Geospatial analysis helps people make better decisions. It doesn't make the decision for you, but it can answer critical questions that are at the heart of the choice to be made and often cannot be answered any other way. Until recently, geospatial technology and data were tools available only to governments and well-funded researchers. However, in the last decade, data has become much more widely available and software has become much more accessible to anyone.
In addition to freely available government satellite imagery, many local governments now conduct aerial photo surveys and make the data available online. The ubiquitous Google Earth provides a cross-platform spinning globe view of the Earth with satellite and aerial data, streets, points of interest, photographs, and much more. Google Earth users can create custom Keyhole Markup...