For this assignment, I decided to do a buildable lands analysis similar to the one completed for our vector assignment while incorporating one or two more components into the assignment. It was interesting to find out what other elements could be incorporated into a buildable lands analysis. Any themes used would represent community values and preferences, which would vary from place to place. In Design with Nature , Ian McHarg emphasizes incorporating cultural and social values into analysis in addition to physical, environmental, and economic ones.
Cultural values can include scenic and historic values.
Process To create the model, I first created an ArcView project and added all relevant themes into the main view. I then started ModelBuilder and added each theme. Each theme was then converted into a grid file using ModelBuilder, as required before ModelBuilder can use information to run subsequent functions. This had to be done both for themes with lines as well as those with polygons. ModelBuilder basically walks one through creating functions and modifying layer and function properties.