A final reason for conducting the investigation was the usefulness of knowing how to delimit a CBD. When placing a business it is important to have it situated in or as close as possible to the Central Business District, as it is in the CBD people expect to find work, shops and businesses offering services. For example it would be stupid to place a bank 1 mile out from the nearest shop, no-one would want to work there or use the bank. It is also important for the county council authorities to be able to delimit a CBD as the county council is responsible for controlling the growth and structuring of a town. It is the council’s responsibility to place the CCTV cameras, rubbish bins, public toilets and benches; they must know where to place them.
Methodology
Primary Data
When the Rugby School group arrived in Stamford on the 5th November 2002
each group first made its way in to the town centre for 11:30am, to the point assigned to them. There were 10 points (shown in Fig 2.1) which were intelligently chosen, at roughly equal distances apart and covering as much of the central area of Stamford as possible, once the data had been pooled the groups would have a very detailed picture of the centre of Stamford. Once there, the group counted the pedestrians passing that point on both sides off the street, for five minutes then recorded the data, this was repeated twice more. Doing each set of data collection three times allowed the group to collect data of greater reliability, because if an unusual rush of people had passed all at once then the data would not be distorted; we would be able to discard the data collected at the time of the rush and use the two other readings.
After counting pedestrians the group observed the buildings 50 metres either side of their point and noted down the shopping quality and street appearance, using the system of assessing (fig. 2.2) provided by the geography department of Rugby. The positions of any nearby rubbish bins were also noted down
Finally my group (stationed on centre point 4) also decided to conduct a questionnaire; the questions that they chose to ask were:
“Do you ever shop within 100m of where we are now” and “How far away from here do you live”
The group interviewed as many of the people who passed their point as possible in the time available, but not everyone agreed to answer the questions.
The groups were also each given a transect leading off from the centre of the town. The transects divided the town into seven sections. The transects were chosen intelligently by the Geography staff at Rugby, they were chosen to show the greatest change possible along their length and sample as much of the town as possible. Each transect branched out from the centre of Stamford, along a main road, providing safety and ease to walk along its length. The transects went away from Stamford until we could be sure it was not going to be the CBD anymore; ie. There were no longer any shops along the road, only houses. Each transect had three points along its length chosen intelligibly at roughly equal distances from each other to show the change with distance from the centre of Stamford. These points allowed us to use the transects as interrupted transects. We needed to assess these aspects of the town at each point because we hoped to see trends with increasing distance from the town centre; this would help us to delimit the CBD of Stamford, the aim of the project. The Data which was collected at each point was the number of pedestrians passing in five minutes, shopping quality and street appearance along its length. This information was collected in the same way as on the centre points. Again when groups pooled all the data they would each have a wide perspective of the town centre.
The groups were also assigned times to go to each of the points along the transects, each group did their 1st transect point at 12:30pm, point 2 at 13:00pm and then point 3 at 13:30. These times applied for all the other groups as well, to uniform the data collected between groups. At each of the points the number of cars and pedestrians going into and out of the town were counted and the shopping area 50 metres either way was assessed. Our group also did the questionnaire along at each of its transect points. Finally the group observed the buildings 50 metres either side the transect point and noted down the shopping quality and street appearance. The group repeated all these steps at all the other transect points.
The group then worked its way back to the centre of Stamford noting down where any litter bins were.
Group Primary Data
There were seven groups of three people doing the seven transects and there were ten groups of two people assigned with a point in the centre of Stamford. Each of these groups followed the same method of timings and assessing the area for their assigned transects and points at the centre of Stamford. Once all the data had been pooled we had a very detailed picture of the main roads into Stamford, which took cross-sections of the layers of urban development in Stamford as transects. Shopping quality, pedestrian counts, street appearance and positions of rubbish bins were all available for our analysis.
Secondary Data
It was also possible to find out the bid rent or rateable value of a building in the CBD using the VOA website (). The rateable values for stratified buildings along Broad Street, High Street, Iron Monger Street, All Saints Street, Maiden Lane, St Marys Street and Mary Hill were taken. The buildings chosen were on average three buildings apart (to see the actual buildings chosen see the rateable values section of the analysis and interpretation.). Once the buildings had been identified and their rateable values taken, the buildings area was measured by multiplying the width by the length. These dimensions were found by using the goad map provided by Experian which was to scale. The rateable value of the building could then be divided by the area to give a rateable index.
Lincolnshire Police kindly provided information on where crimes had recently taken place. The positions of the crimes were in address format so all that was necessary to present the results in was to mark the points on a map of Stamford centre. The Assaults and Criminal Damage data can also been used to give an indication of the centre of Stamford CBD. This was done by placing a numbered grid over the map and noting down the position on the grid, i.e. coordinates of each site of crime.
Results
Analysis and Interpretation
Pedestrian counts:
Centre point pedestrian counts
The average pedestrian count was calculated by summing the three measurements of each point and then dividing by three.
Transect point pedestrian counts – Into the centre of town
The average pedestrian count was calculated by summing the three measurements of each point and then dividing by three.
Transect point pedestrian counts – Away from the centre of town
The average pedestrian count was calculated by summing the three measurements at each point and then dividing the sum by three.
From the Pedestrian count results, illustrated in fig. 3.1 and 3.2 one can see a trend of increasing numbers of pedestrians on the streets with decreasing distance from the centre of Stamford, this is as predicted. Transect 5 breaks the trend of reducing pedestrian counts from point 1-3, transect five has large pedestrian counts at all three points, this indicates a north westward trend. The largest bars and boxes on the maps indicate that those points are part of the CBD. Because the CBD is likely to have many pedestrians walking on the streets. Many pedestrians will be walking in a CBD because of the high clustering of high order shops with high customer thresholds within the CBD. This high quality of shopping is mentioned in the shopping quality section of the results, interpretation and analysis. If one was to delimit the CBD from this map and results only one would probably end up with a similar map to Fig. 3.4 and 3.5. The ring for the CBD fringe ( Fig 3.4 ) was marked out as an isoline where the Average pedestrian count was 8. The ring for the CBD core ( Fig 3.5) was marked out as an isoline where the Average pedestrian count was 50. The area within the rings would then be the CBD core and CBD fringe.
Shopping Quality:
Shopping quality results measured using the SQ index are shown here with the SQ index percentage. The SQ index was marked out of 23. The SQ index was then turned into a percentage by dividing it by 23.
From the Shopping Quality results, illustrated in fig. 4.1 and 4.2 one can see a trend of decreasing SP index and therefore increasing shopping quality with decreasing distance from the centre of Stamford, this is as predicted. The largest boxes on the maps indicate that those points are not part of the CBD because the CBD is likely to have a good shopping quality as it is a centre of commerce and business. Large businesses and chain stores will want to have their shops in the best places, Prices are pushed up (see rateable indexes) and the only companies able to afford the land are the large stores and many large well-known shops creates a good shopping quality and a low SQ index.
If one was to delimit the CBD from the shopping quality results only, one would probably end up with a similar map to Fig. 4.3 and 4.4. The ring for the CBD fringe ( Fig 4.3 ) was marked out as an isoline where the SQ index was roughly 75%. The ring for the CBD core ( Fig 4.4) was marked out as an isoline where the SQ index was 50%. The area within the rings would then be the CBD core and CBD fringe.
Street Appearance:
Street appearance results measured using the SP index are shown here with the SP index percentage. The SP index was marked out of 23. The SP index was then turned into a percentage by dividing it by 30
From the Street appearance results, illustrated in fig. 5.1 and 5.2 one can see a trend of decreasing SP index and therefore increasing street appearance with decreasing distance from the centre of Stamford, this is as predicted. The largest bars on the maps indicate that those points are not part of the CBD because the CBD is likely to have a good street appearance as it is a centre of commerce and business and the council will want this place to be clean of litter and look good. This is because, if a place is really clean it will attract more people and more business meaning more revenue for the council. If one was to delimit the CBD from the street appearance results only one would probably end up with a similar map to Fig. 5.3 and 5.4. The ring for the CBD fringe ( Fig 5.3 ) was marked out as an isoline where the SQ index was 50%. The ring for the CBD core ( Fig 5.4) was marked out as an isoline where the SQ index was 40%. The area within the rings would then be the CBD core and CBD fringe. But the street appearance measurements were very close, not giving clear cut trends this data is unlikely to give a reliable delimitation.
The questionnaire
The questionnaire results for transect two and Centre point 4 were successful in giving clear trends (fig 6.1 and 6.2). A high percentage of people answered “yes” to the question “Do you ever shop within 50 metres of here” in the centre point 4. Also transect points 1 and 2 have both given a 60% answer of ‘yes’ to the question indicating that they are part of the CBD fringe but transect point 3 had no answers of ‘yes’ to the question, indicating that that point is not part of the CBD. If it was part of the CBD one would expect a high percentage of people answering ‘yes’ to the question because the CBD is the min shopping area of the town.
The second question, “How far away do you live” gave less clear cut results but there was still a trend that as one got further away from the centre people were living closer. One would expect people to have walked or driven longer distances to get to the CBD a) because the CBD contains few houses and b) because people will come a long way to get high order goods which are found in the centre of a town. As one got closer to the centre more of the people asked said they had travelled a greater distance to get to where there, which would suggest that these points were part of the CBD. The CBD point and to some extent transect point two (indicating that even though transect point 1 is closer it isn’t as much part of the CBD as Transect point 2) contained people which answered that they had driven for over 30mins to get there. This suggests that these points are part of the CBD. But Transect point 1 and 3 both had 100% people walking to get there and in transect 3 50% of the people only walked 5 minutes to get there indicating those points were not part of the CBD.
Assaults and Criminal Damage
The fold out A3 map (Fig. 7.1) in the results section shows all the places where criminal damage and assaults have taken place in 19/08/02 – 13/10/02. Each square on the map represents a point where a crime took place, red squares represent assaults and yellow squares represent criminal damage
As predicted they show an increase in density with decreasing distance from the centre of Stamford. A lot of criminal damage and assaults have taken place along Broad street and the High street, indicating that they are part of the CBD core. More assaults can be expected to have taken place in the CBD because there will be more people there to assault and they are likely to be carrying recently bought items. In the CBD there are more pubs and shops in which alcoholic beverages can be found and alcohol is known to increase the likelihood of criminal incidents. Therefore increased densities of criminal incidents are likely to be found in the CBD.
Using only this map and the Assaults and Criminal Damage data a rough delimitation of the CBD has been marked out. The blue ring represents the end of the CBD core and the dark green ring represents the end of the CBD fringe
The Assaults and Criminal Damage data can also been used to give an indication of the centre of Stamford CBD. This was done by placing a numbered grid over the map and noting down the position on the grid, i.e. coordinates each site of crime:
The mean average point was then calculated using the formula:
( (Sum of all x’s)/No. of points , (Sum of all y’s)/No. of points )
The mean average point for all the crimes was calculated to be ( 8 , 16 ). This could be taken to be the rough centre of Stamford CBD
Rubbish bins
Fig. 8.1 (Fold out map in the results section) shows the points in Stamford where litter bins were found. There is a trend on the map of increasing density of litterbins with decreasing distance from the town centre. This is supported in the prediction.
To mathematically show the densities are actually increasing one has to work out the densities. To do this the points had to be divided up into different distances away from the centre point (the centre point determined in the Assaults and criminal damage section was used here). Circles of increasing radius have been drawn from the centre point at distances of 125m, 250m, 375m and 500m. The number of bins marked within each ring was then counted, the area of the ring was then calculated using the formula: ∏r2 -∏(r-125)2 when r = radius of the ring and the density calculated by dividing the number of points in the ring by the area:
As predicted the density of litterbins increases with decreasing distance from the centre. But the densities of the 125m and 250m rings are quite large compared to the other two indicating that the two inner rings are part of the CBD and the other two are not.
Rateable Indexes
Rateable Value and Index for the centre of Stamford:
After sampling 60 buildings in Stamford central and taking their rateable value their area was also measured. To get a rateable value index the rateable value was divided by the total area of the building.
The three leaf map, labelled Fig 9.1 is a graphical representation of the results collected on Rateable Index. On the back sheet, a goad map, the individual sampled buildings have been coloured in categories depending on their calculated rateable index. The OHT top sheet has the calculated rateable indexes of each building written out in their respective positions on the Stamford map. On the middle sheet of tracing paper, isolines have been drawn. These have been done with a different colour coding and categorising system to the back sheet in order to emphasize the trends shown. The trends are that with decreasing distance from the centre of Stamford the Rateable index increased, with the most expensive buildings being in the very centre, on the High street. The buildings in the CBD are more expensive because there are more pedestrians (discussed in the pedestrian count section of the analysis and interpretation) in the CBD which will be willing to spend money in shops. There is an environment in the CBD which attracts shoppers and clients because the CBD has good street appearance (discussed in the street appearance section of analysis and interpretation), high quality shopping (also discussed in analysis and interpretation) chains will also be willing to pay more for desirable premises. The rateable index is an index with is proportional to how desirable premises are. The trends in the results indicate therefore that, the CBD fringe is at a rateable index of around 250 and the CBD core has a rateable index of over 400.
Conclusions
All the results have given a very similar set of trends and estimates of the CBD core and fringe limits. Shopping quality, Street appearance, number of pedestrians on streets, Assaults, Criminal damage and rateable index all increased with decreasing distance from the centre of Stamford, similarly the high point was usually the high street. Shown below on a map of Stamford are the estimations already made using each set of data of the Stamford CBD fringe:
All of the estimations for the delimits of Stamford cover the high street and Broad street and at least half of St Marys Street. There is conflicting evidence though, in the Data over the position of the North-East and Southern limit of the CBD fringe.
To combine all the data and make a singe delimitation of the CBD fringe can be done by averaging out the estimations made by each of the results, this average can then be taken to be the delimits of Stamford CBD Fringe:
The result for litterbins also suggested that the CBD ended at about 250m from the centre point. This reinforces the conclusion drawn because the delimitation is about 200m away from the centre point on average.
Shown below on a map of Stamford are the estimations already made using each set of data of the Stamford CBD core:
All of the estimations for the delimits of Stamford CBD core cover the high street and Broad street and at least half of St Marys street. There is conflicting evidence though, in the Data over the size of the CBD core with the estimations differing on their southern and Northern borders.
To combine all the data and make a singe delimitation of the CBD core can be done by averaging out the estimations made by each of the result, this average can then be taken to be the delimits of Stamford CBD Fringe:
Evaluation
The investigation and delimitation of Stamford CBD has been successful. Each piece of data collected provided roughly the same trends indicating that they are reliable and that none of our data collection techniques were wildly awry. There were some problems and limitations though, which we encountered whilst conducting the investigation.
Pilot error
There was also a problem in the use of so many small groups of pupils, because each group had a slightly different idea of the aim of the project and the things which needed to be counted or measured in Stamford, each group might also rate streets of the same quality differently to other groups. All this accounted for an increased unreliability and inaccuracy. This inaccuracy is likely to have been reflected in the conclusions drawn in the conclusions section. One method which could have been used to increase reliability of results would be to have done the data collection three times on different days and have different groups collecting the data. Not only would this reduce the pilot error and unreliability it would show up freak occurrences which just happened on one day, e.g. a school trip increasing a pedestrian count or the street having been recently cleaned increasing the recorded street appearance on one of the days.
Survey error
There were some problems with the sampling strategy as well, the Department of Geography at Rugby chose to use a set of stratified points in Stamford chosen to be at sites of interest where change was likely to be seen. This may have warped the results slightly. Possibly a better strategy would have been to have placed the points randomly and/or at equal distances from each other. But this is also open to luck and chance of position choice so the best strategy would have been to have many points.
It would have been better if we could have collected data from more indicators of whether a point is in the CBD or not, for example we could have recorded the price some everyday items were selling in shops. If we did this we would expect increasing price with decreasing distance from the CBD.
It would also have been good if we could have collected data on number of cars passing the points every five minutes. The results expected for this would be similar to the pedestrian count, increasing with decreasing distance from the centre. Although pedestrianised zones would limit the results they would still give one a fuller picture of the nature of Stamford at each point which in turn would make it easier to delimit the CBD.
It would have been preferred if we could have expanded on our data, having more points of collection, but as this was only a GCSE project it wouldn’t have been possible to spend more time. It would also have been better if the questionnaire had been conducted at every centre point and transect point, not just transect 2 and CBD 4. If there had been more people or more time this would all have been possible.
Summary
Overall the investigation produced an informed delimitation estimate of Stamford CBD Fringe and Core but the accuracy and reliability would not be sufficient for it to be called a definite and accurate delimitation or to make it commercially viable.
Bibliography
Maps from
Crime data provided by Lincolnshire police
Rateable values taken from
Goad map from Experian
Class notes
The department of Geography intranet
Appendices
Pedestrian count
See page 14
Street appearance
See page 17
Shopping Quality
See page 16
Rateable index
See page 17
Questionnaire
“Do you ever shop within 50 metres of here?”
“How far away do you live?”
