Towards geographically robust statistically significant regional colocation pattern detection

Given a set S of spatial feature-types, its feature-instances, a study area, and a neighbor relationship, the goal is to find pairs <a region (rg), a subset C of S> such that C is a statistically significant regional colocation pattern in region rg. For example Caribou Coffee and Starbucks are significantly co-located in Minneapolis but not in Dallas at present. This problem has applications in a wide variety of domains including ecology, economics, and sociology. The problem is computationally challenging due to the exponential number of regional colocation patterns and candidate regions. The current literature on regional colocation pattern detection has not addressed statistical significance which can result in spurious (chance) pattern instances. In this paper, we propose a novel technique for mining statistically significant regional colocation patterns. Our approach determines regions based on geographically defined boundaries (e.g., counties) unlike previous works which employed clustering, or regular polygons to enumerate candidate regions. To reduce spurious patterns, we perform a statistical significance test by modeling the observed data points with multiple Monte Carlo simulations within the corresponding regions. Using Safegraph POI dataset, this paper provides a case study on retail establishments in Minnesota for validation of proposed ideas. The paper also provides a detailed interpretation of discovered patterns using game theory and regional economics.