Spatial analysis
The cross-layer question. What falls inside this boundary, how many of them, and what exactly is at this coordinate.
01 / The problem
How many schools are inside this flood zone. A simple question, and historically two days of somebody's week.
02 / The decisions it serves
Not a report. A decision somebody has to sign.
Each of these is a question your team already asks, and currently answers with a spreadsheet, a phone call and a fortnight.
How many, and which ones
The count, and the list behind the count, and the map filtered to exactly those.
What overlaps what
Which vulnerable tracts the warning touches, which parcels the corridor crosses.
What is at this exact point
The zoning, the soil, the flood zone, at the pin rather than in the neighbourhood.
03 / It is willing to say no
It does not hand you numbers. It gives you a verdict.
An assistant that only ever agrees with you is a mirror, not an analyst. This one holds a line, names the thing that kills the deal, and will tell you to walk away from a site you already like.
The thresholds it holds you to
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It answers the cross-layer question: how many schools sit inside the warning area, which vulnerable tracts the flood zone overlaps, what zoning is at this exact pin.
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It uses the real boundary, never a drive-time. A network buffer snaps to the nearest road and answers a different question than the one you asked.
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It will not guess a field name. If the layer is ambiguous it asks, rather than quietly building a query across candidate fields and returning a confident wrong number.
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If no layer on the map holds that data, it says the data is not there instead of inventing it.
04 / Why not just ask an AI
A fluent answer and a defensible one are not the same thing.
Every model will answer a location question now, and most of the answers sound right. Ask twice and you get two of them. Ask where the number came from and the room goes quiet.
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It uses the real boundary. A drive-time buffer snaps to the road network and answers a different question than the one you asked, confidently.
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It will not guess a field name. If the layer is ambiguous it asks, rather than quietly querying across candidate fields and handing you a wrong number that looks right.
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If no layer on your map holds that data, it says so instead of inventing a plausible figure.
05 / What it runs on, and what you get
The data underneath
Licensed and authoritative, and named in the output, so the number keeps its source when it travels.
- Whatever layers are on your map
What you walk out with
A count, the list behind the count, and the map filtered to exactly those features so you can see what was counted.
The method it used and the vintage of every number travel with it, so it still holds up when somebody asks you why in six months.
How an answer travels06 / It pairs with
Nobody makes one decision in isolation. Most teams run this alongside two or three of these.
Run Spatial analysis on something you already decided. See if it agrees with you.
The honest test of a method is whether it reaches the conclusion your best analyst already reached, and tells you plainly when it does not.
Twenty minutes, and you can argue with the weights.