ArcGIS Online Map

For this exercise, I sat around contemplating an idea I could accomplish with my limited GIS skills. I began by thinking of a nuclear fallout map I saw a few years ago. I’m from a relatively strange family, and both my biological brothers, as well as both of my brother-in-laws are preppers. They all have stockpiles of food and weapons, and for the quite a bit about SHTF, and TEOTWAWKI (I’ll let you figure those acronyms out yourself).  We are all in geographically different areas, but within Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, that way, we have several potential areas for long term survival if the need arises. Okay, enough background, on to the actual project. I wanted to map the areas in the PNW that we safe areas for any number of calamities. I wanted to add several datasets, but unfortunately, the online version limited me to 1000 data points per file, which wouldn’t work.  So I zoomed into Spokane, figuring I would do a similar idea, but just based on the safest place to live in Spokane, as that stuff gets important when you are a dad and berated by your brothers for not being prepared enough.

I started by looking at the obvious stuff, I checked areas that could potentially flood (this seemed to be more important while I was living in FL), and checked areas for potential earthquakes. Northern Idaho had a slightly higher rating than the greater Spokane area, but all areas of Spokane seemed similar.  I then added a layer for wildfires, mostly because it was cool, but again helped me narrow down some areas of Spokane as potentially unsafe due to wildfire (mostly border areas).  I then added a layer about hazardous waste sites. No one wants to live near hazardous waste, and it could be sites for potential terrorist activities (I’m sounding like my brothers at this point).  The sites narrowed down my search even further, the valley was out, and so was the eastside of North Spokane.

I then checked alcoholic beverage spending. I have no idea if this correlates in any meaningful way, but I was under the assumption that drunken people may commit more crimes, I didn’t put too much stock in this layer, but was somewhat curious. I then really wanted to add crime data, but again, 1000 point maximum, so I actually used the City of Spokane GIS site to get a map, and again it seemed as based on this and other criteria NW Spokane seemed to be the safest area.  (I used a super scientific algorithm to determine this).  I then wanted to look at a few other criteria, mainly financial. Mainly the unemployment rate, under the premise that areas with less unemployment will have less crime (this seemed relatively true). I then looked at average household income under the same premise, as well as disposable income.  Interestingly enough, the area I live in seems to meet or exceed in all the criteria I looked at, so I am going to show this to my brothers and let them know how intuitive I am. 

I enjoyed this exercise, as I got a feel how easy it could be to produce maps with layers and criteria with real world implications. I’m excited to get more proficient with GIS so I can produce relatively usable maps with my particular interests. That and I might need to decide where to put a bunker one day.