One can import and plot shapefiles in R using the spdep package.
ccShape=read.shape('cbg00barncnty')
ccPoly=Map2poly(ccShape) # produces polygons
plot(ccPoly) # plot the regions
One can then manipulate the polygon information to extract neighborhood
structure for use in CAR and SAR models
ccNb=poly2nb(ccPoly) # produces neighbor structure based
on shared borders
plot(ccNb,centroidCoords,add=TRUE) # add neighbor structure;
for this you would need the centroid coordinates (not necessarily
in the shapefile)
ccListw=nb2listw(ccNb,style='B') # convert neighbor structure
to neighbor list for use in spautolm() (be careful to make sure to
specify the weights argument (the heteroscedasticity in the variances)
if needed for legitimate CAR model
plot(ccListw,centroidCoords,add=TRUE) # add neighbor structure;
for this you would need the centroid coordinates (not necessarily
in the shapefile)
ccMat=nb2mat(ccNb,style='B') # can examine to see what the
weight matrix looks like
ccNumNeighbors=rowSums(ccMat) # calculate number of neighbors
for each region
Keywords: shapefile, GIS, CAR, SAR, neighbor
Last modified: 4/7/07.