Overlapping buffers - Doublecount points that fall within 2 or more buffers

Question

I want to analyze crime around certain types of stores in a city. I made buffers around the stores and I need to a) select and extract crimes that occurred within those buffers, and b) join the two shape files (buffers and crimes) so that for every crime I also have information on the store it is close to (e.g. type of store, opening date).

Here's my problem: When two buffers overlap and a crime falls within both of them, I need to doublecount that crime and assign it to both buffers (and both stores).

Is there a way to do this in ArcMap?

Thank you, Giulia

Answer 1

This sounds like a Spatial Join where one crime point can fall within more than one (i.e. many) store buffer polygons.

If you are not familiar with that tool then I would recommend reviewing the Spatial Join online help and then try running some tests with your data to see if the output is what you are after.