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Learning Geopandas - Mapping with code instead of GIS - Mapping homicide locations and metro station

I recently learned mapping with python geopandas package. It is an interesting experience as I am more familiar with mapping with GIS. GIS definitely allows more editing, formatting and analysis options however geopandas is an open-source package and I do enjoy the accessibility of it.

In fact, ever since I started learning some coding last year, I feel lazy about opening up traditional design and analysis tools for architectural designers - CAD/AI/PS/GIS.. and spending hours to draft manually when I can get things easily done with code.

But architectural design is a complicated and often times messy process that refined ideas do come from long hours of repetition. So I'm not sure if the way we work is ever going to keep up with the pace of tech - it may be a good thing after all.

But I do need to ackowledge that tech can help us work more efficiently and offers endless possibiliites!

==============================geopands and maps============================== The first map was created with LAPD’s division shapefile and 2015 crime data which is a csv dataset read into pandas dataframe. The locations of homicide cases in 2015 were plotted with lat and long in the dataset, and added in addition to the LAPD division layer. It was using EPSG 4326/WGS 84 but transformed to UTM, resulting in the map below.

The homicide data and LAPD division data then were spatially joined to create the heatmap below, which indicates that South Los Angeles has been the homicide hot spot in 2015.

The homicide data and LAPD division data then were spatially joined to create the heatmap below, which indicates that South Los Angeles has been the homicide hot spot in 2015.

The third map looks at distribution of homicides and metro stations in LAPD District 1. The LA metro station shapefile is loaded and re-projected to UTM as the LAPD division and homicide files. A 500-meter/1-km buffer is created around metro stations and added the homicide layer to the census tract base layer of LAPD District 1. It is interesting to see that majority of homicides in 2015 occurred outside of the 500-meter buffer from metro stations. Does it indicate that if public transit centers could cover more of a city, it could help reduce homicide and similar violent crimes as public transit stops bring around more activities on the street and therefore crimes are less likely to happen?

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