Spatial Microsimulation

Spatial microsimulation is a family of techniques for generating realistic synthetic populations of individuals within small geographic areas, by combining detailed but geographically coarse survey microdata with geographically fine but aggregate census tables. It estimates, for every neighbourhood, a population of individuals whose collective characteristics match the published margins — the right number of each age, sex, income, and tenure group — even though no survey directly samples individuals at that fine scale. Synthesized for the geographic community in Robin Lovelace and Morgane Dumont's 2016 book, it bridges the gap between rich individual data and small-area aggregates so that policy and behaviour can be modelled where people actually live.