Defining Demographic Change in Locational Planning Problems

Since population, which actually represents demand in any organised or rearranged service system, is the final target and recipient of every planning strategy or policy action, the success of locational analysis and the locational planning process, is largely determined upon the decision makers' ability to estimate the study area's future population size and distribution. Such estimations can be demographically achieved through the analysis and extrapolation into the future of carefully measured birth, death and migration rates according to observed trends and tendencies of the relevant socio-economic factors that affect them. As opposed to traditional generalisations and recent practices, which deal with population as a whole, the approach presented in this paper focuses on each individual's attitude towards the issue of intended births, which when aggregated formulate a fertility rate. More specifically, certain socio-economic characteristics, based on questionnaire data, are analysed using discrete choice models in order to estimate the prospective family-size desires. In this respect, a birth-rate choice model is derived through the assessment of the expected number of children to be born in a household during a specific time period and with regard to its socio-economic identity. Moreover, modifications of the above characteristics generate alternative family-size scenarios and thus differing population forecasts, which in turn can lead to unforeseen solution strategies and thus a more sophisticated and pragmatic decision-making process when dealing with facility-location problems both in the public and the private sector.