Customer Reviews

Exploring the Urban Community: A GIS Approach

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was very impressed by the authors broad scope of knowledge on urban phenomenon in both developed and developing countries. The way they introduce various theories in urban geography by incorporating comparative case studies on LA, Chicago, and Mexico City makes the material more concrete to non-urban geographers. The authors systematically walk through the definition, components, dynamics, problems, and planning of urban system. This would be an ideal material for a graduate level class in addition to the undergraduate level it was designed for. The exercises coming with the book provide excellent coverage of the GIS techniques necessary for urban studies. They are closely related to the topic of the book and include some creative use of GIS, such as validating central place theory or modeling neighborhood transition with Markov chains in ArcGIS. The GIS approach is a big complement to the statistics and econometrics used in traditional urban researches.

By Haojie Zhu
University of Utah, Ph.D Student in Geography

I use this text in my GIS urban class and find it to be wide-ranging in scope. I have no prerequisites for my course; so many students come in with little GIS knowledge. The book is not designed to teaching you fundamentals of GIS, but does provide GIS exercises that re-enforce urban geographic concepts. The main GIS knowledge gained is rudimentary skills of map production and attribute/spatial querying. The GIS exercises are good and there are minimal typo's in the GIS instructions.

I like how the book explored Urban Issues and also how it had the ArcMap exercises at the end of each chapter.

The book was very informative and offered many solutions to why certain urban issues occur.

Even more relevant, were the ArcMap exercises. The ArcMap exercises significantly helped in my ability to use ArcMap. This is crucial because I am a geography student and going through the exercises educated me more about real world topics while using ArcGIS.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested with Urban Issues and want to learn more about GIS.

This is book was very informative, well written, and much more useful than all the other books that I have read that pertain to Urban Issues/GIS.