Human Fieldwork

Question 1

What was the title of your fieldwork study?

Answer 1

To investigate the pattern of housing and environmental quality in Reigate

Question 2

What theories were you testing?

Answer 2

1) Land use zoning
2) Bid rent theory (land values in cities and towns)
3) Urban sprawl
4) Historic concentric ring growth of towns (Burgess Theory)
5) Commuter settlements

Question 3

What was the primary data?

Answer 3

1) Environmental Quality Survey

2) Housing Quality Survey

Question 4

What secondary data did you use?

Answer 4

1) Census data (2011)
2) Index of multiple deprivation
3) Zoopla for housing prices

Question 5

What did you consider in your risk assessment?

Answer 5

1) Adverse weather (suitable clothing, stay inside if storms, adapt timing if necessary)
2) Traffic (cross at zebra or other safe spots)
3) Getting lost / abducted (verbal warning, agreed meeting times and places, adult ratios maintained, lost child policy in place).

Question 6

For your Environmental Quality Survey, what scale did you use to collect the data?

Answer 6

\+2 (High)
\+1 (Fine)
0 (average)
-1 (Poor)
-2 (very poor)

Question 7

What qualities did you assess?

Answer 7

Buildings and traffic

Question 8

What buildings qualities did you assess?

Answer 8

1) Well designed
2) Condition
3) Maintenance
4) Outside space / garden
5) Vandalism

Question 9

What traffic qualities did you assess?

Answer 9

1) Traffic congestion
2) Parking ease
3) Traffic noise
4) People safety
5) Traffic smell

Question 10

For your Housing Quality Survey, what did you award scores for?

Answer 10

1) House type - detached, terraced, flat etc
2) Garage - none, single, double, integral
3) Front garden size
4) Number of trees
5) Street appearance
6) Traffic
7) Views from the house

Question 11

How did you compile the scores?

Answer 11

1) Used all measures
2) Add up all the scores
3) For each criteria, add all the scores for each hose to get a Total House Quality Index

Question 12

How did you represent the Environmental Quality Survey

Answer 12

For each road (e.g. Blanford Road), we presented this in a bar chart which ranged from -2 to +2 for each criteria.

Question 13

What are the advantages (and disadvantages) for the bar chart method to show the Environmental Quality Survey data?

Answer 13

1) Good visual impact for categorical data
2) Makes it easy and quick to analyze at a glance
3) Can easily see trends when comparing different
streets

Disadvantage is that using too few categories can mask important patterns in the data

Question 14

How did you show results from Housing Quality Survey?

Answer 14

Took photographs and annotated with comments

Question 15

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using photographs

Answer 15

Adv - Good visual snapshot, can bring out detail in comments

Disadvantage - Can mask socio economic characteristics

Question 16

What conclusions did you draw?

Answer 16

1) Housing and environmental quality increases the further way from the Centre of Reigate.
2) Housing and environmental quality increases with height of land

Question 17

What explanations did you draw?

Answer 17

• Larger and detached houses are further out of Reigate
• Due to topography, more desirable properties in the best hill locations
• More land available away from town led to larger houses
• People trade off being away from Centre for more land and space in more attractive areas
• Larger driveways, front and back gardens and garages away from Centre, compared to no gardens, street parking closer to Centre.
• Older housing (Victorian) close to Centre due to concentric ring growth compared to newer more spaced out housing further out.
• Affluent housing was populated by people who commute to London daily rather than work int he Centre of Reigate

Question 18

What were your further evaluations?

Answer 18

1) Splitting into zones provided good spatial coverage
2) 10 street sample gave a good representation
3) Subjective assessment of data collection; one person’s view may differ from another
4) Relatively small scale (-2 to +2) makes it hard to differentiate. Possibly enlarge to 5.
5) Certain streets weren’t represented in the data. Sampling could be enlarged.
6) Results could be supported by using Census and Index of Multiple Deprivation data to provide greater insight onto soci-economic characteristics