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Description:

ArcView GIS - Districting Extension

The Districting Extension for ArcView allows you to create defined groupings of geographic data, such as Census tracts, ZIP Codes, and precincts, by creating a districting plan. The Districting Extension has a simple user interface for fast configuration of geographic representation and analysis of configuration alternatives. Once you have the base data established, such as counties or ZIP Codes, you can group the units by simply selecting them in the ArcView View window. The Districting Extension can help you analyze population densities, housing breakdowns, income and race statistics, and other data.

New functionality in the Districting Extension includes a wizard to help you create a districting plan, a floating tool menu for district assignment, comprehensive statistical capabilities, and tools for realigning windows, creating summarized districts, and zooming to the extent of unassigned polygons.

Local, state, and federal governments must periodically redraw political boundaries to account for shifts in population. GIS gives government a better way to handle redistricting. Using GIS transforms the redistricting process from an arduous and lengthy manual operation into a convenient process where you can easily create and consider alternative scenarios to find the best available solution. The Districting Extension is also useful for defining police beats, sales territories, voting, school, and fire districts, and numerous other boundaries.

Installation

The installation is a self-extracting executable. The main extension is installed inside the existing ArcView installation. The working directory, optional sample data, and optional source code is installed wherever the user specifies.

Documentation

The extension includes a Windows help file, providing help on specific items, as well as comprehensive tutorials to guide new users through the entire districting process.

Getting Started with the Districting Extension

1. Run the setup executable.
2. Start ArcView.
3. From the File Menu, select Extensions.
4. Select Districting 3.1b, and click OK.
5. From the Help Menu, select Districting Help.
6. From the Districting Help, select Tutorial and follow the steps described in the Tutorial.

Data Troubleshooting: Common Source Attribute Problems

• Do not use decimals for statistics in source attributes. Update your source data to integers.
• Data fields should be set to a width of 8. If width is smaller, you may have problems with updating statistics.
• If you are using two separate files for source geography and source attribute, make sure that the join key fields in both data sets are the same data type.

FAQs

• Click here to view the FAQs.

Known Limits

• District names limited to 15 characters. If a district name is greater that 15 characters, import/export plan will not work properly.
• The Districting Extension will not automatically assign source geography into districts.
• There is no "undo" once source geography has been assigned. You must either reassign to a new district or assign to "unassigned."

ESRI has also released the Districting for ArcGIS Add-on for ArcView 8.x.