Formal Comparison of Spatial Socioeconomic Units Based on their Typological Properties

Abstract

Spatial units often serve as a reference to socioeconomic phenomena constituting what is known as spatial socioeconomic units (SSEUs). SSEUs find a wide application in geography. In order to understand and compare different typologies of SSEUs, it is necessary to examine the most important part of their definition which is their properties, mainly spatial but also non-spatial. SSEUs defined in this framework can be qualitatively compared on the basis of their properties using the efficient method of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA). Basic elements of FCA are (a) the Formal context which associates objects and attributes via a relation, (b) the Formal concept or category, which is a collection of objects which share common attributes, (c) the hierarchical relation from a more general to more specialized concepts, and (d) the concept lattice which shows all formal concepts of a formal context. This paper presents an FCA-based comparison of SSEUs typological properties using two indicative examples.