Location is a critical factor when developers are determining the best area for their business. Ultimately, location encompasses much more than just a physical space — the demographics and behavioral patterns of people who frequent an area, as well as the businesses around it, are all important factors to consider when planners are building out neighborhoods. With location intelligence, land use planning and development can become more efficient.

Let’s take a look at how location intelligence can help with land use planning and development.

Understanding consumer preferences and interests is a must for land use planning. Location intelligence provides municipalities with insights into where residents and visitors go in the real world. This type of analysis allows municipalities to get an idea about buying habits. They can develop areas with more value to potential residents by understanding what they are interested in and the places they enjoy going to in the real world. For example, an a developer working with a municipality discovers that residents are pet lovers and frequently visit pet stores. This data allows the municipality to be able to know that they should invest in creating a dog park and they can begin looking for an infill location or even raw land.

Location intelligence gives municipalities insight into foot traffic patterns, a must-have for land use planning. Foot traffic is a strong indicator of future contracts. With this data, city planners and developers can determine the best location to place prospective businesses in the neighborhood. For example, the dog park would need to be located in an area that would provide sufficient parking for residents and be accessible for residents to walk to if they live close by. For new neighborhoods, heat maps can be used to measure where a successful new location could bring in the most business, or track where traffic is beginning to slip. This tool can also be presented to investors to display exactly what type of investments might benefit an area.

Customer data provides municipalities with insights into the best location for neighborhood amenities. A major goal for land planning professionals is to find the best site for incoming businesses. A developer can analyze this data to ensure that the location is best suited to meet these needs. Data advancements within the site selection enable municipalities to predict the impact of decision factors that change over time and optimize location decisions and partnerships. With this methodology, planners can base location decisions not only on historic information, but also with data aggregated from site models to access both opportunity and risk. Ultimately, these models enable developers to track upcoming consumer trends that can inform the site selection process in the future.

Land use planning and development requires risk assessment. Near real-time analytics allows developers and municipalities to determine which businesses are the best suited for the neighborhood. For example, let’s say that the residents are not only interested in pets, but also are foodies. This could indicate to the developer that it would be best to construct a restaurant row with easy access to outdoor spaces like a dog park. It also helps put developers in full control of their portfolios, and provides access to the important data required to help them take appropriate preventive action fast, both operationally and financially.

By using location intelligence, planners and developers to analyze information about the market at large in order to anticipate consumer activity, identify market trends, and make data-driven decisions to ensure long-term success.