The nearest major city to Durham is Newcastle. The Road that connects it is the A1 (M). This road also connects Durham to other major Cities across the Country.
Deciding where a settlement ranks on a hierarchy is by using the population of the settlement. The larger the population, the higher the settlement is placed on the hierarchy. In the UK, the largest city in terms of population is London, which most people would agree is the most important settlement in the country and so deserves to be placed on the top of the urban hierarchy for the UK. Different sources will have different numbers for how many people are needed for a place to be called a city rather than a town for instance.
On a hierarchy, Durham is a City which means that there is a population of up to 1 million people and on average a city is 100km apart. However Durham actually does not consist of up to 1 million people but is still classed as a city because of its many shopping streets and several edge-of-city centres that are national stores, department stores and hypermarkets which are a main factor of attracting people from surrounding and far away areas.
Methodology
I am going to use five types of data collection for my investigation to prove my hypothesis correct that attractions in Durham city bring people in from surrounding and far away places.
The methods of data collection I am going to use are:
- Street plan
- Questionnaire
- Quality index
- Annotated photos
- Pedestrian and Vehicle survey
Street plan
I am going to use a street plan to show the places I am going to investigate. This will help me give a detailed overview of Durham and how the land uses are used. Also this will show how many services and facilities Durham offers to a large scale of people. Also my street map will help me with my other methods of recording such as my questionnaire, quality index and the photos I am going to annotate, because I will need to know which places to visit in Durham to carry out my investigations. So the street map will come in use throughout my investigation, therefore I will have to make sure it is clear and detailed. I will get my map from ‘Google maps’ as it is accurate and up to date, and therefore this will help me with my other methods of recording.
Questionnaire
I will use a questionnaire because it is a good and useful way of finding out where people have travelled from, for what purpose, and what they think about a certain place i.e. Durham. I am going to produce 50 copies of my questionnaire which I will complete in 5 different places, which means I am going to ask 10 people in each of the locations; prince bishops place, Gala Theatre, Bus Station, Market place and Silver Street. I will record my questionnaires on the 7th of February 2009, from 11am till 1pm.
Quality index
The quality index will tell me how demanding Durham and its services and facilities are; this may also indicate how far and often people are prepared to travel to access Durham and its services, because the higher the quality of goods and services the more people Durham will attract. I am going to produce about 10 copies of my Quality index, 2 in each of the locations where I am going to do my questionnaires. I am going to record my quality index on the 16th of February 2009, from 2pm till 2:30pm.
Annotated photos
I am going to annotate photos to show how Durham and its attractions look, why they are attractive and to whom they attract, this is a good way of recording as it gives a visual view of Durham and its facilities and so it will show that people come from surrounding areas for the retail outlets and from faraway areas for places such as Durham University. I am going to take the pictures on different days from 14th February till 21st February 2009, this is because some attractions in Durham may be open at different times to visit.
Pedestrian and Vehicle survey
Surveys are a good way of finding out how many people come into the city of Durham, because it gives an indication of the general population of shoppers and tourists. Also this will help me prove my hypothesis because the more people come into Durham, the attractive and popular Durham is. I am going to carry out my survey on the 16th of February 2009 from 2:30pm at Framwellgate bridge and at Leazes Road which is beside the Gala Theatre. I am going to count how many people/vehicle go past me at each of the locations for 1 minute. I am going to do this 5 times for each location and find out the average to give me an estimate of how many people visit Durham and how bus Durham’s roads are.
Street map
Questionnaire
Date: Name:
Gender: Male / Female Age: under 13 / 13-21 / 22+
Location: Climate:
- How far have you travelled to get to Durham?
Under 2 miles 3-6 miles
7-15 miles Over 15 miles
2. How often do you visit Durham?
Everyday Once a week
2-4 times a week Once a month
Once in 2-6 months Rarely (first visit)
- What is your purpose for visiting Durham?
Shopping Leisure
Entertainment Working
Education Other
If OTHER, please state …………………………………………………………...
- How did you travel to Durham?
Car Bus
Walk Train
Bike Van
Coach Other
If OTHER, please state …………………………………………………………...
- Do you think transport systems in Durham are efficient?
Yes No
- Do you think the retail outlets in Durham are adequate for your needs?
Yes No
- Are you going to use any of these services today?
Bank Clothing shops
Post office Travel agent
Furniture shops Electrical goods shops
None of above
If NONE OF ABOVE, please state………………………………………………….
- How would you rate the following? (1= Poor, 3=Good, 5= Excellent)
Variety of shops General environment
Quality of goods in shops Transport facilities
Leisure facilities Entertainment
Comments: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Quality index
Please indicate how good you think Durham’s environment and its facilities are by circling the appropriate number. For example 1 being poor, 3 being good and 5 being excellent.
Environment (surroundings of Durham)
General land use
Retail outlets (cloth shops/ local shops)
Range of goods (low-cost/high-cost)
Quality of goods
Leisure facilities
Transport facilities
Pedestrian Survey (Framwellgate Bridge)
Vehicle Survey (Leazes Road)
Collation - Results
1. How far have you travelled to get to Durham?
2. How often do you visit Durham?
3. What is your purpose for visiting Durham? (This may not add up to 100% as some people ticked more than one box)
4. How did you travel to Durham?
5. Do you think transport systems in Durham are efficient?
6. Do you think the retail outlets in Durham are adequate for your needs?
7. Are you going to use any of these services today? (This may not add up to 100% as some people ticked more than one box)
8. How would you rate the following?
Comments
- Transport systems should be improved.
- Durham is a good place to come and do my occasional shopping.
- Transport systems are excellent and very efficient.
- Even though I live in Newcastle I like to come to Durham and do my shopping.
- The atmosphere and environment of Durham is very nice.
- Durham has lots of attractions which I can have a look at.
Presentation
- How far have you travelled to get to Durham?
- How often do you visit Durham?
- What is your purpose for visiting Durham?
- How did you travel to Durham?
Car
Bus
Walk
Train
Bike
Van
Coach
Other
One object/picture represents two people; half of a picture represents one person.
5. Do you think transport systems in Durham are efficient?
- Do you think the retail outlets in Durham are adequate for your needs?
- Are you going to use to use any of these services today?
Bank
Clothing
Shops
Post
Office
Travel
Agent
Furniture
Shops
Electrical
Goods
Shops
None
One object/picture represents four people; quarter of a picture represents one person.
- How would you rate the following?
Interpretation
I am going to interpret my data to show links to my hypothesis, this will then help me to prove whether the hypothesis is correct or not.
The results for the first question of how far people have travelled to get to Durham has immediately proved part of my hypothesis correct as 6% have travelled 15 miles or more and although this is not a vast majority it is still indicates that people do travel far distances to visit Durham’s facilities and services. 7-15 miles could also be classed as travelling a long distance so this makes my hypothesis even stronger as 38% had travelled that distance to access Durham. Also 56% have travelled under 2 miles and 3-6 miles to access Durham which means that the majority of people visit Durham from the surrounding areas which again proves my hypothesis correct.
The results for how often Durham gets visited are that 42%, nearly half of the people I asked said that they visit Durham at least once a week, 22% visit 2-4 times a week and 8% visit Durham everyday which clearly shows that Durham is a popular place for its attractions maybe. 26% visit Durham occasionally as in once a month or once in 2-6 months which could be the people who have travelled a far distance to access Durham’s facilities. Only 2% said that they rarely visit or it is their first visit.
The results for the purpose of visiting Durham make it clear Durham is an attractive place for shopping as 88% said that one of the purposes was shopping which is a huge percentage. Entertainment was the next best purpose for visiting Durham as 40% agreed that Durham is suitable for meeting the purposes of entertainment, for example the Gala Theatre. Also 28% said that Durham is also a good place for leisure as there is bowling ally and many swimming pools popular to all age groups. 10% visit Durham for education purposes, they could be students at the University of Durham and may travel into Durham everyday which could explain the 10% that have travelled under 2 miles to get to Durham, so this could mean that students live within 2 miles of Durham as the housing in the CBD are cheaper than the housing at the outskirts of Durham. 6% visit Durham as they work there, which means that the city provides employment as well as services and facilities.
The results for how people travelled to Durham show that 56% travel on the bus to get to Durham which could mean that the transport system in and around Durham are efficient and therefore the majority of the people I asked said that they travelled by bus. Also 36% said that they got to Durham by a car which could also suggest good transport systems. A minority of 6% said that they travelled by train, bike or by walking.
The results of whether people thought transport systems in Durham were efficient or not were that 98% said it was, and only 2% said it wasn’t which explains and links to question 4 as all together 96% of the people travelled by a vehicle on the road which means that Durham really does have efficient transport systems. The results for the retail outlets being adequate for everybody’s needs were that 100% said yes, it was adequate for their needs, which links to question 3 as 88% said that their purpose for visiting Durham was to shop therefore this suggests that a lot of people come shopping because the shops are adequate for their needs.
The results for questions 7 were that 88% said they are going to use clothing shops which again links in with question 3 as 88% said that their purpose of visiting Durham was shopping, so there is a clear link to 3 with question 7. 26% said that they were going to use the bank; this might be to get money out so this could mean that people are happy to spend money on the services that Durham provides or the leisure and other facilities like on tourist attractions in Durham. 4% said that they would be visiting furniture shops which suggests that people think Durham is adequate for buying furniture, which means that Durham offers a range of furniture and choice as they could have also visited larger cities like Newcastle, presuming that bigger cities have better quality of goods, therefore this must mean that Durham is as good as Newcastle or offers the same or better quality goods.
The results for the last question in my questionnaire (question 8) generally show what people think of Durham’s services and facilities. Transport facilities seem to be rated the best out of variety of shops, quality of goods in shops, leisure facilities, general environment and entertainment, as 52% said the transport facilities were excellent. This also links into question 4 as 56% said that they travelled by bus which must mean that nearly everybody that travelled by bus are satisfied with the service and think it is capable of carrying on this way. 66% thought that the variety of shops and the quality of goods in shops were in between good and excellent and gave it a score of 4, this is also a high score which means that people think Durham is more than a good place to come and do their shopping as is the quality is nearly excellent and there are a variety of shops to visit. However the leisure facilities and entertainment did not prove to be as popular as the shops as 4% thought they were poor and gave it a score of 1, which could link into question 3 if you compare the percentage of 88% whose purpose to come to Durham was shopping to the 28% whose purpose was for leisure as it is considerably low, this could be because people think they are not very good so rated it as poor.
Throughout my questionnaires some people commented on what they think about Durham (shown on page 19), for example “Transport systems are excellent and very efficient”, this supports question 5 as 98% said they thought it was efficient and question 8 as 52% gave it a score of 5 which is excellent, therefore this must mean that transport systems are excellent and many like to travel to Durham because of the good quality transport systems. Another comment which supports my questionnaire and hypothesis is “Durham has lots of attractions”, attractions are in Durham so the general environment could reflect how good people think the attractions are. On question 8 the general environment was mostly scored 4 as 54% thought is was nearly excellent therefore the attractions must also be nearly excellent so people are attracted to Durham because of the attractions which proved part of my hypothesis correct.
The annotated photos show how
Evaluation.
In my evaluation I am going to talk about the reliability of methods, accuracy of results and validity of conclusion. This will show me whether I proved my hypothesis right or wrong.
The methods used to record were the street map which gave an birds eye view of Durham and how Durham was structured for example the names of streets/roads or how the land was used, questionnaires which gave different views of what people thought of Durham which I then summarised and presented to give an overall view of each question, quality index which illustrated the quality of the services and facilities of Durham, annotated photos which gave an insight of the types of buildings in Durham and its services and facilities and finally the pedestrian and vehicle survey which showed how congested or not Durham is. My street map could have been improved upon by getting a closer zoom of it as all the roads in Durham were not labelled on the map but only the major roads were, so if I were to change it I would zoom in and get a more detailed map because it would mean it is a more reliable map. My questionnaire could have been improved if I put another question in asking where they came from because this would have made my presentation stronger as I could have done a desire line map to show exactly how many people came to Durham and how far they travelled. Also I would not have put question 8 which asked to rate certain things because this was just like the quality index I did. In addition to that I would get more questionnaires done because 50 is not enough to say that the result to all of my questions are reliable. My quality index could have been improved if I put in a question related to the attractions in Durham so that it could link clearly to my hypothesis and also prove it right or wrong, so if I were to do my quality index again I would ask them to rate the attractions in Durham. Also I should have given them a wider range of number to circle for example, 1 = poor, 5 = good, 10 = excellent rather than 1 = poor, 3 = good, 5 = excellent, because it would have given me accurate results. My annotated photos could have been improved if I labelled minor things such as drains and pedestrian pathways because it would have shown that Durham is an organised and tidy place and that’s why people are attracted to it. My pedestrian and vehicle survey could have been improved if I counted for a longer length of time rather than just 1 minute as a more concentration of cars/people could have passed after or before and so gave me inaccurate results, so I were to re-do my surveys I would count for a longer length of time.
The accuracy of my results shows a discrepancy in each of the methods of recording. My street map is reasonably accurate as it is from ‘Google earth/maps’ which has been recently updated therefore the map should not cause too much concern when dealing with the accuracy of my results. However the questionnaire may not be as accurate as I thought it was going to be and there are various reasons. Firstly, it was a snapshot/sample of 50 questionnaires which aren’t enough to produce accurate and reliable results so if I asked more people for example 100+ I would have got different results as the proportion of people I will have asked would be bigger so would have been accurate. Secondly, if I asked people to complete the questionnaires at a different time of the day I may have got different results, this could have been because I may have asked different aged people or they may have been in a good/bad mood and other factors such as the weather because if I did this at a different time of the year more/less people might have stopped to complete the questionnaire.
Bibliography
- Heinemann AQA Understanding Geography
- Heinemann AQA Coursework Skills Companion