GEOG 160 Project 6

Geocoding Addresses with TIGER/Line Files

Eric Fitterling

Streets and Roads of Sinking Spring and Surroundings

• This is a map of Pennsylvania's Berks County specifically the town Sinking Spring and my home at 3037 Linda Lane.
• To the west of my house is actually all new development but it used to be farm land so a few new roads are missing and to the direct East there is an opening where my High School and its property is. The long road that runs all the way across the screen in the middle is US Highway 422.
• I believe this is a big aid for the census because they can easily find houses that they are looking for when they have to go back to a house because they were not home on the regular route. With Tiger/Line data they can pinpoint the exact house they need to find and where they are relative to it.
• In this Geocoding system they assign each line its name as related to the roads in the world. Next each side of the street is assigned either even or odd values and then a range of addresses on that street is inputted. So when a address is put in it finds the street, what side the house is on, and finally it estimates where on the street that number address would fall. For a person to do this it would be impractical because of how many streets and addresses there are in the United States.
• MapQuest and Google Maps are huge assets to the people of today. If someone has the internet 99% of the time if you ask a person they have visited one of these types of websites. It is so simple to type in two places and get directions. There are flaws that come with it though. It could possibly find the wrong street with the same name as the one you were looking for or it could give directions through roads that don't exist anymore or construction areas.

Sources

Environmental Systems Research Institute (2002) The Geography Network. http://www.geographynetwork.com/ Accessed 5 December 2007.