To answer such questions, GIS technology uses a process called buffering to determine the proximity relationship between features. This overlay, or spatial join, can integrate data on demographics, labor, and housing, or land ownership with tax assessment. Visualization For many kinds of geographic data and operations, the end result is best visualized as a map or graph. Imagine how much more powerful one s idea for dealing with blockbusting, white flight, gentrification, or exclusionary zoning as a policy matter can be if one can actually enable the people one is trying to persuade to visualize the real, physical effects particular rules or legislation have had on neighborhoods, the ecological system, housing units, and the like. It is much more poignant to see by image and picture the physical deterioration of the ecosystem caused by suburban sprawl than to explain it in words, or to track on a map the movements of white flight and the resultant neighborhood declines caused by disinvestment and abandonment than to elaborate on economic formulations or mathematical equations.
Maps are very efficient at storing and communicating geographic information.