Demographics of Areas Surrounding Golf Courses


Author Information
Daniel Wills
American River College
Geography 350: Data Acquisition in GIS; Fall 2017


Abstract
This Project asseses the demographics of California in relation to the distance to golf courses. I used data from the 2000 census for the demographic data and uses Landmark data from Esri for the locations of golf courses. Esri's data was used because it mapped the boundaries of golf courses instead of just putting a point feature.

Introduction
There is plenty of data on the demographics of Golfers but not much one the area around golf Courses. The Census is one of the best sources of demographic information so I decided to dig into the data and find the demographics around golf courses. I expected the area around golf courses to be more male, white and old than the further from golf courses.

Background

Golf courses tend to increase the value of houses within a quarter mile of them and small golf courses have the greatest increase on the valuse of Houses (Espey et al. 2003).
The National Golf Foundation did a survey of how much minorities play golf and they found that about 21% of golfers are Hispanic, Asian or Afrian American while those groups make up about 33% of the popualtion of the united states.
The Bencraft Company's demographics information page shows that golfers tendt to have twice the household income of non-golfers. They also state that ninty percent of golfers are homeowners along with other data on expendatures hinting at wealth.

Methods
I downloaded the census tracts and data from the 2000 Census along with a shapefile of large area Landmarks in the United States from Esri and TomTom. I used a definition query to filter the landmarks layer down to golf courses and exported it to a new layer. I added a golf_dist field to the Census layer and set a definition query to only display census tracts that lacked values in the golf_dist field. I then used select by location to select census tracts within half a mile of a golf course and recorded the distance. I repeated this with 1 mile, five miles, and five mile increments from there until no census tract remained. Then I removed the definition query. Since the census only gives raw data not percentage I added percentage fields for all the fields I wanted to analyze. I used the field calculator tool to fill the percentage tables by dividing the related field from the total. To clear out incomplete or broken records I queried out record that lacked census information or geometry. To determine population density, I converted the tract area into square miles then divided the population field by the area field into a new field. I used ArcMap's summarize tool on the golf_dist field to find the total population in each distance bracket. At the same time, I had the summarize tool calculate the average and standard deviation of each demographic percentage field and for the population density field. I exported the resultant field to Excel where I made a graph out the information I found on each demographic field.

Results


A whole lot of Graphs.
a bunch of correlations from said graphs.

Distance From Golf Course 0.5 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 40 45 65
Parcel Count 7,197.00 5,618.00 19,901.00 2,091.00 597.00 244.00 240.00 76.00 11.00 15.00 1.00
Average AREA (sq mile) 6.38 1.85 2.67 12.12 18.54 20.50 15.22 9.32 4.26 5.30 22.75
SD AREA (sq mile) 80.11 22.44 35.47 88.86 105.49 80.54 76.28 30.31 8.65 10.62 0.00
Minimum Population 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Max Population 18,080.00 10,244.00 14,465.00 11,893.00 6,643.00 8,348.00 5,849.00 9,340.00 1,157.00 525.00 0.00
Average Population 1,176.35 1,129.47 1,053.86 684.12 607.56 588.38 490.85 955.18 266.09 64.40 0.00
Total Population 8,466,174.00 6,345,363.00 20,972,883.00 1,430,490.00 362,713.00 143,565.00 117,804.00 72,594.00 2,927.00 966.00 0.00
SD Population 1,145.08 991.70 977.48 844.62 789.02 825.66 748.07 1,995.45 425.04 137.31 0.00
Average Population density (people/sq mile) 11,626.16 14,567.08 18,457.53 24,928.24 25,528.46 42,704.65 51,480.83 87,843.01 43,057.97 343.06 0.00
SD Population density 91,726.71 67,614.15 132,881.51 128,467.29 100,929.21 119,214.04 313,422.46 292,323.67 96,319.56 1,312.46 0.00
Average Percent White 71.35 65.83 63.25 71.12 73.49 72.43 74.09 74.27 85.25 88.02 0.00
SD Percent White 23.15 24.33 26.02 25.98 25.97 26.20 23.65 21.47 10.70 11.34 0.00
Average Percent Black 3.94 4.86 6.23 2.35 1.76 0.96 2.59 2.35 1.75 0.04 0.00
SD Percent Black 10.06 10.75 12.82 7.61 4.62 2.57 5.79 5.51 3.81 0.09 0.00
Average Percent Indian 0.83 0.92 1.17 1.90 3.12 4.85 5.06 7.11 3.82 0.38 0.00
SD Percent Indian 2.96 3.06 3.94 5.29 9.28 12.19 11.15 15.42 4.96 0.85 0.00
Average Percent Asian 9.07 10.83 8.25 2.72 1.00 0.68 0.48 1.23 0.27 0.27 0.00
SD Percent Asian 13.09 15.10 13.22 7.52 3.27 1.46 1.35 6.49 0.60 0.60 0.00
Average Percent Islander 0.31 0.31 0.30 0.06 0.12 0.24 0.42 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00
SD Percent Islander 2.16 1.23 1.39 0.38 0.68 2.50 3.18 0.46 0.00 0.00 0.00
Average Percent Other 10.13 12.70 15.98 17.09 16.55 16.82 13.17 10.18 7.35 6.27 0.00
SD Percent Other 14.78 16.00 18.20 21.92 23.92 23.58 19.75 14.59 10.27 10.96 0.00
Average Percent Multiracial 4.38 4.55 4.82 4.75 3.95 4.02 4.19 4.77 1.57 5.02 0.00
SD Percent Multiracial 5.99 5.07 5.83 8.72 5.38 5.92 5.29 4.08 1.29 5.22 0.00
Average Percent Hispanic 21.45 26.06 30.37 30.40 26.98 27.48 21.52 18.69 22.12 20.08 0.00
SD Percent Hispanic 23.41 25.48 27.77 30.42 29.28 31.60 26.39 21.30 27.76 28.32 0.00
Average Percent Male 49.47 49.43 49.96 51.01 51.75 53.70 52.67 52.34 53.53 53.10 0.00
SD Percent Male 8.26 7.38 8.51 11.09 11.90 11.64 12.89 7.54 4.77 8.27 0.00
Average Percent Female 50.53 50.57 50.04 48.99 48.25 46.30 47.33 47.66 46.47 46.90 0.00
SD Percent Female 8.26 7.38 8.51 11.09 11.90 11.64 12.89 7.54 4.77 8.27 0.00
Ave_PER_F18PLUS 38.92 38.41 37.43 36.01 35.34 34.71 38.15 37.58 33.96 38.87 0.00
SD_PER_F18PLUS 9.19 7.98 8.96 11.42 10.71 11.02 13.36 7.83 3.04 9.67 0.00
Ave_PER_M18PLUS 37.14 36.63 36.59 37.16 38.05 40.71 41.40 41.67 40.25 38.88 0.00
SD_PER_M18PLUS 9.17 8.64 9.89 11.82 14.14 14.50 14.54 9.67 6.21 4.25 0.00
Ave_PER_M21PLUS 35.18 34.61 34.45 35.03 36.26 38.63 38.92 39.56 36.09 37.13 0.00
SD_PER_M21PLUS 9.02 8.56 9.91 11.64 14.15 14.74 13.67 10.29 4.18 4.93 0.00
Ave_PER_F21PLUS 37.25 36.58 35.51 34.27 33.81 32.95 36.84 36.69 31.39 37.69 0.00
SD_PER_F21PLUS 9.47 8.22 9.12 11.44 10.60 11.07 13.73 8.34 4.91 11.42 0.00
Ave_PER_M65PLUS 6.55 5.33 5.20 6.29 7.37 7.14 9.91 9.36 5.99 9.54 0.00
SD_PER_M65PLUS 7.34 5.93 6.87 9.45 8.03 8.04 10.19 10.97 2.95 6.88 0.00
Ave_PER_F65PLUS 8.38 7.22 6.77 6.69 7.91 7.61 11.46 8.72 5.65 11.30 0.00
SD_PER_F65PLUS 9.31 7.37 7.71 8.32 9.33 10.14 15.02 6.45 2.48 7.65 0.00
Average Percent Households Occupied 93.23 95.47 94.51 88.50 83.73 74.87 72.01 68.38 70.04 63.19 0.00
SD Percent Households Occupied 12.42 8.14 9.30 15.62 19.31 24.58 22.77 23.89 20.70 10.50 0.00
Average Percent Households Vacant 6.77 4.53 5.49 11.50 16.27 25.13 27.99 31.62 29.96 36.81 0.00
SD Percent Households Vacant 12.42 8.14 9.30 15.62 19.31 24.58 22.77 23.89 20.70 10.50 0.00
Average Percent Households Owned 64.00 59.85 56.14 59.70 53.16 45.01 47.45 45.55 40.46 31.94 0.00
SD Percent Households Owned 26.66 27.67 28.45 24.65 25.62 24.84 23.03 22.81 18.33 7.24 0.00
Average Percent Households Rented 29.23 35.62 38.37 28.80 30.57 29.86 24.56 22.84 29.59 31.24 0.00
SD Percent Households Rented 25.19 26.70 27.53 23.04 24.90 26.07 21.96 22.42 8.09 12.42 0.00
Figures and maps

Map of Data

this is the output map


Green splotches are golf courses
Census Tracts get paler red the further they are from Golf Courses.

Graph of average population


Graph of Population Density


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Analysis
It would have been nice if the Census data I got had household income or employment figures. The size of some census tracts may have skewed the data because they could contain a golf course while also having areas that were many miles from the course. The census data didn't have any derived data and all the data I was interested needed to be derived from the raw data.

Conclusion
All my assumptions were off.
Population seems to be higher near golf courses and there seems to be a population spike around 30 miles from golf courses. Population density seems to be low near to and far away from golf courses with the highest density about 30 miles from golf courses. A higher percentage of housing is occupied within 5 miles of a golf course and occupancy decreases the further you go. No correlation between distance to a golf course and home ownership. The population seems to get slightly more male the further you get from a golf course but not the correlation is weak. There seems to be a concentration of people over 65 about 25 miles from a golf course but there seems to be slight increase extremely close to a golf course. The population seems to get slightly whiter the further you get from a golf course expect within the first mile. There seems to be a concentration of black people close to but not next to golf courses. It seems like most concentrations of Asians area near or next to golf courses. The highest concertation of Hispanic people seems to be about 10 miles from golf courses. Most Indian people seem to like far from golf courses. No correlation between Pacific Islanders and distance from golf courses. No correlation for Multiracial people. Weak correlation between percent of Other race and the area not close or far from golf courses.

References
Espey, Molly and Owusu-Wdusi, Kawame, "Does Proximity to a Golf Course Matter?". (2003) Clemson University.

"Demographic Information About the Average American Golfer." Bench Craft Company. Accessed December 9, 2017. https://www.benchcraftcompany.com/demographics/.

"Minority Golf Participation in the United States, 2010 edition", National Golf Foundation. www.ngf.org