☕ Coffee Shop Location Suitability Study (1)
To begin this assignment, the objective is to evaluate the suitability of three potential locations for a new coffee shop in Sacramento. The first criterion analyzed is workplace proximity, because the assignment requires determining how many employees work within a walkable distance of each location. The datasets used are the Workplace Area Employee data and the Candidate Coffee Shop building footprints already included in the ArcGIS Pro project.
The objective is to evaluate the suitability of three potential locations for a new coffee shop in Sacramento. The first criterion analyzed is workplace proximity, because the assignment requires determining how many employees work within a walkable distance of each location. The datasets used are the Workplace Area Employee data and the Candidate Coffee Shop building footprints already included in the ArcGIS Pro project.
The first step is to generate a half-mile buffer around each candidate location. The Buffer tool is opened in the Geoprocessing panel and the Candidate Coffee Shop Buildings feature class is selected as the input layer. Following the instructions, the distance is set to 0.5 miles and the output is saved as "coffee_shop_half_mile_buffer." Once the tool runs successfully, the buffer layer is added to the map and visually highlights the walkable zone surrounding each location.
After that, the workplace areas that fall inside those buffer zones need to be identified. To do this, the Intersect tool is used. Both the half-mile buffer layer and the Workplace Areas layer are selected as inputs and a new output feature class named "coffee_buffers_workplace_areas" is created. This operation extracts only the polygons representing workplaces located within the half-mile range.
Next, the number of employees inside each buffer is analyzed. The attribute table of the intersect results is opened and then the Frequency tool is run. Grouping is done by the location fields ("Location Number" and "Description") and the "Total # Employees" field is summarized. This creates a new table called "coffee_workplace_frequency," which provides a clear numerical summary of employee counts for each of the three locations.
Finally, the final map layout is produced by symbolizing the workplace areas according to employee totals, displaying the half-mile buffer around each candidate location, and adding the candidate coffee shop icons. The visualization is completed by including a legend and map elements, which results in the final map (Layout.png).
Through this workflow — Buffer, Intersect, and Frequency analysis — workplace accessibility can be compared across the three locations. The analysis reveals that the Downtown location has the largest number of employees within half a mile, which makes it the most promising candidate for placing a new coffee shop.
📌 Tech Stack: ArcGIS Pro • Buffer Analysis • Intersect Tool • Frequency Tool • JSON to Features • Feature to Point • Workplace Area Characteristics (LEHD) • Microsoft Building Footprints • TIGER/Line Census Shapefiles
Technologies Used:
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