My Geography project is based on the old Roman and Georgian city of Bath, in the South West of England.

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Contents Page.

Aim and Land Use        Page 2

Land Use        Page 3

Land Use Map        Page 4

Land Use Graph        Page 5

Land Use Classification        Page 6

Building Heights        Page 7

Building Heights Map        Page 8

Pedestrian Count        Page 9

Pedestrian Count and Photograph        Page 10

Pedestrian Count and Map        Page 11

Environmental Survey        Page 12

Environmental Survey Table        Page 13

Environmental Survey transect line map        Page 14

Environmental Survey Graph        Page 15

Function Clustering        Page 16

Function Clustering        Page 17

Function Clustering and Photo        Page 18

Function Clustering – Chemist map        Page 19

Function Clustering – Restaurants and Cafes        Page 20

Function Clustering – Banks and building societies        Page 21

Nearest Neighbour Analysis        Page 22

Predicted Central Business District area        Page 23

Conclusion        Page 24

 

Geography Project.

Introduction.

The Background of Bath.

        My Geography project is based on the old Roman and Georgian city of Bath, in the South West of England. The city is located in the county of Avon, and was built up in the Roman periods, mainly around the Baths and the Abbey. Huge developments were made in the 18th century, and so now many of the buildings are Georgian. The city has expanded greatly over the years, and now has the two major functions of tourism and shopping. The main attraction for the tourists is the Roman Baths, but many people come from far away to view the historical Abbey and beautiful architecture of the buildings. The large range of shops and amenities that the city has to offer attracts both the nearby tourists and local residents. Bath is now a successful trade centre, and is a very attractive city, enjoyed by many people. The city is also large enough to have a Central Business District (CBD). This is generally located at the centre of the city and tends to have very high land values, a high threshold and the majority of the city’s retail outlets.

The above map was found on the Internet and shows the situation of the city of Bath in the South of England.

These two photographs depict the architectural magnificence of the Abbey and the Baths. They are both situated at the very centre of the city, and attract a large number of tourists. These contrast hugely to the more modern attractions of today that have encroached on the centre of the city.

Aim.

        The aim of this project is to identify the Central Business District of the city of Bath using a range of criteria. There are four main criteria, which are investigating the land uses of each building, measuring the building heights, pedestrian counts in various locations and inspecting the environmental quality and general appearance of certain places throughout the city. These different investigations should enable me to find the exact Central Business District of the city.

Land Uses. (Refer to map 1 and graph 1)

Hypothesis.

        My prediction for this section of the project is that the centre of the selected area of Bath will consist mainly of commercial, retail buildings, being dominated by many large chain stores. These large chain stores may include shops such as Dixons, JJB Sports, or WHSmiths, which can always be found in most cities or large towns. The reason for the large chain stores being located in the centre of most of the large towns or cities is that they can afford to purchase the land here; this is because of their large annual profit. They desire to have their stores here due to the high population of shoppers normally being in the centre of the town, which obviously means more potential buyers near to their store.

Method.

        To collect the data for investigating the land use section of Bath, we were issued with a detailed map of the inner city, with each building clearly marked onto it. We travelled, in our pairs, around our area on the map, taking note of each building’s use and marking it onto our maps. The map area was split into three parts, the North zone, the South zone, and the Central zone, the south being where I was working. This meant that the only part of the city which I could be totally sure that was accurate was the south zone, as I had to rely on other people’s data for my map to be correct. The land uses were also split into categories, and so, as an example, if the building were Boots, then the category would be retail. The categories that we used were residential, retail, professional and commercial, industrial and storage, entertainment, public authorities and other. Each of these had a letter, from A to G, and so for Boots, which is retail, then the letter B would be placed into the building space on the map.

        When we returned to school, we were given a new map and each individual building was coloured in so that we had a colour co-ordinated map of the city (This is labelled as map 1). Each building category was given a colour, and so when looking at the map it was clear to see where the majority of each building type was. When this map was completed, we added to it a series of concentric circles (each with the same centre). The centre of these circles was placed at what we had considered to be the centre of the city as a result of our pedestrian count. The area with the most pedestrians recorded was at the corner of the building where Cheap Street crosses Stall Street, and so this is the situation on our maps where the circles where measured from. The first of these circles had a diameter of four centimetres on the map, the second had eight, and the third had twelve. This meant that the distance between each of the circles was four centimetres. I then created a graph that would show each of the building uses in each of the circles. I placed all three of the concentric circles onto the same graph, so that they could be viewed together and so compared more easily. To obtain the data for the graph to be produced, we had to firstly count how many buildings that there were for each different type of building use, in each of the circles. So, we had to count how many retail buildings that there were in the first concentric circle, the second concentric and the third concentric circle. We repeated this method of counting for each of the building categories, and each of the zones.

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        Each of these figures were made into a percentage of the total, and the graph was laid out so that the inner zone results were in descending order at the start of each group of columns. These again were both done for ease of comparing.

Evaluation.

        The graph and map that I have produced clearly show me that my prediction for this section was correct. It is clear to see that the inner circle has a higher percentage of retail buildings than the other circles. As we go away from the centre then this percentage tends to ...

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