Lifestyle segments

A lifestyle segment is a short label that summarizes the people living in a hex cell — their life stage, income and typical shopping behavior. Segments make trade areas and catchments readable at a glance: “62% Urban Professionals” tells you more in a meeting than a table of medians.

Every hex cell carries exactly one segment. Trade areas and catchments report a segment mix — the share of population (for catchments) or of modeled visitors (for trade areas) in each segment.

The eight segments

Segment	Slug	Description
Students & Starters	students-starters	Under-28 renters near campuses and transit; price-sensitive, high frequency, late hours.
Established Affluent	affluent-estates	High-income, older homeowners; premium brands, low visit frequency, high basket size.
Urban Professionals	urban-professionals	Well-paid singles and couples in dense cores; coffee, fitness, dining, weekday daytime traffic.
Golden Years	retirees	Older households; morning and midday visits, pharmacy and grocery loyalty.
Young Renters	young-renters	Late-20s to early-30s apartment dwellers; QSR, nightlife and convenience.
Suburban Families	suburban-families	Middle-to-upper income families; big-box, grocery and weekend leisure trips.
Working Families	working-families	Value-oriented households with children; discount grocery, QSR, fuel.
Value Seekers	value-seekers	Mixed-age, budget-conscious households; deal-driven, convenience-first.

The GET /api/v1/segments endpoint returns the same list with display colors.

How segments are assigned

In the demo dataset, a hex’s segment is derived from four of its modeled attributes: median age, an income index relative to the city’s baseline (1.0 = city typical), the local density index, and the share of family households. Rules are evaluated in order and the first match wins:

Order	Rule	Segment
1	median age < 28	Students & Starters
2	income index ≥ 1.7 and age ≥ 39	Established Affluent
3	income index ≥ 1.15 and density index ≥ 1.2	Urban Professionals
4	age ≥ 43	Golden Years
5	age < 32 and income index < 1.15	Young Renters
6	income index ≥ 1.0 and family share ≥ 40%	Suburban Families
7	income index < 0.85 and family share ≥ 36%	Working Families
8	otherwise	Value Seekers

The ordering matters: a 26-year-old in a wealthy, dense core is Students & Starters, not Urban Professionals. Because the rules use indices relative to each city, segments are comparable across markets even though Dubai incomes are in AED and US incomes in USD.

Using segments in analysis

• Trade area vs catchment. Compare a store’s trade-area mix (who actually comes, per the model) with the 1-mile catchment mix (who lives nearby). A large gap means the store draws from further away or from a daytime population.
• Brand fit. Premium formats over-index in Established Affluent and Urban Professionals; value formats in Working Families and Value Seekers. Look for candidate sites whose catchment matches your best stores’ trade areas.
• Daypart planning. Urban Professionals and Students & Starters areas skew toward weekday and late-hour traffic; Suburban Families toward weekends.

Caveats

Segments are a simplification. A single label per 0.8 km² cell hides variety within the cell, and the demo segments are produced by the rules above from synthetic demographics, not from surveys or consumer records. Use them for orientation and storytelling, and confirm with your own customer data when it matters. On Enterprise plans, custom segmentations can be loaded with your own data feeds (Demo data).