Reconciling Data from Different Geographic Databases

Abstract

Social scientists often find data relevant to their research subjects to be divided among various data sets based on dissimilar geographic units. Some data may be aggregated by census units, others by election districts, yet others by city zoning boundaries. New software reported here now makes it possible to reconcile data which are spatially aggregated on different bases, and to do so in a way which in tests on four difficult surfaces yielded results correlated at the .85 to 92 level with actual values. The logic of the surface compatibility method used by this software is described and evaluated. Keywords. data reconciliation, data analysis, geobase, surface-compatibility, interpolation, microcomputers, urban data.

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