27 June 2003
Few decisions shape our built environments and geographic lives more than the location of buildings and services and the associated implicit or explicit allocation of population or territory to those locations. How can we best support and enhance our ability to think clearly about these decisions? There exist geographic information systems to display the relevant geographic details in appropriate spatial perspective, yet without the analytical tools to suggest optimal solutions. There exists a powerful analytical system to suggest optimal solutions, but without the capability to present the geographic context that is so essential to appropriate problem definition and refinement. How could these separate systems be combined to support a planner in thinking about location-allocation problems?
We present a practical design for the integration of Environmental Systems Research Institute's ARC/INFO(R) GIS and Paul Densham's Location Allocation Decision Support System (LADSS). Along the way, we address practical issues related to freeing the planner to concentrate on the core of the task, on reducing the possibilities for error, and on providing the best possible geographic context and perspective for the location-allocation problem. The basic system design uses only current software and could be implemented within six months.
27 June 2003