Hypothesis on CBD's.

Hypothesis 1: Graffiti levels decrease as you go away from the CBD

Graffiti would be found in areas of low land value surrounding the PLVI (peak land value intersection where the land is of highest value because of less care over environmental cleaning. The suburbs would be relatively graffiti–free. The Burgess Concentric ring Model of Land Use shows this.

This picture was obtained from the site: http://www.bennett.karoo.net/images/urban/burgess.gif

The reason why there is hardly any in the CBD is because when the graffiti is seen the shop will probably clean it. Also, there are Security Cameras and CCTVs. There is not much security in the buildings in the lower class buildings; also the graffiti will stay there for a much longer time.

Hypothesis 2: Pedestrian flows are highest where environmental quality is better

Pedestrians like going where there is a better environment, as it is quite attractive. They would go to the area where they feel secure. They would bunch up together in the CBD to buy comparison goods and services and specialist goods. The retailers would sell more if they locate in a place where there are many attractive surroundings. They would want to make the people travel from as far as possible. This is known as the range of goods.

Hypothesis 3: Shoppers like the Croydon environment

People may like the High Street environment because the areas nearest to the PLVI have very attractive surroundings. This attracts different stores to cluster in a small area. Areas away from the CBD fringe are parts of the zone in transition and these occupy lower quality environments on lower land value. These can often be used for car parking

Hypothesis 4: Litter Score will decrease as traffic flow increases and will increase as pedestrian flow increases

There are more pedestrians walking in pedestrianised zones than the roads, which are ...

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Hypothesis 3: Shoppers like the Croydon environment

Hypothesis 4: Litter Score will decrease as traffic flow increases and will increase as pedestrian flow increases

There are more pedestrians walking in pedestrianised zones than the roads, which are meant for vehicles. Therefore, there will be not as many people to drop litter on the ground. The people can’t throw rubbish onto the ground, and usually keep the rubbish in their cars until they get to a point where they can tip their rubbish out. In places of high pedestrian flow, there would be more shops that sell convenience goods, and people would throw it onto the ground if there was no litter bin around. They will be carrying shopping bags with them and they do not want to hold litter or put it in their shopping bags, so drop it on the ground.

Chapter 2: Methods of data collection

Hypothesis 1: How did I measure graffiti levels

After walking to the transect point, to measure the graffiti level, a scale of 1-5 was made, with 1 being no graffiti, and 5 being an area where graffiti dominates the vision. We scored the graffiti as such:

One person from the group gave the graffiti score for all of the transect points. His scoring was as follows:

The date was Friday at around 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM so the people would usually be in school at that time. This means that there cannot be any more graffiti until the school is finished. So it would not have mattered when the group came in the day. The method was a suitable technique because one person did the scoring, and because of this, he, can make his own mind without other people making their own scale up. This avoids disagreement.

It helps to answer the hypothesis by as each different transect point has a certain distance away from the CBD. I can then sort out the columns into ‘distance away from the CBD, and then see the pattern forming.

The limitations of data were the fact that it was done only in a one-off situation. If I gone back to Croydon two weeks later, the graffiti may have been cleaned or more may have been put on. The average should have been taken.

Hypothesis 2: How did I measure pedestrian flow and total environment

We measured the pedestrian flow by having an imaginary line starting from one side of the road, and finishing on the other. One person started a stopwatch for five minutes, while another boy began counting the people, who crossed that imaginary line on both sides of the road. It was the best technique because doing the same for a minute would be too short, and doing it for just one side of the road would be unfair. Again the time would be important, as most people would be at work. The peak time of pedestrian flow times of lunch break or the people that shop there on Saturday. Sometimes unfortunately, some sort of gathering was being held. So lots of those people walk passed the line.

We measured litter score by starting at one point, walking 10 paces, counting the number of pieces of litter along the way. This was a good technique as it was done completely randomly and was a fair test. There were no problems with this, but the score may be more accurate if I did it for 25 paces

The vegetation score was done in a similar way to the graffiti score. A scale of 1-5 was made, with 1 being very many trees graffiti, and 5 being an area where there is no vegetation at all. We scored the graffiti as such:

One person from the group gave the vegetation score for all of the transect points. This is because his opinion may be different to someone else’s, and he will keep the same scoring system throughout. His scoring was as follows:

The time that I had done this does not matter. However, I did it in the late springtime, so the tree had its leaves etc

The method was a suitable technique because one person did the scoring, and because of this, he, can make his own mind without other people making their own scale up. This avoids disagreement.

All of these are important environmental factors, if they are all grade 5 or there is lots of litter, no one would come to Croydon.