Geography 367
Introduction
to Economic Uses of Geographic Information
Two basic, over-arching reasons geographic attributes help in economic and social planning:
1. logistics play a huge role in economic and social behavior:
a. if you’re trying to make deliveries, you need to know the shortest route
b. the people most likely to use a retail or social-service outlet are the ones who live, work, or school near it
c. if we own or maintain facilities, we need to know where they are and how we might be able to get equipment or inventory from one facility to another
2. economic and social characteristics display a great deal of spatial autocorrelation: “birds of a feather flock together”
a. Why? (Recall basic urban geography: rent gradients are relevant to businesses, industry, and residential location; social groups tend to congregate by choice or by lack of choice)
b.
Imagine
a list of ZIP code areas and attributes in numerical order (the
attributes will likely appear in no particular pattern);
compare a ZIP code list in north-south order (likely to be some
greater grouping of attributes); compare a
map (in which it's likely that proximate ZIP code areas will share more
attributes than distant areas)
c. So if you’re trying to figure out where to locate a retail or a service outlet, you will likely find many likely customers in set of specific market areas.
d. If you’re trying to send out direct mail solicitations, ...
e. If you’re trying to select billboards for advertising,...
f. If you’re trying to tailor the services or products offered in different outlets to different markets, ...
g. Even at the national scale, think about the “red” and “blue” zones publicized in the 2000 Presidential election. http://mwhodges.home.att.net/election2000.htm Why? Note that in addition to “geography matters,” “scale matters.”