12. Spatial Relationships Exercises

Here’s a reminder of the functions we saw in the last section. They should be useful for the exercises!

• sum(expression) aggregate to return a sum for a set of records

• count(expression) aggregate to return the size of a set of records

• ST_Contains(geometry A, geometry B) returns true if geometry A contains geometry B

• ST_Crosses(geometry A, geometry B) returns true if geometry A crosses geometry B

• ST_Disjoint(geometry A , geometry B) returns true if the geometries do not “spatially intersect”

• ST_Distance(geometry A, geometry B) returns the minimum distance between geometry A and geometry B

• ST_DWithin(geometry A, geometry B, radius) returns true if geometry A is radius distance or less from geometry B

• ST_Equals(geometry A, geometry B) returns true if geometry A is the same as geometry B

• ST_Intersects(geometry A, geometry B) returns true if geometry A intersects geometry B

• ST_Overlaps(geometry A, geometry B) returns true if geometry A and geometry B share space, but are not completely contained by each other.

• ST_Touches(geometry A, geometry B) returns true if the boundary of geometry A touches geometry B

• ST_Within(geometry A, geometry B) returns true if geometry A is within geometry B

Also remember the tables we have available:

• nyc_census_blocks

  • blkid, popn_total, boroname, geom

• nyc_streets

  • name, type, geom

• nyc_subway_stations

  • name, geom

• nyc_neighborhoods

  • name, boroname, geom

12.1. Exercises

• What is the geometry value for the street named ‘Atlantic Commons’?

  SELECT ST_AsText(geom)
    FROM nyc_streets
    WHERE name = 'Atlantic Commons';
  

  MULTILINESTRING((586781.701577724 4504202.15314339,586863.51964484 4504215.9881701))
  

• What neighborhood and borough is Atlantic Commons in?

  SELECT name, boroname
  FROM nyc_neighborhoods
  WHERE ST_Intersects(
    geom,
    ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(586782 4504202,586864 4504216)', 26918)
  );
  

      name    | boroname
  ------------+----------
   Fort Green | Brooklyn
  

  Note

  “Hey, why did you change from a ‘MULTILINESTRING’ to a ‘LINESTRING’?” Spatially they describe the same shape, so going from a single-item multi-geometry to a singleton saves a few keystrokes.

  More importantly, we also rounded the coordinates to make them easier to read, which does actually change results: we couldn’t use the ST_Touches() predicate to find out which roads join Atlantic Commons, because the coordinates are not exactly the same anymore.

• What streets does Atlantic Commons join with?

  SELECT name
  FROM nyc_streets
  WHERE ST_DWithin(
    geom,
    ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(586782 4504202,586864 4504216)', 26918),
    0.1
  );
  

       name
  ------------------
   Cumberland St
   Atlantic Commons
  

  

• Approximately how many people live on (within 50 meters of) Atlantic Commons?

  SELECT Sum(popn_total)
    FROM nyc_census_blocks
    WHERE ST_DWithin(
     geom,
     ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(586782 4504202,586864 4504216)', 26918),
     50
    );
  

  1438