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Multiple Choice

For a city facing vacancy issues, which visualization best conveys geographic concentration of vacant housing?

Focusing on geographic concentration means using a visualization that clearly shows where vacancy levels are higher or lower across the city, not just whether vacancies exist somewhere. A heat map does this by using color intensity to represent the magnitude of vacancy across different areas, so clusters of high vacancy become immediately visible and easy to compare. This makes it straightforward to identify neighborhoods or blocks that require targeted attention, policy, or outreach. A simple city-wide map shows location of vacancies but not how concentrated they are. A line chart highlights how vacancy changes over time, which is temporal, not spatial. A scatter plot by parcel shows each parcel’s vacancy, but without a clear geographic density cue, it’s harder to grasp where concentrations cluster.

Focusing on geographic concentration means using a visualization that clearly shows where vacancy levels are higher or lower across the city, not just whether vacancies exist somewhere. A heat map does this by using color intensity to represent the magnitude of vacancy across different areas, so clusters of high vacancy become immediately visible and easy to compare. This makes it straightforward to identify neighborhoods or blocks that require targeted attention, policy, or outreach. A simple city-wide map shows location of vacancies but not how concentrated they are. A line chart highlights how vacancy changes over time, which is temporal, not spatial. A scatter plot by parcel shows each parcel’s vacancy, but without a clear geographic density cue, it’s harder to grasp where concentrations cluster.