now I have the Good Fortune to live within a short drive of no less than five Chick-fil-A and I gotta be honest I don't mind normally I wouldn't ask questions about my good fortune I just pound chicken sandwiches until my breathing became obstructive hey y'all this is AP human geography and that means I do want to ask the question and I know you do too why are there so many Chick-fil-As in such a small space and that question is answerable when we consider the power of geographic data and the kinds of decisions people make based on that date so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked Combo Number One style well let's get to it so in the last video we talked all about where Geographic data comes from and who gathers it and we talked about field observations and media reports and GPS and GIS and on and on and on but I bet you were tempted to believe that geographers just gather all that data for fun yeah I was just doing some light field observations and I counted 9347 automobiles at that intersection wow you really are the kind of geographer that dreams are made of what are you gonna do with all that data nothing just having fun no geographers do not spend all their time Gathering spatial data so they can have Lively Party Time geographers gather all that data because data drives decision making let me say that again data drives decision making do not forget that get it tattooed on your forehead if you must but that's a huge concept here in unit one oh by the way if you want guided nose to follow along with this video so you can get all this content firmly planted in your brain folds then click the link in the description anyway in order to understand what that means and why there are so many Chick-fil-As near my house we're going to look at who uses all this data and what kinds of decisions they make with now I know you're attempting to think that geospatial and geographical data has no relevance to your life you might say you're a geographical data hater sorry but I'm here to tell you that yes even people like you use geographical data to make decisions so first of all people use geographical data to make decisions about Recreation so maybe your family is planning an epic trip to Alexandria Indiana to see the world's largest ball of paint obviously everyone should see that before they die anyway your family is going to use geographical data to get there by plugging it into your GPS system and then before you leave you're gonna look up the closest hotels in book one as close as possible because trust me you want to be as close as possible to this Wonder of modern boredom just to be clear this video isn't not sponsored by the world's largest ball of pain but second of all people use geographical data when they want to move or relocate and maybe your mom or your dad gets a job in another city and so they get on Zillow to find a house and then they use other geographical data about the quality of the school districts for you so this school has great ratings this one's kind of a turd yeah we're gonna move here okay third and maybe a little too close to home people can use geographical data to locate other people are your parents tracking your phone like do they know where you are at all times no I'm not gonna say whether that's right or wrong but that data does drive your parents decision-making process like maybe you're a Swifty and you want to go see Taytay tear it up downtown but without any ability to track your phone your parents have no idea whether you're in the arena with t-swizzle or just went to the local drug dealer's house and so maybe with that uncertainty they say no also side note kids don't do drugs but if they can track your phone then maybe they just might be comfortable enough to send you down there and then well baby it's time to party like it's 1989 but it's not only people like us who use data to make this decisions Big Daddy government does just as well this is important to remember the government uses geographical data to make decisions at all scales from National to Regional to local and one major way Geographic data drives governmental decision making is through its use of the census if you live here in the United States the federal government conducts a census every 10 years and basically that just means that they send out government workers to find out who everyone is like where everyone lives what kind of money they make Etc and the results can have big impacts on the kinds of policies that get passed or where government money gets spent for example Census Data tells the government that more Americans are moving to the southern states than anywhere else and that can have significant effects first it can affect how all those sweet government funds are allocated more people here more money less people here less money and second it can affect the balance of political power in the federal government in case you don't know our Congress whose job it is to make laws has two houses the Senate and the House of Representatives for now you don't have to worry about the Senate because it's the house that's affected by Census Data there are 435 representatives in the house but they're not equally distributed between the states highly populated states like California have a lot of Representatives and therefore a lot of power but states with smaller populations like Montana have few Representatives over Montana's case only one regardless if the census finds out that but loads of Americans are moving to the southern states and that means that they're going to get more representatives in the house while places that they left will lose representatives and that further means that the kind of policies being passed tend to reflect the interests of states with more Representatives so you pick it up what I'm putting down anyway the second means by which governments use Geographic data to make decisions is through the use of satellite imagery for example federal and state governments and various agencies use satellite images to track wildfires and make decisions about when certain populations need to evacuate and develop strategies for fighting those fires and finally we need to talk about the third major entity that makes use of geographic data for decision making namely businesses and organizations for example you remember the covid-19 pandemic that messed all our societal crap up yeah well businesses and schools use Geographic data to figure out when it was safe to reopen Maps track the infection rate of various scales and based on that data School administrators either kept the school closed or decided to reopen or to get back to Chick-fil-A because it's always the right time to get back to Chick-Fil-A Why are there 5 of identical chicken restaurants within a short drive of my house because the Fried Chicken overlords running these restaurants studied my area and saw that a bunch of people were moving here and took a bet that opening five stores was a good idea for my money that was a good bet so all in all here's what you need to remember the power of geographical data comes from its ability to drive decision making and that's all right click here to keep reviewing for unit one and click here to get note guys to follow along with all my videos because it is the best way to get the content of that course firmly planted in your brain full so thanks for hanging out with me for a few minutes and I'll catch you on the flip-flop I'm larouche