A Point Approach to Zone Design

In this text a new approach to zone design is put forward, this approach relies on the use of point data to do what has usually been done through the use of polygons (Openshaw et all 1995, Martin 2000). This approach can be extended to a wide range of problems characterized by the need to aggregate m points into a smaller group of n points, given a certain optimization objective. It is felt that this perspective can, in the future, produce a rich conceptual framework to treat a number of frequent optimization problems in Spatial Science. This is particularly interesting because it allows the use of different optimization strategies like Genetic Algorithms. Here the application chosen to understand the possibilities of this approach is the electoral districting.