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Introduction Measuring the quality of life of a landscape requires taking into account numerous environmental, infrastructural, and social factors. Two factors that can be used as indicators of quality of life are the presences of third space and traditional neighborhood institutions. The phrase Third Space, coined by urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg refers to places that are not either home or work. Example of third space include coffee shops, restaurants, libraries, and bars. Third places can also significantly contribute to the quality of life of an area because they facilitate the healthy exchange of ideas and provide a public venue for civil debate and community engagement. To assess community strength based on other measures than Third Space, we looked to other traditional neighborhood institutions: schools (public elementary, private, and charter schools), pharmacies, and grocery stores. These are all places where community members come together due to common needs, and generally places that help establish a sense of identity within an area. When you talk to a neighbor about going to the grocery store, they know exactly where youre talking about. These places also tend to employ community members (with the exception of schools). Distance from schools is important because schools are micro-communities within themselves which have direct ties to happenings in the surrounding community such as homecoming parades, school boards, etc. Together, these things can promote a strong community. More options for these things means more happy people, because everyone can customize their shopping/school experiences to their own desires. Materials, Methods, & Data Various GIS tools were used to determine areas with high densities of third space properties and neighborhood The tools include: Point Density Euclidean Distance All of the basic data layers (blue parts to the model) were created from data retrieved from Business Database, www.referenceUSA.com. These layers were then analyzed for point density to determine where the highest concentrations of each type of business are. A buffer with a radius of 800m (about a half a mile) was placed around each point for each layer. As these businesses buffers overlap, their value increases. These values were then standardized and combined. As each layer interacts with the others, the diversity of Third Space and Community Institutions options becomes clear. Acknowledgments UST Department of Geography Dr. Paul Lorah, UST Geography Professor Annie LHeureux, UST Undergraduate, Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies Conclusions The nature of our model clearly favors the downtown areas of the7 County Metro Area. As our model focuses on areas of concentrated diversity, this comes as no surprise. Downtown areas have the highest concentrations of people in the least amount of space, so naturally they will have the highest concentrations of Third Space and Traditional Neighborhood Institutions. Demand is the overall motivator for businesses of any type, and demand is highest in the city. The diverse cultures and population density ensure that the areas identified in brown represent the most likely places for any given person to settle and enjoy their neighborhood. Still, this does not mean that areas outside of the city have no diversity or chance of finding a good neighborhood. As one can see, the value of the area outside the cities is not zero, there is still plenty of Third Space and Traditional Neighborhood Institutions in the suburbs, it is just not as concentrated and therefore not as accessible. As our work is only a small part of a much larger project and does not attempt to make any comments on quality of life on its own. Nonetheless, these are very important factors to consider when attempting to map quality of life. Fartun Dirie and Nick Ronnei Department of Geography, University of Saint Thomas Literature cited Scott, Michael. How Libraries and Bookstores Become the New Community Centers. New Geography. Last modified January 30, 2012. http://www.newgeography.com/content/002629-how-libraries-and-bookstores-became-new-community-centers. Humphreys, Lee. Mobile Social Networks and Social Practice: A Case Study of Dodge ball. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, no. 13 (2008): pp. 344.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00399.x/asset/j.1083- 6101.2007.00399.x.pdf?v=1&t=he84ieb4&s=956b019f4460ec6e47145bbb3c99294cb9f9c38c Gill TM, Feinstein AR. A Critical Appraisal of the Quality of Quality-of-Life Measurements. JAMA. 1994;272(8):619-626. doi:10.1001/jama.1994.03520080061045. Lisa L Love, John L Crompton, The Role of Quality of Life in Business (Re)Location Decisions, Journal of Business Research, Volume 44, Issue 3, March 1999, Pages 211-222, ISSN 0148-2963, 10.1016/S0148-2963(97)00202-6. Future Research Third space and traditional neighborhood institutions are one area to consider when examining quality of life. Future research should also examine other factors such as transportation, natural amenities, crime and education. Another area of possible research is to examine the importance of these factors among different demographics and what quality of life means for them. Measuring Quality of Life in the Twin Cities: Third Space and Traditional Neighborhood Institutions Research Question The purpose of this study is to find areas in the Twin Cities that have a high density of both third space and traditional neighborhood institutions using various GIS tools. Models Intermediate Layers Results