A study on methods for detecting districts with locally significant population changes using the basic grid square statistics

Abstract

In this paper, methods for detecting districts with locally significant population changes are discussed. The methods are practically applied to 240 meshes (1km×1km), including the three wards of Nerima, Suginami, and Setagaya in the western part of Tokyo's 23 wards. There are some problems with using a choropleth map of the rate of population change, and in particular, it is difficult to capture population change according to the difference in spatial scale. To overcome the problem, a method is employed to test whether the population ratio of a mesh relative to the surrounding meshes has changed or not. This method allows us to find districts that show local population changes, and is expected to be effective for urban planning in a society with a declining population in the future.