the maps (Near West Side and the Loop). These datasets were then used to create another set of datasets where the blocks for the specific neighborhoods were filtered from all the blocks in cook country.