Calculating Distances Between Different Layers

Question

I am not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I'll go ahead and explain my situation. I have two feature classes, both are polygons. One layer is blockgroups for Mobile County, Alabama, the other is a layer for hospitals throughout the county. I want to measure the distance from each block group to each hospital, such that it creates new fields in the attribute table for the distance to each hospital. I want an output that results in each block group having new fields for their distances to each hospital in Miles. Is there anyway to do this other than manually measuring???

BBicking1 · Answer

The data is in state plane (feet). However, it still gives me figures of -1 and 0, an all or nothing sort of thing. I need actual distances in feet.

Justin,

there is currently no tool that returns actual distance measures.

Use http://ideas.arcgis.com/ to request that the Near tool be enhanced with this option. I confirmed it's technically possible.

Barbara Bicking
ESRI - Geoprocessing Team

JustinShelton · Answer

The data is in state plane (feet). However, it still gives me figures of -1 and 0, an all or nothing sort of thing. I need actual distances in feet.

ChrisSnyder · Answer

Is your data in a geographic projection? If so, you may need to project it into something like stateplane or UTM...