Computer model for the desirability of towns in the Boston area (Worcester: to buy, luxury)

[knaapan]

You're missing Providence entirely which is easily commutable from a lot these towns like Mansfield, Foxboro, Franklin etc. Nashua also has a lot of jobs as well which is also missing, So is woonsocket and a bunch of other places in RI.



Considering miles as the crow flies to be commuting distance is just too simplistic and benefits places like natick which are close of boston as the crow flies, but the commute by train is slow. Taking mansfield again as example or acton,, the miles between boston and natick is much less than boston and mansfield, but the train takes about 45 mins to SS for both.

[semiurbanite]

THe main flaw here is it's for engineers only. Biotech people on average probably make more than engineers. Same goes for people in the medical field. And there are tens of thousands of higher ed employees in the area. Searching on Engineer is just silly and will obviously bias the results toward 128 towns, when in reality most of the higher ed, medical, biotech people are in the city. Not only that, but those software engineers report to directors and VPs who make more but many don't have engineer in their title.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

^^^^
What an incredible waste of time. You can create the same data in a few minutes with an Excel spreadsheet. Just because your toolbox has a hammer in it doesn't mean you should use that hammer for everything.

It is beginner level coding and not time consuming. It's just long because there's 80+ towns. Mostly copy/pasting.

[panchilly]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

THe main flaw here is it's for engineers only. Biotech people on average probably make more than engineers. Same goes for people in the medical field. And there are tens of thousands of higher ed employees in the area. Searching on Engineer is just silly and will obviously bias the results toward 128 towns, when in reality most of the higher ed, medical, biotech people are in the city. Not only that, but those software engineers report to directors and VPs who make more but many don't have engineer in their title.

Couple things:

1) did you see the Colliers report about Biotech companies spreading throughout the region? Biotech is indeed spreading to 128.

2) did you see that the 128 belt has 68 million square feet of office space? Boston has 70. The total suburban square footage of office space is higher in the burbs than in boston + cambridge. Look at my other post for the numbers.

3) A surprising amount of the medical professionals working in the city live out on the 128 belt. Wellesley and Needham come to mind as having huge numbers of highly paid doctors. This area is still a draw for the biotech, medical, and university workers you speak of.

[sawyer2]

The assumptions in this model are so flawed that it is essentially useless.

Former mgt consultant here .... we used to call this GIGO.

[panchilly]

Originally Posted by sawyer2

The assumptions in this model are so flawed that it is essentially useless.

Former mgt consultant here .... we used to call this GIGO.

You think the output of program is garbage?

Explain why it is garbage. It is far from it.

Explain why the model is flawed.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by panchilly

Explain why the model is flawed.

Originally Posted by knaapan

Considering miles as the crow flies to be commuting distance is just too simplistic

^

[panchilly]

Originally Posted by redplum33

^

doing a more accurate approximation of travel time is more challenging. The goal is obviously to keep the model simple initially and then expand on it.

But the "as the crow flies" works pretty well. Straight line distance correlates very strongly with actual commute time. yes, there are outliers here and there. But the results from the program seem fairly spot on. On average it actually works pretty well.

[btownboss4]

Originally Posted by panchilly

You think the output of program is garbage?

Explain why it is garbage. It is far from it.

Explain why the model is flawed.

Engineering is hardly the only profession that’s the biggest problem.

The biggest companies in MA are Fidelity, Mass Mutual, Hanover Insurance, Liberty Mutual, which hire very few engineers

[panchilly]

Originally Posted by btownboss4

Engineering is hardly the only profession that’s the biggest problem.

The biggest companies in MA are Fidelity, Mass Mutual, Hanover Insurance, Liberty Mutual, which hire very few engineers

Take that code and come up with a better model then.