This exercise will demonstrate how to create a map by joining a table based on NYC community districts created in InfoShare to a base layer acquired from NYC Planning Dept. In this exercise, you will create your own variables from InfoShare and create a common field for joining the data.

In the end, you should have two maps using two classification methods of your choice (equal interval, natural breaks, manual...) with the same number of classes (also user defined).

Downloading the data from NYC Planning Dept

Navigate to the NYC Planning Dept. BYTES of the BIG APPLE site from the EDS homepage using the GIS Spatial Data Resources link.

On the page are a series of choices, of which the free layers offered are a MapInfo street layer for geocoding, administrative and political boundaries, and a tax lot base layer.

Choose the download link for the administrative and political boundaries.

Choose the Community Districts layer in shapefile format, save and extract the zip file to your local computer.

You will now have three files

• .shp - stores the feature geometry
• .shx - stores the index of the feature geometry
• .dbf - dBASE file that stores the attribute information of features

Each of these together makeup a shapefile layer, moving or deleting one of these parts will render the layer useless. There are other extensions that can be added to the shapefile (.prj, .xml, .sbn, .sbx...), but these three must always be present and kept in the same location

Open the layer in ArcGIS by doing the following:
Start > Programs > Mapping Applications > ArcGIS > ArcMap

Add the layer you just downloaded:
File > Add Data

Navigate to the directory where you saved the file and open it.

Getting the table from InfoShare

Navigate to InfoShare from LWEB

From the Main Menu, select the second choice - Compare areas using selected data

Select City from the Overall area type

Select Community Districts from the Areas to compare

Continue selecting variables until you finish all steps and export the data in an Excel format

Preparing the data for joining

Open the table in Excel

Since the data you want to look at is only at the community district level, you must delete anything that is not at this scale

Fields should have no spaces and cannot be longer than 10 characters (8 for ArcView).

Change the MapID field match the community district base layer's COMMDIST table field (to view the table, using ArcGIS, right click on the nycd layer name and select Open Attribute Table)

Save the table as a dbf IV and exit Excel

Joining the data

Right click on the community district layer name and select:
Joins and relates > Join

Leave the pull down menu at it's default

Choose the field the join will use for the nycd layer (choose COMMDIST)

Search for the InfoShare table you have prepared and saved as a .dbf

Select the field (MapID) you will use to join the two layers

Click on OK

Before you can do any analysis with this layer, you must first export the layer, we will export as a shapefile.

Right click on the nycd layer and choose:
Data > Export Data

Choose a name and a location for the new layer and click on OK

When asked to add the data to the current view say yes

Displaying the data

Right click on the new layer you created from the join and select Properties, this will bring up the Layer Properties box which contains information about the layer and ways for manipulating the layer.

Select the Symbology tab

Select Quantities

From the fields value pull down menu select a variable you would like to map

Make any adjustments to color, classification, and number of classes you would like and click on OK

Under the pull down menu labeled Field Value, select one of the field names you would like to use.

Click on the Add All Values button

Choose a color scheme

Select OK

Creating a printable static map

Remember, the map title should tell what, where, and when. Also don't forget to refer to the introduction describing what makes a good map

from the top menu choices select:
View > Layout View

This will give you a preview of the map display on a sheet of paper

Using the Layout Toolbar, you can make changes to the layout including switching from Portrait to Landscape

You can also add a legend, borders, shading, a compass rose... by selecting the Insert option from the top menu

When you are ready, you can either print the map or export the map as a jpg, pdf, or another available format by selecting:
File > Export Map