Does the 'quality of life' vary in Enfield?

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Does the 'quality of life' vary in Enfield?

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Introduction

Aim

I hope to find a pattern that will show us which areas of Enfield offer a better of quality of life than others. I also hope find out whether Enfield has typical suburban characteristics and compare it to other suburban towns in different areas of London.

Assignment

The assignment was to survey roads in four different wards in the borough of Enfield. These wards were chosen by Mr. Porter. We then had to choose another ward to look at on our own. We were to assess these different areas by using an ‘Environmental Quality Survey’ (EQS). Various properties of each road will be recorded and awarded marks for different aspects. These properties were to be chosen by ourselves individually.

Location

Enfield is a suburban borough lying on the outskirts of London. It is made up of 23 wards- all of different sizes. It works out that each ward has around the same population, meaning that the larger wards such as Chase will be less densely populated. The entire population of Enfield comes to nearly 300,000 inhabitants. The map of greater London below shows the position of Enfield in the far north of the map.

The map below shows the whole of Enfield. There are borders marking where the different wards are. I have highlighted the four wards that I will be looking at- Grange, Bush Hill Park, Haselbury and Edmonton Green. I also chose to investigate Southgate.

Suburbs

The definition of ‘suburb’ is a district lying on the borders of a city. Houses are usually spread over a large distance. Towards the edges of the suburbs you will find larger houses. Of course there will be smaller towns spread throughout the suburbs. We can expect many families, commuters, and older residents to inhabit suburban towns because they offer affordable and convenient housing, good facilities and plenty of shops and entertainment. Suburbs are the perfectly place for older people to retire and settle down. They are also a place for younger people because they can be affordable and practical.

Using Models

A model is a representation of a typical city. There are various models created by different people who have different ideas as to how a city tends to be structured. Most cities (especially older ones) were not designed to form a pattern. Newer areas such as Milton Keynes were planned out perfectly so that there was a network of straight roads.

The Burgess Model

This is the most common model and probably the most accurate. It shows the CBD (central business district) at the centre of the city. This is the main focal point of the city. As you move further away from the centre the buildings become more recent and land values increase. In zone 3 you would expect to find large tower blocks to home lots of people in a smaller space. In zone 5 you would find larger detached housing and estates spread over a wider space. . This is due to rapid growth and development of a city. Most cities originate from an original settlement, which can normally be found at the centre of the city. As more people move to the city they vacate more space and grow outwards. Workers live outside of the cit where housing is more affordable and can be larger. They can travel into the city for their jobs by car or efficient tube services.

The Hoyt Model

The Hoyt model comes from a slightly different idea about how cities crew. Instead of growing outwards and forming rings around the centre, Hoyt thought that cities grew in wedge shaped sectors. These wedges were formed along main transport routes leading to the Central Business District. In the same way that older factories were located by railways and canals, the newer factories and businesses were set up along main roads. This allowed people to live in the suburbs and then commute into the city very easily.

Hypothesis

I predict that the western wards of Enfield will have a better quality of life than the eastern wards of Enfield. The quality of the surroundings in the west will be a lot better and the land will be taken care of a lot more.

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Method

Environmental Quality Survey

An Environmental Quality Survey (EQS) is a survey that will hopefully help us to get an idea of the ‘quality of life’ in different areas- in this case the wards of Enfield. The 5 wards selected were chosen purposely so that we could examine the differences between the western wards and the eastern wards. Ideally we would collect data from all the wards of Enfield but it would simply be too much information to collect in the time given. We recorded data from a belt ...

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