density analysis from polygons

[MaryannSmith]

Hi-
I am creating density maps from polygons (.shp), which has involved many time consuming steps and I was hoping to simlify the process.  I have been taking each polygon, giving it a value of one then converting it to raster, adding the raster layers together, converting it to a point layer, then using Spatial Analysis to run a density analysis.  I'm working with about 5,000 polygons, so you can see that this is way too much work.  There has got to be an easier way!  Is there a way that I can take a .shp with many overlaping polygons and giving each a value of one add them together, then create a raster from that?  Or any other ideas?
-Thanks

[DonovanCameron]

There is some discussion about different methods from this forum with links to related forums:

http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/9740-Sum-of-Overlapping-Areas-Cells?p=33982&viewfull=1#post33982

Something in there should work for you. That link points specifically to my post which is a vector based method, outside of raster processing for those who don't have spatial analyst.