cc.buildr

The objective of cc.buildr is to help at all stages of the development of a Curbcut instance. cc.buildr is used to build the first set of data shared by all Curbcut instances, but also to help with the processing of data for new Curbcut pages.

Installation

You can install the development version of cc.buildr from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("MSSI-urban/cc.buildr")

Usage

cc.buildr creates and works from long lists of tibble. For faster building, the package frequently uses functions of the future_*apply family from the future.apply package, for any computationally intensive work. These implementations of the apply family function can be solved using any backend supported by future (parallelization). We therefore recommend defining a future backend at the beginning of the data building script.

future::plan(future::multisession())

Let’s also enable the global progression handler to get a progress bar on those more computationally intensive work.

progressr::handlers(global = TRUE)

Access to the national Curbcut database

To obtain access to the Curbcut pre-processed national datasets, contact Max at maxime.belangerdeblois@mcgill.ca.

The base of a study region and its dictionaries

We start by declaring all the “regions” for which data can be visualized. Each of the following regions (CMA, island, city, cmhc) and scales (CSD, CT, DA, building and cmhczone) is a different mapbox tileset. At this stage, the regions must be in a priority order: If the user defaults to a region that is not available for a certain dataset, the map will instead display the region closest to the top of the list that has the available data.

all_tables <-
  list("CMA" = c("CSD", "CT", "DA", "building"),
       "island" = c("CSD", "CT", "DA", "building"),
       "city" = c("CSD", "CT", "DA", "building"),
       "cmhc" = c("cmhczone"))

The master_polygon is a single spatial feature encompassing all the regions under study. Create a list of where geometries must be found for every region. For any census geometries, codes from cancensus::list_census_regions() can be fed: A named list of census regions to retrieve. Links to shapefiles also work. Using cancensus::list_census_regions(), retrieve the CMA code of the region (if it is a CMA). This will be useful for the ‘Vacancy rate’ page.

cancensus_cma_code <- 24462
all_regions <- list(CMA = list(CMA = cancensus_cma_code),
                    city = list(CSD = 2466023),
                    island = "geometry/island.shp",
                    cmhc = get_cmhc_zones(list(CMA = cancensus_cma_code)))

base_polygons <- create_master_polygon(all_regions = all_regions)
crs <- base_polygons$crs

On one instance of Curbcut, users can move from one region to another within the same study space. A Curbcut Montreal user can analyze a dataset through the lens of the Montreal metropolitan area, or only through the city of Montreal to compare boroughs. The implications are that dynamically created text must be informed by a dictionary of regions to correctly serve the right information using accurate wording. Create the regions dictionary and see ?cc.buildr::regions_dictionary to understand the meaning of each argument.

regions_dictionary <-
  regions_dictionary(
    all_tables = all_tables,
    geo = c("CMA", "island", "city", "cmhc"),
    name = c(CMA = "Metropolitan Area",
             island = "Island of Montreal",
             city = "City of Montreal",
             cmhc = "Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation zones"),
    to_compare = c(CMA = "in the Montreal region",
                   island = "on the island of Montreal",
                   city = "in the City of Montreal",
                   cmhc = "in the Montreal region"),
    pickable = c(CMA = TRUE,
                 island = TRUE,
                 city = TRUE,
                 cmhc = FALSE))

Build scales

Census scales

Using the output of previous retrievals, get a list of census scales.

census_scales <-
  build_census_scales(master_polygon = base_polygons$master_polygon,
                      regions = base_polygons$province_cancensus_code,
                      crs = crs)

Optional: In the case of Curbcut Montreal, the City of Montreal can be split using the boroughs, which should replace the City at the CSD scale. cc.buildr::split_scale performs this operation.

boroughs <- sf::st_read("arrondissements_mtl.shp")
census_scales$CSD <- split_scale(destination = census_scales$CSD,
                                 cutting_layer = boroughs,
                                 DA_table = census_scales$DA,
                                 crs = crs)

Create the scales dictionary for the same reason we need a regions dictionary (correctly serve the right information using accurate wording). In the case a feature has been split, update the according scale in the dictionary.

scales_dictionary <- census_scales_dictionary(census_scales)
scales_dictionary[1, ] <- list(scale = "CSD",
                               sing = "borough/city",
                               plur = "boroughs or cities",
                               slider_title = "Borough/City",
                               place_heading = "{name_2} of {name}",
                               place_name = "{name}")

Building scale

Spatial features of buildings are built through a combination of Open Street Map and Microsoft’s Canadian Building Footprints dataset. Reverse geocoding is performed by a set of government public APIs and the Open Street Map API. Buildings nationally have been previously built and reverse geocoded through the cc.data package. We use the dissemination area IDs to retrieve all the buildings specific to a study area.

buildings <- cc.data::db_read_long_table(table = "buildings",
                                         DA_ID = census_scales$DA$ID)

scales_dictionary <-
  append_scale_to_dictionary(scales_dictionary,
                             scale = "building",
                             sing = "dissemination area",
                             plur = "dissemination areas",
                             slider_title = "Building",
                             place_heading = "{name}",
                             place_name = "The dissemination area around {name}")

CMHC scale

If the space under study is a CMA, cc.buildr creates a ready to use Vacancy rate module. If this is the case, the regions must be properly created and specified in the scale dictionary.

cmhczone <- get_cmhc_zones(list(CMA = cancensus_cma_code))
cmhczone <- additional_scale(additional_table = cmhczone,
                              DA_table = census_scales$DA,
                              ID_prefix = "cmhc",
                              name_2 = "CMHC zone",
                              crs = crs)
scales_dictionary <-
  append_scale_to_dictionary(scales_dictionary,
                             scale = "cmhczone",
                             sing = "CMHC zone",
                             plur = "CMHC zones",
                             slider_title = "CMHC zone",
                             place_heading = "CMHC zone of {name}",
                             place_name = "{name}")

Additional scale

cc.buildr lets a builder add any region or scale that is not only census-related through the cc.buildr::additional_scale function. This is an example of the collaboration with Centraide of Greater Montreal:

centraide <- sf::st_read("centraide.shp")
centraide <- additional_scale(additional_table = centraide,
                              DA_table = census_scales$DA,
                              ID_prefix = "centraide",
                              name_2 = "Centraide zone",
                              crs = crs)
scales_dictionary <-
  append_scale_to_dictionary(scales_dictionary,
                             scale = "centraide",
                             sing = "centraide zone",
                             plur = "centraide zones",
                             slider_title = "Centraide zone",
                             place_heading = "Centraide zone of {name}",
                             place_name = "{name}")

Consolidate scales

The way the regions and scales are organized in the following data construction is through a list of depth 2, where the region is the first depth and the scales are the second. The major contribution of cc.buildr::consolidate_scales is that, for example, the city$DA table is a spatial filter between the city region and the DA table. It also updates the naming and IDs to ensure that all scales in a region can properly talk to each other.

all_scales <- c(census_scales,
                list(building = building),
                list(centraide = centraide),
                list(cmhczone = cmhczone))

scales_consolidated <- consolidate_scales(all_tables = all_tables,
                                          all_scales = all_scales,
                                          regions = base_polygons$regions,
                                          crs = crs)

Verify dictionary conformity

verify_dictionaries(all_tables = all_tables,
                    regions_dictionary = regions_dictionary,
                    scales_dictionary = scales_dictionary)

Variables and modules table

Each variable has a unique set of elements that the platform relies on to correctly provide the predefined and precomputed information. This ranges from the title or explanation of the variable to the pre-computed breaks. The same is true for modules. The module table contains information about the name of a module, its description, … We add empty tables that will be filled each time a variable is added.

scales_variables_modules <-
  append_empty_variables_table(scales_consolidated = scales_consolidated)
scales_variables_modules <-
  append_empty_modules_table(scales = scales_variables_modules)

The first datasets

Census

scales_variables_modules <-
  ba_census_data(scales_variables_modules = scales_variables_modules,
                 region_DA_IDs = census_scales$DA$ID,
                 census_vectors = cc.data::census_vectors,
                 crs = crs,
                 housing_module = TRUE)

Vacancy rate

scales_variables_modules <-
  ru_vac_rate(scales_variables_modules = scales_variables_modules,
              crs = crs, geo_uid = cancensus_cma_code)

Can-BICS and ALP

scales_variables_modules <-
  ru_alp(scales_variables_modules = scales_variables_modules,
            crs = crs)
scales_variables_modules <-
  ru_canbics(scales_variables_modules = scales_variables_modules,
             crs = crs)

Accessibility

traveltimes <-
  accessibility_get_travel_times(region_DA_IDs = census_scales$DA$ID)

scales_variables_modules <- 
  ba_accessibility_points(scales_variables_modules = scales_variables_modules,
                          region_DA_IDs = census_scales$DA$ID,
                          traveltimes = traveltimes,
                          crs = crs)