Methodological and Operational Problems





    I ran into many problems while doing this project most of which I was able to solve with help from my classmates.  Problems arose that had to do with software, lack of knowledge and lack of information.

    The first of the problems began with the street network file.  It worked well on its own in ArcView but when trying to overlay another layer on it, the street network would disappear.  For two weeks Greg Zemrau and I worked on the problem trying to import the file from the Avdata folder into ArcView.  We were unsure what was wrong with it so we were unsure what we were trying to fix.  Reading all the manuals that came with the census data, the metadata and all the manuals in the lab did not help.  Eventually we tried importing it through ArcInfo.  This did not work either.  Lorraine(the 354 teachers assistant) was gracious enough to help us.  The problem with the street network file was that it was in a different projection then the other census data that was provided.  Once again the street network file was imported into ArcInfo this time also using the "transform" command.  Using this, the projection was changed from geographic projection to UTM projection.  The files were then interchangeable and one could be overlaid on the other.
 
    One shortcoming of my project is that I used the census tracts as my study areas which I feel are too large, resulting in a general overview instead of a more precise analysis.  My initial intention was to use the enumeration areas as they are much smaller.  Using the census tracts to begin with and doing analysis on them until I was left with enumeration tracts would have been my first step.  The analysis would have lead to census tract 260.03 as it did in my project.  From there the census tract could have been broken down into the enumeration areas where they would be subject to the same analysis performed on the census tracts.  The research and development lab had data for enumeration areas but it was limited.  Less then half of my enumeration data was available, none of which appeared in census tract 260.03.  The placement of the new recreation centre could have been more precise then what it was had I used enumeration tracts.
 
    The data that was used came from the 1991 census.  This was due to the lack of complete data from the 1996 data.  The library and the research and development lab both had limited data from this census.  The research and development lab had some figures but they were totals for all of Canada and entire provinces.  There was some information to be found on the Statistics Canada web site but there appeared to be a bug in the software.  When choosing Port Moody, census data for Delta appeared.  Using 1991 data is detrimental to my analysis because Port Moody is growing so rapidly that it has changed quite a bit since 1991.  Population density would have changed over this time as well as income.  From my knowledge of the area apartment buildings have been built and low income housing has been built.  This may have affected the placement of the new recreation centre.

    When talking to Mr. Ron Reichelt he mentioned that due to the fact that Port Moody is so small the city planners do not follow conventional rules of planning.  When looking to place a recreation centre in the area, planners may take income and transportation routes into consideration but they are not necessarily a deciding factor.  Using the feeling of the residents on the issue is more important then conventionality.  Due to the fact that I do not know or have access to the thoughts of the residents I used the conventional structures to place the recreation centre.

    The municipality of Port Moody extends into a low population density area that consists mainly of provincial parks, lakes and beaches.  When creating the census tracts the government lumped this area in with surrounding municipalities such as Anmore and Belcarra.  I decided not to use this census tract as it was too large and included municipalities which I did not want included in my analysis.  I believe that this decision did not affect my results as the population density is low and I wanted to place the recreation centre in a high population density area.  From my own knowledge of Port Moody, the area which was excluded was a wealthy area with large waterfront homes.  The placement of the recreation centre was to be in a low income area, so again I feel that the exclusion of this census tract did not affect the final placement.  I do feel however that it is important to keep the exclusion of the census tract in mind due to the fact that there were no analysis performed on it.

    When I began this project I set out to decide on the most suited area for a new recreation centre as well as the most suited amenities to provide in that recreation centre.  In the tables for the census tracts I placed the census data for the number of people in the age group of 10-19 and 64+.  Now that the data is in the tables I do not know how to use it to do spatial analysis.  It would have been useful if I had used the enumeration data as I would have been able to query it for the tracts that had the highest number of each category.  Due to my lack of knowledge I have decided to simply look the numbers over and decide from there.  Unfortunately no spatial analysis is involved in this part of my project.

    If I contained more knowledge on the extensive spatial analysis' that could be done, I feel that my project could have been more complete.  There are so many extensions that can be used to produce a seemingly endless number of analysis that I feel as though I may may have left out an important analysis that would have pulled my project together.
    With the scale at which my maps were produced the positional accuracy of the recreation centres and parks are off.  They appear to take up an entire block while they are just one small building or field.  For them to show up on the screen the dot which represented them had to be fairly large.

    When I was doing the spatial analysis of Port Moody I was making the assumption that the municipal borders acted as walls keeping the residents within them.  Coquitlam borders Port Moody on two side.  When doing the distance analysis on the parks and recreation centres I did not take the parks and recreation centres into consideration.  Coquitlam has a large aquatics center literally only a 4 minute drive outside of Port Moody.  This would have had a large effect on the location of the recreation centre as many people from Port Moody would drive to that recreation centre due to it's vast size and large number of amenities it provides.

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