Applications in GIS, Lab 9: Location Decision Analysis

This week we worked with location analysis and weighted analysis.  The scenario is: a couple is looking for a home in Alachua County, Florida.  The woman is a physician and works at the North Florida Regional Medical center and the man works as a professor at the University Florida.  They have 4 specific criterion which are: Close to NFRMC, close to UF, in a neighborhood with a high percentage of people aged 40-49 and an area with high percentage of home value (home owners).  

Basemap of Alachua County, FL

The first map we created is a base map of the county in which they want to move.  Here you can see cities, major roads, and public lands (and by who they are owned).

Four specific criteria requested by the couple who is house hunting.

The second map we created were 4 different data frames containing each of the criterion.  We used the Euclidean Distance Analysis tool, reclass tool and feature to raster tool to determine which census tracts would be more suitable than others.

Weighted Analysis.  We put more weight on the proximity criteria to change the ideal tracts.

The final map was created with ModelBuilder and the weighted overlay tool.  The map to the left was created with equal parts weighted or each criteria (of 4) was weighted at 25%.  The scenario then had the couple concerned about traffic, so two of their criteria then became more importance.  So we weighed them differently.  The proximity to the hospital and school became more important (weighted at 40%) than the high home value neighborhood and age range.