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The Right Tools for the Job: The Case for Spatial Science Tool-Building

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  • Boeing, Geoff

    (Northeastern University)

Abstract

This paper was presented as the 8th annual Transactions in GIS plenary address at the American Association of Geographers annual meeting in Washington, DC. The spatial sciences have recently seen growing calls for more accessible software and tools that better embody geographic science and theory. Urban spatial network science offers one clear opportunity: from multiple perspectives, tools to model and analyze nonplanar urban spatial networks have traditionally been inaccessible, atheoretical, or otherwise limiting. This paper reflects on this state of the field. Then it discusses the motivation, experience, and outcomes of developing OSMnx, a tool intended to help address this. Next it reviews this tool's use in the recent multidisciplinary spatial network science literature to highlight upstream and downstream benefits of open‐source software development. Tool-building is an essential but poorly incentivized component of academic geography and social science more broadly. To conduct better science, we need to build better tools. The paper concludes with paths forward, emphasizing open-source software and reusable computational data science beyond mere reproducibility and replicability.

Suggested Citation

  • Boeing, Geoff, 2020. "The Right Tools for the Job: The Case for Spatial Science Tool-Building," SocArXiv d267g, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:d267g
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/d267g
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geoff Boeing, 2020. "Planarity and street network representation in urban form analysis," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(5), pages 855-869, June.
    2. Karl Widerquist, 2018. "The Bottom Line," Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee, in: A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments for Researchers, Policymakers, and Citizens, chapter 0, pages 93-98, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "OSMnx: New Methods for Acquiring, Constructing, Analyzing, and Visualizing Complex Street Networks," SocArXiv q86sd, Center for Open Science.
    4. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "Methods and Measures for Analyzing Complex Street Networks and Urban Form," SocArXiv 93h82, Center for Open Science.
    5. Dumedah, Gift & Eshun, Gabriel, 2020. "The case of Paratransit - ‘Trotro’ service data as a credible location addressing of road networks in Ghana," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. Homer Hoyt, 1951. "Is City Growth Controlled by Mathematics or Physical Laws?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(3), pages 259-262.
    7. Philipp Baumann & Marcus M. Keupp, 2020. "Assessing the Reliability of Street Networks: A Case Study Based on the Swiss Street Network," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Marcus Matthias Keupp (ed.), The Security of Critical Infrastructures, pages 111-129, Springer.
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    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Shiqin & Higgs, Carl & Arundel, Jonathan & Boeing, Geoff & Cerdera, Nicholas & Moctezuma, David & Cerin, Ester & Adlakha, Deepti & Lowe, Melanie & Giles-Corti, Billie, 2021. "A Generalized Framework for Measuring Pedestrian Accessibility around the World Using Open Data," SocArXiv cua35, Center for Open Science.
    2. Winston Yap & Jiat-Hwee Chang & Filip Biljecki, 2023. "Incorporating networks in semantic understanding of streetscapes: Contextualising active mobility decisions," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(6), pages 1416-1437, July.
    3. Masías, Víctor Hugo & Crespo R., Fernando A. & Navarro R., Pilar & Masood, Razan & Krämer, Nicole C. & Hoppe, H. Ulrich, 2021. "On spatial variation in the detectability and density of social media user protest supporters," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 65, pages 1-1.
    4. Boeing, Geoff, 2020. "Street Network Models and Indicators for Every Urban Area in the World," SocArXiv f2dqc, Center for Open Science.

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