Lab 8 - Urban Planning: Location Decisions

GIS 4048

Home buying, it's one of those things that the majority of us will do in our lifetime, possibly more than once. In this week's lab we looked into determining where to buy when you have specific criteria that must be met. This week we put on our Realtor hats and helped a couple find a home in Alachua County, Florida.

Initially we were told that the couple would like to stay close to their worksites, and would also like to be among individuals that were homeowners as well as between the ages of 40-49 years.  My first map took all the variables and outlined them so the couple could see them individually.

After initially setting up my environments and bringing in the relevant data one of my first tasks was to create a basemap that could be used in all the images.  The basemap provided me the details that the couple would need, but also helped in the map design process.  Next came the proximity analysis using the Euclidean Distance Tool to provide distances outward from the couple's places of employment and the conversion of these results to a raster feature.  Eventually I reclassified my distances to 5000 meters to allow a uniform look to the ring distribution.  Next came the analysis of the Age criteria.  To accomplish this, a new field was created within the attribute table and the percentage of individuals 40-49 was calculated based off of the 2010 Census data.  With this new data in hand, a graduated color value was assigned to the census tracts based off of the new percentage value.  I utilized the same color ramp for all maps allowing me to symbolize all results uniformly.  For the Homeownership analysis, I did the same steps as I did for the age analysis. With all my analyses completed, I produced the following map.

I found it very beneficial to use the same color ramp/schema for all the layers.  This allowed for one easy to read legend item that gave the couple an easy method to read the map.  Dark Green = Good area too look for criteria  /  Dark Red = Not a good area to look for specific criteria.  All the shades in between give them an easy way to determine if they want to make sacrifices in one criteria to obtain more in another criteria.

The next map was created with the original intent to show the couple optimal areas for them to search for a new house.  A modified data frame was added after a determination that the couple wanted a more in depth analysis on travel distance.  It seems they wanted more emphasis put onto travel time, and distance from their job sites.  With this in mind, I began my analysis on all the criteria, and what areas would be ideal both for an equal weight, and a slightly modified weight.

Since this analysis was going to be performed often, the option to use Model Builder was made.  By using Model Builder, I could run the same tool, over and over again, with simple modifications to the parameters.  In this case we used the Weighted Overlay tool, and I was modifying the Influence percentage and assigning restrictions on scaled values to narrow my search even more.

In the first data frame for Equal Weight, I used no restrictions and set equal influence (25%) on all four criteria.  In the second data frame (Modified Weight) I really narrowed down my search.  I did this by first giving the distances 35% influence and only 15% influence to the Home Ownership and Age criteria.  I went a little further here, too.  First I restricted all values down to 15,000 meters by restricting all values except for the 3 closest rings.  This eliminated all the areas outside of 15,000 meters based on both worksite locations. I then said to myself, if I am going to search the closest areas to our jobsites, I also want to see only the top percentages of Homeownership and Age criteria.  I did this by allowing the top 5 percentages to be valued, but restricted all the other values.  This left me with the results being really close to the couple's worksites, and also focused in on the other criteria enough that they could get the best areas of selection even though they were limited on distance.

The results I came up with on both searches lead me to the conclusion that the 3 areas I highlighted on the map would be ideal for my customers.  I added references to the maps so they could easily find their way around, and kept the technical details as brief as possible.  

As someone who recently went through buying a home, I know that I just want to be pointed to the right place by my Realtor, I can then focus my search and make a determination when I see the location and the area around it.