November 4, 2008 - Mapping Minnesota Communities will be the focus of a beginner-level workshop offered in Edina to teach the fundamentals of using GIS and Census data for community analysis. Presented by New Urban Research, Inc., the workshop is designed for social service providers, academic researchers, urban planners and anyone who performs community demographic analysis for governmental or private organizations.

"Mapping Minnesota Communities: Introduction to GIS & Community Analysis" will be offered on December 11th and 12th in Edina. The workshop costs $495 per person, and no previous GIS experience is necessary. Information and registration are available at www.urban-research.info.

"Any organization that seeks federal funding to perform public health, economic or educational development is required to provide demographic analysis on populations within specific geographic areas," said Gina Clemmer, President of New Urban Research. "We teach students how to access Census data files online and then use the GIS to extract specific demographic information and map the results down to the neighborhood level."

New Urban Research, a professional social research organization, customizes the GIS exercises and demonstrations in each class with geographic and mapping data relating to the state where the workshop is being held. During the class, participants will be shown how to download Census data relating to poverty, race, language, education and other variables for their communities and integrate these files with their own data sets for analysis in the GIS.

Using ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 software, participants will leave the class with a thorough understanding of three core GIS applications:

• Thematic Mapping – Attendees will create color-coded maps of their data that displays information trends.
  
• Geocoding – Attendees will map the addresses of their projects, clients or incident areas.
  
• Spatial Analysis – Attendees will extract and map subsets of variables from Census data.

Workshop participants will also receive a free 30-day subscription to the Shapefile Warehouse, an archive of Census Bureau data in GIS-ready data files. For every county in the United States, New Urban Research has obtained the 20 most common geographies (Street Networks, Political Boundaries, Census Blocks/Tracts, Traffic, etc.) from 2005 Census TIGER files and converted them to ESRI shapefile formats ready to import into a GIS. Participants may also purchase ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 site licenses from New Urban Research following the workshop.

Introducing more than 6,000 participants to GIS technology in the last year alone, New Urban Research receives high praise for its hands-on workshops. According to a Representative of the Women's Prison Association in New York City, "[The workshop provided a] very clear and comprehensive presentation on how to create analytically useful and aesthetical maps. I like the structure of the workshop, the relevance of the exercises and the additional materials and online resources."

About New Urban Research Inc.

New Urban Research is a professional social research organization with an emphasis on geographic information systems (GIS). It specializes in offering one-day workshops for service providers, planners and researchers who want to analyze their communities with Census Data and GIS in the areas of health, poverty, housing, discrimination, and other advocacy work. Along with public workshops, New Urban Research offers customized workshops for agencies looking to train a large group of employees to map and analyze their own data. New Urban Research is an ESRI Business Partner. For more information, visit www.urban-research.info.

For more information please contact:
Gina Clemmer
New Urban Research, Inc.
877.241.6576 | www.urban-research.info