used in geography. In Los Angeles, however, it has exhibited the role, traditionally ignored, of Downtown as an organizing center for the whole city during several decades. Spatial autocorrelation Spatial autocorrelation statistics measure and analyze the degree of dependency among observations in a geographic space. Classic spatial autocorrelation statistics include Moran's , Geary's , Getis's and the standard deviational ellipse. These statistics require measuring a spatial weights matrix that reflects the intensity of the geographic relationship between observations in a neighborhood, e.g., the distances between neighbors, the lengths of shared border, or whether they fall into a specified directional class such as "west". Classic spatial autocorrelation statistics compare the spatial weights to the covariance relationship at pairs of locations. Spatial autocorrelation that is more positive than expected from random indicate the clustering of similar values across geographic space, while significant negative spatial autocorrelation indicates that neighboring values are more dissimilar than expected by chance, suggesting a spatial pattern similar to a chess board. Spatial autocorrelation statistics such as Moran's and Geary's are global in the sense that they estimate the overall degree of spatial autocorrelation for a dataset. The possibility of spatial heterogeneity suggests that the estimated degree of autocorrelation may vary significantly across geographic space. Local spatial autocorrelation statistics provide estimates disaggregated to the level of the spatial analysis units, allowing assessment of the dependency relationships across space. statistics compare neighborhoods to a global average and identify local regions of strong autocorrelation. Local versions of the and statistics are also available. Spatial heterogeneity Spatial interpolation Spatial interpolation methods estimate the variables at unobserved locations in geographic space based on the values at observed locations. Basic methods include inverse distance weighting: this attenuates the variable with decreasing proximity from the observed location. Kriging is a more sophisticated method that interpolates across space according to a spatial lag relationship that has both systematic and random components. This can accommodate a wide range of spatial relationships for the hidden values between observed locations. Kriging provides optimal estimates given the hypothesized lag relationship, and error estimates can be mapped to determine if spatial patterns exist. Spatial regression Spatial regression methods capture spatial dependency in regression analysis, avoiding statistical problems such as unstable parameters and unreliable significance tests, as well as providing information on spatial relationships among the variables involved. Depending on the specific technique, spatial dependency can enter the regression model as relationships