Print- Open ArcGIS Pro and create a new project with the Map template. If you haven't used ArcGIS Pro in another course or at work, or if it has been a while since you've last used it and you need a refresher, you might consider walking through one or two of the QuickStart tutorials on the Esri website to learn about how it is organized a bit differently to ArcMap. One of the nice things about ArcGIS Pro is that it will automatically save your analysis results to the project geodatabase, so you no longer have to set path names.
- Open the Catalog Pane and use it to add the feature classes in TexasRedistricting.gdb file geodatabase to your project. You will first need to add a connection to the geodatabase so that you can see the files (as you would have in ArcMap). To begin with, you only need to look at districts108_2002. This shows the 32 Congressional districts in Texas in which the Federal elections were held in November 2002. One attribute in this file is RepMaj, an integer value indicating the winning margin for the Republican candidate in each district (a negative value if the Republican candidate lost).
- Create a map of the RepMaj attribute for districts108_2002. For best results, you should use a diverging color scheme with two color hues, with pale colors showing results near 0, and deeper colors indicating a larger majority for one party or the other (red for Republicans and blue for Democrats is conventional).
- Make sure to save the project file periodically so that you don't lose work if ArcGIS crashes.
Deliverable
Put this map in your write-up, along with a brief commentary (a few sentences or short paragraph will suffice) on what it shows: Are Republican districts more rural or more urban? What other patterns do you observe, if any?
- Next, look at the tx_voting108 data. This records votes cast for the Republican and Democratic candidates in county-based subdivisions of the districts.
Note:
Note that counties and congressional districts are not a precise fit inside one another, so many of the units in tx_voting108data are parts of counties that were subdivided among two or more districts.
- Also examine the new Districting plan adopted by the Texas Senate in October 2004. This is shown in newDistricts2003. You may find it helpful to put this layer on top and set the fill to 'no color' so that the outlines of these districts are visible over the top of your previous map of the electoral outcome in the 108th Congressional Districts.
Deliverable
Comment on the redistricting plan. What would you expect it to do to the balance of the electoral outcome? Can you tell, just by examining this map? Put your comments in your write-up.