From the webpage:
geometry-api-java
The Esri Geometry API for Java can be used to enable spatial data processing in 3rd-party data-processing solutions. Developers of custom MapReduce-based applications for Hadoop can use this API for spatial processing of data in the Hadoop system. The API is also used by the Hive UDF’s and could be used by developers building geometry functions for 3rd-party applications such as Cassandra, HBase, Storm and many other Java-based “big data” applications.
Features
- API methods to create simple geometries directly with the API, or by importing from supported formats: JSON, WKT, and Shape
- API methods for spatial operations: union, difference, intersect, clip, cut, and buffer
- API methods for topological relationship tests: equals, within, contains, crosses, and touches
This looks particularly useful for mapping the rash of “public” data sets to facts on the ground.
Particularly if income levels, ethnicity, race, religion and other factors are taken into account.
Might give more bite to the “excess population,” aka the “47%” people speak so casually about.
Additional resources: