Population Dynamics in Jacksonville City, FL

Proposition

The company has recently decided to expand into a market located in Jacksonville City, Fl.  There was much debate between the partners on what type of business to sink money into, but it was then decided to use their population geographer on staff to figure out what the population breakdown is in Jacksonville compared to Florida and the United States as a whole.  Comparing Jacksonville City to the state and country level is important to understand what kind of industries will be doing well in the city.  To do this a population pyramid will be created along with the calculations of dependency ration and locations quotients.

Population Pyramid

Figure 1:  A population pyramid showing the percent in the category on the bottom with the age on the side.  

The population pyramid shows a few different ideas that are going on in Jacksonville, Fl.  First off,  There seems to be a large number of people between the ages of 20-29, and then it bumps back out at the age of 45-60.  This currently looks like the baby boom population and their kids making their way though the age gaps.  Therefore, it is not a very high retirement area compared to some of the other parts of Florida that may have a larger population of retirees. There is also not that large of a children population compared to others making it less of a profit coming from children companies. Now, based on the population pyramid the two groups that should be focused on the most will be the four sets of age groups that represent the highest part of the population.  

Next, is to look at the dependency ration.  This is a simple calculation that compares the youth and elderly populations to the population of the working age.  The equation:

 DR = 100 * (P_0-14 + P₆₅₊) / P_15-64

The dependency ration of Jacksonville, Fl is 46.44% and in the State of Florida it is 55.3%.  These were calculated by adding all of the population within the age groups from the equation above and doing the simple math involved.  These dependency ratios show that in Jacksonville Florida only 46.44% of the non-working class relies on the working class, compared to the state of Florida which has 55.3% of non-workers relying on the working class.  This is another point that shows that Jacksonville City has a lower 'retiree and children' population compared to the rest of the state.  

The next step was to fill in the graph below, (Figure 2) to find what kind of populations existed where and to determine the Location quotient from these numbers.  

Figure 2: Table showing the total population, percent population, and the difference between Hispanic population and the total white population. 

Figure 3:  Location quotient of Jacksonville City, County, and State.

The Location Quotient has a few different meanings.  If the number is 1, then it means that it is average for the Country.  If it is above 1 then that area has a larger population of that group.  If it below 1 than it s lower than the average area and group.  The data here shows that Jacksonville has about an average makeup, but at the county level has a very high percentage of people over the age of 65+.  This is interesting because it means people in the surrounding area, outside of the city, may be able to drive into the city to stores, therefore making that a strong contender for what kind of market the business will put money into.  

Finally, the last bit of calculation went into determining the type of service industries (Figure 4).  

Figure 4: Service industries within Jacksonville and State Level.  

This calculation was also done by using the Location Quotient.  With the results there It shows that the financial industry is strong in Jacksonville.  The rest of the industries represent an average area.  

Conclusion

Using the population pyramid, dependency ratio, location quotients of groups or ages, and location quotient based on industry brings the conclusion that the best idea would be to invest in a financial market that involves the population of 20-29 and 45-60.   By using these few estimates it could save the company time and money that would have been wasted in a different industry.