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How many trees in Central Park? Mkt Sizing Question

Market sizing
New answer on Jul 23, 2020
2 Answers
2.5 k Views
Anonymous A asked on Jul 22, 2020

Curious of what an MBB level breakdown would be for this, having difficulty creating answers without over assuming.

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Sidi
Expert
updated an answer on Jul 22, 2020
McKinsey Senior EM & BCG Consultant | Interviewer at McK & BCG for 7 years | Coached 350+ candidates secure MBB offers

Hi!

Please keep it simple! So you could just:

  1. Estimate (or ask for) the size of area covered by Central Park (let's say 3 square kilometers)
  2. Make an assumption on the share of the space covered by trees (let's say 50%, the rest is water, grass, walking spaces, etc.)
  3. Estimate the density of trees (let's say on average one tree needs 10x10m space, so 100 square meters)
  4. Divide the relevant tree-covered space by the required space per tree --> 1.5 square kilometers = 1.5 million square meters --> 1.5 million / 100 = 15k trees

Please note: this result is equally sensitive to all assumptions (since all elements are connected via multiplications or divisions). Hence, changing an assumption by a certain percentage will directly translate into a corresponding percentage-change in the result (e.g., if the density of trees is halved (--> doubling the the average square meters per tree), the final number of trees will also be halved).

Hope this is helpful!

Cheers, Sidi

(edited)

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Clara
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Jul 23, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

It´s a simple one, and you can extrapolate it to others such as:

  • How many heirs do you have in your head?
  • etc.

You need to calculate the area (or stimate) and then stimate a density of trees per unit of area.

In this case, I would stimate per every 10m2, that is something you can "size" in your head.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

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