Guernsey, L.

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Land Use of Selected Cities in IndianaLee Guernsey, Indiana State CollegeIntroductionThis is a paper which is based upon some land use data gatheredfrom field research in six Indiana cities. The first part of this paperis a brief description of the technique and classification system used tomap urban land uses. The second part is a brief examination of someland use data of six Indiana cities which is then compared with thefunctional classifications of these cities.Mapping Technique and Classification SystemAll land included in this study was classified as developed or vacantor water areas in accordance with the Bartholomew method of classify-ing urban land uses (1). The developed land includes all areas used forurban functions whether open use such as parks or intensive uses, suchas downtown department stores. Land not used for urban functions,such as cropland or undeveloped land for subdivisions, was classifiedas vacant.The field mapping was conducted by a team of two, mapping frominside an automobile and plotting the symbols on an acetate overlayabove an existing Sandborn Atlas base map of that city. This "wind-shield mapping procedure'' was carried out by undergraduate studentswho were majoring or minoring in geography at Indiana State College.At the end of each work day in the field, the data from the overlayswere plotted on a large-scale base map in the office. The base map,normally drawn from the city engineers base map, showed all streetsand lot lines for all developed areas of the city. The existing land usefor each lot was plotted on the large line map according to Bartholo-mew's land use classification system (1). Letters were used as symbolsof land use in the field, but the final maps were reproduced in multi-colors.The statistical summaries are prepared in terms of acreage con-sumed in each category of use employed in the survey (Table I). Per-centage summaries are then used to compare the city with the Bartholo-mew percentages of cities of comparable size which is termed the"Percentage of Standard Land Usage" (Table II).The actual measuring of land use acreages was done by a plani-meter or an areagraph. The accuracy of areagraphs used vary from 90per cent to 97 per cent. The choice of the areagraph or the planimeterwas determined by the dissemination and areal extent of a commonland use.With this simple, standardized system and technique employed inthe six cities, and with the same persons mapping and measuring the landuse of these cities, selected characteristics, comparisons and contrastswill be made.196Geology and Geography 197aT3<Vfto%>Q60cws-lCm| "3° Ehw —.N 4->OS o +»^ Ph ,33rH CO©00 t-;<6CO Tt C<J 00 l> OJ t>CO ^o tH Tf t> a> lOt-j no in t>"*, «d io thCO rH CO "^OS OSOS iOCO COrH ©zo oiSO t- fc» tH "*fO iO to CO lOi-l rH CO CO 00co3ojOomO 03o3 -jjPQ W.2 MO rHCM+J ftd ftW-O «95 >».£ OS198 Indiana Academy of ScienceQfa<<<Hfaowo«!gw«faas ois4^> Ofa 3"S .21(2o wis iCO <M «fi o lO rH OCO tH OS «o CO CO oCSI rH rH <M rH tH tHoftGOcbflofa m S5^o a03 jjpq m£ o^5M Gfi ftO fic o•-1 ft0) <Dfi ©o --1ft 6?Geology and Geography 199Land Use CharacteristicsFrom Table I comparative land uses of the six cities and the Bar-tholomew standard can be analyzed. Table II reveals a comparison ofthe percentages of standard land usage, and provides data for a com-parison of the existing land use and their functional classifications basedon 1960 employment data and the use of Nelson's criteria.The six cities are distributed in a random fashion within Indianaand no attempt is made here to analyze their many local geographicaldifferences. The cities are third and fourth class cities which range inpopulation from 19,522 persons in Jeffersonville to 37,854 persons inMarion. The 28 cities of less than 50,000 persons, which were selected byHarland Bartholomew and Associates, were used to quantitatively com-pare the land use characteristics of the six Indiana cities.Jeffersonville, with 5.4 per cent of the total developed land in com-mercial uses, has relatively more developed commercial land than anyof the six selected cities (Table I). Jeffersonville has 174 per cent ofstandard commercial land usage, and the areas consumed for industryin Jeffersonville is 233 per cent of the average of the 28 selected cities.This unusually large area is due largely to the extensive area in theQuartermaster Depot. In contrast, only 83 per cent as much land isconsumed for transportation, utilities, and communication and only 55per cent of the land in community facilities as in the BartholomewStandard (Table II). As can be also read (Table II), the residentialareas consume 110 per cent of the Bartholomew average.The land use in Logansport is more closely related to standard landusage than for the other five cities (Tables I and II). Unusually closecomparisons occur in such land uses as residential; transportation, util-ities, and communication; industrial; and community facilities whichrange from 90 per cent to 112 per cent of Standard Land Usage. On theother hand, 145 per cent of average standard land usage does exist incommercial land uses. Logansport has exactly the same proportion of itsdeveloped land set aside for community facilities as the Bartholomewstandard, the only such instance noted in Table II.LaPorte has about an average percentage of its developed landconsumed for residential areas. It has almost twice the area in in-dustrial space and 126 per cent of standard land usage set aside forcommercial land. But, the proportion of land consumed for communityfacilities in LaPorte is only 60 per cent of standard usage of the com-parison cities.On a percentage basis, Bloomington falls below the average of the28 cities in areas used for residential; commercial; transportation, util-ities, and communication. In contrast to the other three land uses,Bloomington has 260 per cent of the average usage of land in industry.The extensive limestone quarries, which are scattered through severalplanning districts and were classified as industrial, is the primaryreason for this abnormally large percentage. Since the general categoryof community facilities includes Indiana University, Bloomington has163 per cent standard land usage consumed for community facilities.The streets and roads which serve the university campus were also200 Indiana Academy of Scienceclassified as community facilities. Therefore, only 50 per cent ofstandard land usage occurs in transportation, utilities, and communica-tion.Mishawaka has above the average land areas used for residential;commercial; industrial; and transportation, utilities, and communica-tion uses. Mishawaka's land in community facilities is only 37 per centof the Bartholomew standard, a fact that may influence local thinkingabout the availability of state and federal recreational facilities in north-ern Indiana.Marion uses only 81 per cent as much land for residential purposesbut uses 145 per cent as much land for commercial purposes, 125 percent as much for transportation, utilities, and communication, and 161per cent as much of its total developed land for industrial land uses asthe Bartholomew Standard (Table II). In common with most otherthird class cities in Indiana, Marion also has less than average landin community facilities with only 69 per cent of standard land usage.The 1960 employment figures for Jeffersonville indicate that 54 percent of the labor force was employed in industries (2). This was theonly employment classification that ranked considerable above the aver-age of the Nelson standard percentage of employment. The functionalclassification of Jeffersonville is industrial as Nelson determined anaverage of 27 per cent employed by industries (2).By using Nelson's criteria, and the 1960 employment figures, Logans-port is both an industrial and transportation city. In 1960, Logansporthad 60 per cent of its total labor force employed in industries. In addi-tion, about 26 per cent of its labor forces was employed in transportation,utilities, and communication in comparison to Nelson's average of 7.1per cent (2).LaPorte, which has 11.2 per cent of its developed land used by in-dustries, has 69 per cent of the total labor force employed by in-dustries. Its functional classification is also industrial.Bloomington is classified as a professional city. Employment figuresfor 1960 show that 6,184 persons are employed in educational serviceswhich even exceeds the total number of persons employed by industry.Nelson found the average is 11.1 per cent employed in professionalservices.The functional classification of Mishawaka is industrial since about75 per cent of all of Mishawaka's employment, or about three times asmany as Nelson shows to be average for the United States, are em-ployed by industries (2).According to Nelson's criteria, Marion is classified as a diversifiedcity since none of the classifications exceed the average by a standarddeviation.The six cities range from 65.5 per cent (in Bloomington) to 81.6per cent (in Mishawaka) of their developed areas confined to residentialareas and to transportation, utilities, and communications (Table I).The most significant differences in how cities use their land reallyoccur in only about the one-fourth of the developed area which is usedfor commercial, industrial, and community facilities.Geology and Geography 201ConclusionsIn an attempt to characterize the land use of six smaller citiesof Indiana, the lack of data and of understanding have been apparentat many points. The resulting- conclusions are of course, incompleteand tentative.The general problem of the mapping technique and classificationneeds to be carried out more widely in the United States. But Bar-tholomew's method lends itself to a uniform and comprehensive system ofcollecting urban land use data. If a more generally recognized standardsystem of urban land use classification were more widely used, geog-raphers no longer have to rely primarily upon employment data as abasis for the functional classification of American cities. Rather, citiescould be classified on the basis of how much land is used for whatpurpose. No such classification system is widely used now, but such aclassification scheme would be of great value to geographers and cityplanners.As more attention is given to the establishment of optimum stand-ards of urban land use, more details about the existing land uses insmaller cities could aid in finding better ways of arriving at numericalestimates of how much space a city will need in the future. Undoubtedly,geographers can do much better than they have been doing at equatingmyriads of urban ecological data with land use characteristics of Amer-ican cities.Literature Cited1. Bartholomew, Harland. 1955. Land Uses in American Cities. HarvardUniversity Press, pp. 147-157.2. Nelson, Howard J. 1955. A Service Classification of American Cities.Economic Geography XXXI (July) : 189-210.

Land Use of Selected Cities in Indiana

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Land Use of Selected Cities in Indiana

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