HOW TO

Migrate standard geography trade areas in ArcGIS Business Analyst Pro – 2023 Data

Last Published: June 26, 2023

Summary

When a new Business Analyst dataset becomes available, re-creating standard geography boundaries is a best practice that ensures analysis and reporting accurately reflect the most current data.

Many organizations use standard geographies to create trade areas to understand demographic characteristics and benchmark annual changes.

Standard geographies and administrative units often change on an annual basis. The following geography levels contain significant changes with the release of the U.S. 2023 data:

  • Census Places (Cities and Towns)
  • Congressional Districts
  • Direct Marketing Areas (DMAs)
  • ZIP Codes

To illustrate change at the congressional district level, the map below shows the geographic difference in Michigan’s 3rd congressional district between 2022 and 2023. Not only has the boundary significantly altered due to the redistricting process, but the population has also increased by 4% from 759,512 to 789,854 people. If 2023 statistics were applied to the same 2022 boundary, the results would be an inaccurate representation of the new boundary location.

Congressional_Districts.png

The following geography levels included in Business Analyst data can change annually, but often less significantly than the aforementioned levels. These boundaries should be reviewed.

  • United States (whole country)
  • States
  • Counties
  • County Subdivisions
  • Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs)
  • Census Tracts
  • Block Groups
Note:
For a list of standard geography changes (additions, removals, renaming) from the last update cycle, review the Geography section in Release Notes Esri 2023 U.S. Demographics.
Note:
For more supporting information about changes to standard geographies, visit the Business Analyst team’s blog articles for 2023 data and 2022 data.

Procedure

If you created standard geography trade areas for any of the aforementioned levels using local or online 2022 data, it is recommended to re-create these trade areas with 2023 data before running new analysis and reports. To re-create standard geography trade areas, do the following:

Set the Business Analyst data source

To install or connect to local 2023 data, view Set up Business Analyst data. The same 2023 data is available via ArcGIS Online.

  1. Open the ArcGIS Pro project.
  2. Set the Business Analyst dataset to 2023 data.
    1. On the Analysis tab, in the Workflows group, click the Business Analysis menu.
    2. In the Business Analyst Data Source section, click the Change data source link.
    3. To select local data, click Computer, then USA_ESRI_2023, and click OK.
      To select online data, click Portal > North America > United States > 2023. Click OK.

Run the Generate Standard Geography Trade Areas geoprocessing tool

  1. On the Analysis tab, in the Geoprocessing group, click Tools.
    The Geoprocessing pane appears.
  2. Click Business Analyst Tools to expand the Business Analyst toolbox and click the Trade Areas toolset.
  3. Click Standard Geography Trade Areas to open the tool.
  4. For Geography Level, select the geography level that will be used to define the trade area.
  5. Specify the output name for Output Feature Class.
Note:
As a best practice, consider adding a suffix to each trade area name noting the annual dataset year, for example, Grand_Rapids_49506_2023.
  1. Select the Input Type
    1. For List, open Geography IDs List and select the desired trade areas.
    2. For Table, use Geography IDs Table to select a table or feature that contains your trade areas.
Note:
As a best practice, consider maintaining a roster of trade areas in a table or feature class that contains numeric IDs. This is a convenient way to migrate previously created standard geography trade areas to the current annual dataset.
  1. Click Run.
Note:
Standard geography trade areas are not the only boundary types that can change due to annual dataset updates. As a best practice, consider re-creating other trade areas where source data may impact their shape or distance. For example, each annual update contains a refresh of a national street network database and routing services that can lead to differences in trade area composition, for example, drive-time areas, threshold drive-time areas. Annually updated demographics, such as population variables, can also impact these types of boundaries.

Article ID: 000030845

Software:
  • ArcGIS Pro 3 1

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