The Right Tools for the Job: The Case for Spatial Science Tool-Building

TL;DR

This paper advocates for developing accessible, theory-embodying tools in spatial science, exemplified by OSMnx, to advance urban spatial network analysis and improve scientific practices through open-source software.

Contribution

It introduces OSMnx, a new tool for urban spatial network analysis, and discusses its impact on the field and the importance of open-source tool-building in geography.

Findings

OSMnx facilitates urban network analysis with open-source accessibility.

Use of OSMnx in literature demonstrates broad multidisciplinary benefits.

Open-source tools enhance reproducibility and scientific progress.

Abstract

This paper was presented as the 8th annual Transactions in GIS plenary address at the American Association of Geographers annual meeting in Washington, DC. The spatial sciences have recently seen growing calls for more accessible software and tools that better embody geographic science and theory. Urban spatial network science offers one clear opportunity: from multiple perspectives, tools to model and analyze nonplanar urban spatial networks have traditionally been inaccessible, atheoretical, or otherwise limiting. This paper reflects on this state of the field. Then it discusses the motivation, experience, and outcomes of developing OSMnx, a tool intended to help address this. Next it reviews this tool's use in the recent multidisciplinary spatial network science literature to highlight upstream and downstream benefits of open-source software development. Tool-building is an essential but poorly incentivized component of academic geography and social science more broadly. To conduct better science, we need to build better tools. The paper concludes with paths forward, emphasizing open-source software and reusable computational data science beyond mere reproducibility and replicability.