Geography × 10: Ten Geographic Projects Presented by a Professional Geographer

By Felipe Calderon

This book gives examples of the use of geographical analysis in several real life projects. Each chapter describes a specific problem, the environment existing during its definition and the methodologies used to solve it. There is plenty of information to look for more techniques and a bibliography to supplement the knowledge of every method and situation. This is a unique piece of work relating theoretical concepts to their applications in private, government and research companies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Mar 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781506500010

Felipe Calderon

Felipe Calderon is a geographer with more than 30 years of experience applying spatial, statistical and computational methodologies in the solution of real life problems. He possesses a bachelor degree from the Universidad Católica de Valparaiso, Chile and a Master of Arts from the University of Toronto, Canada. One of his major career goals has been to show the usefulness of geographical analysis in private, government and research institutions.

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GEOGRAPHY X 10

TEN GEOGRAPHIC PROJECTS PRESENTED

BY A PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER

By Felipe Calderón

(Geographer)

Copyright © 2015 by Felipe Calderón.

ISBN:   Softcover     978-1-5065-0000-3

             Ebook          978-1-5065-0001-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Rev. Date: 03/25/2015

Palibrio

1663 Liberty Drive

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This book has been inspired and unconditionally supported by my wife, children and all my Family and many friends….

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CHAPTER 1 EVALUATION OF SITE PLACES FOR A NEW LONE STAR RESTAURANT

COMPUSEARCH, A VERY INTERESTING COMPANY.

WE NEED TO FIND MORE OUTLETS TO OPEN LONE STAR RESTAURANTS.

LET’S USE MATRICES

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BASE MATRIX

FIRST MANIPULATION – CONSISTENCY

SECOND MANIPULATION- UNIFORMITY

THIRD MANIPULATION – WHEN ALL ATTRIBUTES ARE NOT EQUALLY IMPORTANT

FOURTH MANIPULATION – LET’S CHOOSE ONE LOCATION

LET’S PLAY WITH THE SOLUTION

CHAPTER 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MAPPING PROCESS IN A MANUFACTURING COMPANY

THE SELL OF GEOGRAPHY.

WHAT’S NEXT?

SOME COOL MAPS PREPARED FOR AD-HOC REQUESTS.

WE NEED THESE MAPS FROM TIME TO TIME.

MAPPING IS GOOD BUT WE NEED MORE THAN MAPPING.

CHAPTER 3 TRUCK-STATION EVALUATION IN CANADA

HOW THE PROJECT ORIGINATED.

MODEL SPECIFICATION

LET’S PLAY WITH A REAL MODEL

DATA PREPARATION AND EXPLANATION.

AN UPDATED NOTE ABOUT REGRESSION MODELS IN GEOGRAPHY

CHAPTER 4 RE-LOCATION OF CHILDREN FOOD CENTRES

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS

THE PROBLEM DISCOVERED

HOW WE DEALT WITH THIS PROBLEM

THE CALCULATION OF SPATIAL MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS

A GEOGRAPHER’S CONTRIBUTION

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

CHAPTER 5 EVALUATION OF ROUTES FOR GARBAGE PICK-UP IN THE CITY OF LOS ANDES

INTRODUCTION

A SYSTEM IN ACTION.

MY GOALS AND THEIR GOALS

HOW THE SYSTEM WOULD BE EVALUATED

A BASIC METHODOLOGY IN PLACE

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FIRST SOLUTION: A NIGHTMARE MADE REALITY.

LET’S DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME

CHAPTER 6 ALLOCATION OF CUSTOMERS TO PLANTS IN NEWSPRINT COMPANY

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

THE MODEL

THE NEWSPRINT ALLOCATION (NAM) PROCESS.

WHAT WAS REALLY OPTIMIZED?

HOW THE COMPANY USED THE RESULTS OF THE MODEL?

HOW WERE THE RESULTS OBTAINED FOR EVERY STUDY?

TYPES OF OUTPUTS GENERATED FOR EVERY RUN.

DREAMS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

CHAPTER 7 SPATIAL EDUCATIONAL DIAGNOSTIC FOR A MUNICIPALITY

CENTRAL CHILE, MARCH 1985

DIAGNOSTIC TYPE OF PROJECTS

THE EDUCATIONAL SUPPLY

THE EDUCATIONAL DEMAND

THE BALANCE

USES OF A DIAGNOSTIC STUDY

CHAPTER 8 SAMPLING WITH ERRORS

BBM CANADA, AN INTERESTING COMPANY

THE MODIFIABLE AREA PROBLEM

THE SAMPLING ERROR EXPRESSED GEOGRAPHICALLY

HOW TO MEASURE SOME BASIC SPATIAL SAMPLING PROPERTIES

CHAPTER 9 ANALYSIS OF THE AIR TRANSPORTATION NETWORK TO DELAY THE SPREAD OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE WORK

HOW CONNECTED IS A PLACE?

WHERE IN THE NETWORK IS THE PLACE LOCATED?

HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF A CITY IS IN THE WAY OF OTHER CITIES.

LET’S TALK ABOUT CLOSENESS NOW.

THE STEP THAT NEVER HAPPENED

CHAPTER 10 SIMULATION – THE ART OF RE-CREATION

APPLICATIONS FOR SIMULATION MODELS

TWO MAIN TYPES OF COMPONENTS IN SIMULATION MODELS.

SUMMARIZING THE PROCESS TO CREATE A SIMULATION MODEL

MY EXAMPLE AT ST. MICHAEL’S HOSPITAL

WHERE IS THE DISEASE MOVING TO?

WHEN IS THE DISEASE MOVING TO ANOTHER PLACE?

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH SO MANY SIMULATIONS?

HOW DO YOU USE THE RESULTS FROM A SIMULATION MODEL?

OTHER SIMULATION MODELS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

REFERENCED

NOT REFERENCED

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

My interest in Geography started when I was about thirteen years old. I would say that my main mentor into this activity was my Mother who gave me, as a present for Christmas, a book called La Tierra y sus Recursos (The Earth and its Resources) full with beautiful illustrations and pictures and written by somebody named Levi Marrero. I say somebody because that person, who in my mind could be a man or a woman (Levi is not a popular name in Spanish to which you could easily relate a gender), was totally unknown to me. That was my first step into the discipline. I am now 53 years old and you can easily calculate for how many years I have been related, in one way or another to this science, sometimes as a hobby, like at the beginning, sometimes full time as the base for my main income; sometimes very interested because of its beauty, sometimes a bit bored because the resolution of the problems at hand was nothing new but they demanded to be solved job. I feel like after so many years practicing Geography in so many different places and in so many different situations I have enough to say something and pass to our future generations on what a geographer’s life is like and maybe on many of the things Geography students could expect if they decide to stay on this road. I would feel greedy to keep all these experiences to myself, knowing that I may have the answers to many of the questions that Geography students usually have. However, it’s up to you, the reader, to decide if the experiences I am about to start talking about are worth your while, although I can almost assure you that even with these changing times some of the experiences I have lived myself you most likely will live as well in present and future times.

Maybe one of the most powerful reasons to write these experiences go back to the times when I myself was a Geography student at the Catholic University of Valparaiso, Chile. We were exposed to a number of subjects with apparently no connections among them. Most of the professors (if not all) had hardly had any experience outside the university environment and obviously could not pass on the experience they wanted when preparing a professional geographer because they did not have that experience it in the first place. I believe I could help many of the actual students’ questions about a professional geography life after doing that for so many years. The philosophical problems that we faced as students back then were tackled with a profound and critical vision about science, university and life which took us to learn in deep the principles and goals of modern science. We went chapter by chapter through Bunge’s¹ treaty about science just looking for an answer to questions such as Is Geography a true science? Or what makes Geography different from other disciplines? Or a more practical question: How do you do a scientific research? All these elements helped me to shape a definition of what I call Geography and its proper and legitimate area of action among the scientific and ontological world, all this inserted in a world where knowledge is interleaved in a tight space and pure distinctions of knowledge and methodologies are sometimes hard to determine. This wonderful and at the same time frustrating trip is what I pretend to pass along with this book, at least in broad and general traces.

FIGURE_01.tif

Figure 1. Topics covered in the Introduction

I want to make this publication something special in the sense that it is a manuscript that is unique in a way and there is nothing similar so far in the market of books. Something that describes job environments, advantages in some companies, disadvantages in some others, diverse cultures and passing along the definition of specific and real problems to finish with the explanation of how the problem was solved ( or rather attacked). I want you to get familiar with what might be waiting for you out there when you graduate as a Geographer, where to look for a Geographer’s job but at the same time learn a few useful methodologies I have used over and over during these years where stores have been replaced in my career by printing presses, panellists or cities by a disease but where the spatial aspect of the problem is the prevailing thing all along. On the other hand if you are a professional in charge of important assets, decisions and personnel I hope this publication will be able to let you know at least some of the type of work a geographer could do for you and all the value that such a professional could bring to your organization. The examples are diverse but the framework behind them is the same: Geographical or spatial points of view. Writing this book is like having a pause in my professional life (and maybe not only for this kind of life). It is like stopping in the road, looking back to see how far I have gone and what type of road I have already gone through and then check what might be waiting for me in the future. I realized that I have gone through many landscapes (academic, municipal, provincial governments, private, huge and small companies, for profit and not for profit, data analysis and recollection, different countries, developed and developing) that I cannot wait to see what is the next step awaiting for me. This is only part of my work experience, only related to Geography, because I have more than that, maybe for another publication. All this is what I want to pass on to you with the hope it may be useful to shape the geographers of the future so that the next employer will say as one of my bosses said once when I was leaving the company half serious half joking: I think a geographer has brought interesting value to the company; I think I will replace you by another geographer, only this time I will try to hire a good one. I felt at that moment that one of my objectives was achieved: they had realized the importance of Geography in the company and some of its possible contributions; I am trying to get to my boss’ second point through these notes so that all geographers can be seen as good.

One important point to make: the disclosure of real company and person names in a book like this is not easy. This is why I hope you will appreciate that most of the company and person names are real, I mean they actually existed. I wanted you to realize the type of company a geographer can work for and there is no better substitution than using the true names for that. It required a lot of effort, time and persistence to obtain authorization to mention these names and I really appreciate the help of all those people involved in making this happen. Please be aware of this. I believe this is another unique characteristic of this book: real examples pointing to real entities!²

I imagine that the best way to develop this book is to try to place you in my shoes during every example I show and live with me the atmosphere of the situation, the company and the people involved. Then try to remember how the problem was solved and without memorizing the stated solutions, at least keep them in the back of your mind to retrieve them when a similar situation happens to you in your real life. Do not limit the problem and methods involved to the specific components related to the situation (plants, restaurants, respondents, etc.) but imagine how this situation might be transferred to different objects. The problem is going to be fairly similar; the specific details surrounding the components might be slightly different. For example, what is important for a retail outlet to exist (clients, absence of competitors, and visibility of the signage) is different to the aspects you would consider to locate a center to supply food to disadvantaged people. In the latter case the location of possible users might be more important than clients, the cost of food supply, the characteristics of the venue, etc. All that is the same for the restaurant but different if we analyze the specific details required for each one. Finally, try to remember the comments I make in relation to social and cultural issues for every case. They are sometimes the most important things to make a project successful, because despite the generation of mathematical optimization of the results, these are applied to people that sometimes have other things in mind other than optimization. We are humans with different interests and skills and we must adjust to them if we want our solutions to be understood and accepted. There is only a short ride where pushing can be successful to impose our conclusions and the length of this ride will depend on the people buying our study.

To learn more….

This existing section in every chapter contains some bibliography that would help to complete the knowledge about the technique explained in the chapter with additional information or simply to get a more complete and pedagogic approach to the subject . The bibliography contains basic books that would explain the methodology step by step, in many cases the way I learned the methodology for the first time. If you are interested in mastering the method please go and find the books indicated here. Many of them have been published a long time ago, but they are excellent to understand the subject. These old books are in many cases classical in the subject matter and it is difficult to find more recently published books on the subject. The age does not matter here, the important thing is for you to understand the techniques as complete as you can.

This book has several limitations like everything else in life. One of them is the limited points of view about the stated problems as a result of coming from only one person (that is me!). Different geographers might have analyzed the same problems in a different way, applied other techniques and methodologies and even perceived the cultural and social environments differently. The solutions chosen for the problems reflect, in this case, my personal values, beliefs and professional training. I hope this is not an inconvenient thing for you and I will appreciate your patience and understanding on this respect!

Another limitation has to do with the fact that some data in the examples had to be modified because of the confidentiality agreements signed when I started employment with the company where the example is coming from. The methodology or technique has not been altered though. All these methodologies are standard tools used in modern Geography and should be in a geographer’s toolbox. They do not belong to any company. This situation is the characteristic of my contribution to these institutions: geographical analysis to existing situations, nothing new in geography but absolutely novice for some of the companies.

One interesting limitation derives from my professional experience: All of the examples presented come from what we traditionally call Human Geography as opposed to Physical Geography. One could think that this book is only useful to Human Geographers, however we could apply the techniques explained here to Physical Geography problems with a little bit of imagination. Some cases are easier to transfer than others, but at the end of the day the spatial character of the methodologies make them transferable from one type of geography to the other with some adaptations. I will try to provide examples in every study case.

An extra limitation is created by the historical contents of the examples. Some of these happened a long time ago, when technological conditions were very different than actual conditions. The same situation may hardly happen again with respect to the background of the problem; however the techniques and methodologies used will most certainly be utilized again with a similar problem. On the other hand, even though the technology has advanced considerably throughout the world, there are still some places and even companies that might be in a very preliminary stage of technology with respect to geographical methods utilized. Some of these companies might not have a Geographical Information System (GIS) in place, some others might not have a large format printer (also known as a plotter) where to print maps, and some might not be familiar at all with the spatial dimension of problems or a simple mapping process. The situations in these companies bring full validity even to the oldest example indicated in this book, despite the time and the changes in science and technology.

I have also included updated information about some of the methodologies used in the examples. These updated versions were not available at the time the real projects were developed. This is the case of GWR (geographic weighted regression) and other statistical methods well known methods, now incorporating spatial components. I mention these new methodologies briefly for you to further explore using the bibliography provided.

These are the limitations I can think of. There are others, perhaps more significant, that you will find as a reader of this book. Please let me know about them to try to correct them in future versions. This is going to be another reason to have written this book: to learn more from my own mistakes and criticism. The result will be an improved next project, with everybody’s participation.

A short word about the bibliography provided in this book: I have used many of the publications indicated, however there might be several important others out there which I do not mention. A professional geographer’s life is very busy, trying to solve problems framed with specific deadlines and bosses going after you for solutions and reports demanded. The amount of time existing sometimes to look for information is limited under these circumstances and you only try to get publications that fit very well the problem to be solved at hand. You solve a problem, generate a report and give a presentation to proceed to the next one, no much spear time to do an exhaustive bibliographic research. This is the reason why the bibliography included in this book might be limited, because it comes with the development of the real projects. There is a cited bibliography and a non-cited one. The cited includes the books and papers referred to in the chapters, most of the times recommended as important publications in the subject. The non-cited ones are publications I have come across that also contain very valuable information but for one reason or another were not mentioned in the book. Both types might be of interest to you, both contain very significant information about the topics covered in this book. Use them as an extra resource and who knows, maybe what you are looking for is in one of those publications.

Some other issues worth of mentioning: The formatting for figures, tables and paragraphs changes from chapter to chapter. This has been allowed to reinforce the idea that every chapter is a different project and every project was very different from one another. I hope this doesn’t bother you and contributes to separate the chapters. Another issue: I may be a bit repetitive in some cases, for example when I describe the 1985 earthquake in Chile, which goes across two chapters. I did this in case you decide to read only a few chapters in the book, so that you don’t miss any details mentioned only in one chapter but applicable to more than one. A third issue relates to the quality of some figures: I tried to keep all original components for every project. The price is that some of these components were very difficult to be reproduced with a good quality because the original was not in a very good condition to start with. I hope this trade-off quality-authenticity helps you to take you to the past and live the projects in a more real way even though they belong to previous times.

I hope you enjoy the reading!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere thanks to some people who have made the generation and publication of this book a reality. First of all, I want to say thanks to the people who checked the manuscript and gave advice on ideas, contents and even writing. I especially want to thank to Professor Don Boyes from the Geography Department at the University of Toronto and to Professor Carl Amrhein, Vice-president of the University of Alberta. Both of them contributed with new ideas about the manuscript and how this could be published and passed on to the geographical community.

I also want to give my thanks to all the people that gave authorization and guidance to publish the projects contained in this book. There are eight companies involved in the examples provided and not all of them agreed to disclose their names for this book. I thank to Jim MacLeod (BBM Canada President), Ricardo Gomez-Insausti (BBM Canada Research V.P.), Kamran Khan (Principal Investigator St. Michael’s Hospital), Kelly Oliver (Pitney Bowes Assistant General Counsel), Jacques Vachon (Resolute Forest Products Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer) and to Lone Star Executives in Toronto who in one way or another allowed to disclose company names or provided guidance to obtain it.

Some real people is mentioned throughout the chapters of the manuscript and it was important to obtain their consent to show their real names on it. Especial thanks to Tony Lea, Danny Heuman, Dr. Bob Graham, Felix Hauck, Marcel Szanto, and Pat Pellegrini for their understanding and support agreeing to the disclosures of their names. I also want to say thanks to my friend Felix Hauck who provided one of the photographs included in the manuscript. He proposed a series of pictures from San Antonio from where I chose one of them (it was a hard decision, all the pictures were excellent!).

I feel something special when I thank my daughter Elena who provided support and help in two steps of this publication: Choosing a name for this book and helping in the design of the front and back cover. Thanks Elena!

I also thank my daughter Rebeca who checked the script to make it more clear for people speaking English to understand.

I also want to give especial thanks to my friend Nancy Guzman, a Chilean writer, whose guidance, advice and encouragement were essential for the completion and publication of this book.

Finally I want to give thanks to people in Palibrio, especially Miss Ella Dionaldo who made this job so easy and enjoying.

Many and sincere thanks to all of them!

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Chapter 1 – Evaluation of Site Places for a New Lone Star Restaurant

The Texan Lone Star Company needs to open a new outlet in the city of Toronto, Canada. The company doesn’t know where the new outlet could be located to maximize success probabilities. A methodology called Multi-Criteria Decision Matrices is used to select the best candidate locations once the information is extracted through different channels. This project was developed in a marketing company where most of the professionals were related to the geographical field and where many interesting projects were developed showing the importance in quantitative Geography for modern companies from different industries.

Chapter 2 – The development of a Mapping Process in a Manufacturing Company

Abitibi-Price was a paper company using an allocation model to optimize the distribution of the paper manufactured in the plants to over 2,000 customers. There was no mapping tool of any type available at the time I joined the company. I was able, with significant effort, to develop a process to introduce mapping as an everyday tool used by some departments such as the Transportation and Distribution department. The events, ideas and detailed process involved in the widespread promotion of mapping in Abitibi-Price is described in this chapter. This process was initiated and continued within the company as I was one of Abitibi’s employees.

Chapter 3 – Truck Station Evaluation in Canada

One of the major gas companies operating in Canada wanted the stations where trucks load gas evaluated to optimize the distribution of the network. More than 100 truck-stations were evaluated through a regression model to determine which ones were over performing financially and which ones were under performing. The model used in the evaluation is explained together with other models estimated to feed the main regression model. This project was developed through a marketing company where many of the projects had some kind of geographical content.

Chapter 4 – Re-Location of Children’s Food Centres

The functioning of three centres to supply food for under-nourished children in San Antonio, Chile, was evaluated following attendance to the centres, their locations and the location of potential users. The analysis was done using basic spatial statistics and network analysis which reported re-location recommendation for one of the centres. The centre was re-located and an almost full attendance demonstrated the success of the analysis and the appropriateness of the recommendations. This project was done through the Provincial Office of the San Antonio province with scarce resources but with a high level of creativity.

Chapter 5 – Evaluation of Routes for Garbage Pick-up in the City of Los Andes

This chapter analyzes a project whose objective was to minimize transportation costs during the process of garbage pick-up in a middle size Chilean city. The chapter is loaded with social aspects of a project whose interest is centred on the management, control and development of the whole process. The details are mainly related how the project was obtained and the personal characteristics of the people that participated. It suggests a few tips to take into account when a project is developed and managed. There are no technical aspects to indicate details on how the new routes were planned