BRAIN TEASER: Spatial Geography Optimization

[jmal]

I have a data set that contains a list of 100 cities within the US (Target). I also have a list of all the zip codes in the US with they're associated populations (Universe). With that information, I've managed to calculate the total population within 100 miles of all the cities.

However, if I am limited to choosing only 10 cities in my target list, how do I know which 10 cities to pick to maximize population reach? Meaning, is there a way to calculate an optimized model that favors trade areas with the highest populations, trade areas with the least overlap, etc.?

[apathetichell]

Hi! There's a lot of information which is missing:

1) do you have centroids for the 100 us cities.

2) do you have spatial objects for the zip codes and populations?

Assuming yes to both - start by building trade areas and then build an iterative macro to start subtracting out the largest trade areas by population. If you do it right you'll be removing the trade areas via spatial process from each other as your macro runs and you'll be resorting each time by population. The macro will run until you have the ten largest areas by population with the intersection areas removed.

There are also location optimzer macros which you can check out the workflow of using the help section...

If you haven't yet - watch the videos trade area and the one on spatial process.

[jmal]

@Treyson1 Hey! I saw your community article about iterative macros and wondered if you have any thoughts on how to solve this problem.

[jmal]

@apathetichell

Yes to both your questions. Attached are my data sets and current workflow if you'd like to take a peak.

[apathetichell]

This looks pretty good... My primary change would be that  I wouldn't create the differing mileages in the same workflow - I'd use a batch macro to edit the trade area tool with the differing options that I'd want. Once you have the iterative logic down for one macro (let's say the 50 mile range) - you can run each other one separately. It's also crucial to have the cities go into the iterative macro as the trade area spatial objects already - that way what you are sending into future iterations is the trade area less the trade area of the city you have already selected... Does that make sense?