Background Research and Data Collection:

    The spatial problem presented here mainly consists of growing development in a downtown area in conflict with residents, businesses and a popular sporting  event of mass gathering.  Residents have concerns about noise, large crowds and disruption of their daily lives during the Molson Indy.  Local Businesses also have concerns about access to their places of business and possible loss of profit while promoters of the event are concerned with maintaining a world class event.

    For this project, I searched various avenues for information which could help me with my analysis.  Firstly, I tried contacting Molstar Sports and Entertainment Group through their web site at www.molsonindy.com several times.  Since they never responded I began to wonder what the point was of putting an email address for people to ask questions if they never intend to reply, and then explored other options. In the WAC Bennet Library at Simon Fraser University, I found a thesis entitled "Indy Dreams and Urban Nightmares: Speed Merchants, Spectacle and the Struggle Over Public Space" by Mark D. Lowes (1999).  This book was quite helpful in outlining many of the criteria upon which I based my analysis and thus lead me to develop the five factors I would need to consider in looking for a suitable site:

FIVE FACTORS:

    1)  The area must be of at least 130 acres of available land for grandstands and hospitality areas, and be large enough to house a track which is from 1.8 to 3 km
          in length.

    2)  The area must be accessible to the public by means of roads and/or  public transit.

    3)  The area must be in or near the vancouver area to provide the course with a "downtown" feel.

    4)  The are must be a considerable distance from residential and commercial areas.

    5)  The most ideal location would be on flat land.

    Data for this project was obtained from the S:\355-Data\Data\gvrd\gen folder.  The images used were:
 

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