The Veseli quadrant of our project presents a unique challenge. Its namesake, the unincorporated town of Veseli appears on the census as the larger Wheatland Township, an area with a population of approximately 1400 people. However, only about half of the area of the Township exists within the Veseli quadrant. Veseli’s growth was severely restricted by a last-minute decision to build the railroad further south, through Lonsdale. There were no paved road in Veseli until the 70s. Nevertheless, Veseli has some intriguing historical anecdotes.

ArcGIS posed a few technological hurdles. GIS itself is a powerful tool, but ArcGIS, the online platform felt somewhat constricted and limiting. I felt that basic features were missing. For example, the arrows I used to show migration patterns would have looked a lot more visually pleasing if they had a smooth curve to them. Unfortunately, ArcGIS’s arrows are really just a slightly customized area, a collection of points, rather than a rendered image. There’s none of the customization that even basic programs like Word and Google Slides provide. Furthermore, so far as I could find, there are no default labels for arrow; there’s not even a means to get them to show their title. And since the text labels you can add have no way for you to control their scaling, there’s no effective way to label your arrows without forcing the user to click on them and view their title.

Nevertheless, what ArcGIS is truly designed for is uploading and displaying data geospatial data, and it does this quiet well. I had no trouble creating a CSV of wins and losses for Veseli’s Baseball team, uploading it, and having ArcGIS display these points with just a few simple clicks.