Throughout this essay there are a few terms I will be using that need defining. This is so the theory and application of this theory into practice can be fully understood. The first of these terms is ‘Housing Tenure’.
Housing Tenure:
Housing Tenure is the legal right that somebody has to live in a house or place of residence. There are three different ways they can have this legal right and they are explain below:
A) Owner-Occupied
Owner-Occupied housing is the legal situation where someone owns that house outright by either paying for it directly or through a mortgage with a bank or money lending business. The legal right to live there will end if repayments on a loan or mortgage are not paid, and the property will then be reclaimed.
B) Private Rental
Private Rental includes a legal tenancy agreement between a landlord (a person who claims ownership of the property) and the tenant (the person wishing to stay in the property). The resident pays rent to the owner, as agreed in a contact that can last anywhere from 6 months to a year. The legal right to live there will end if rent is not paid, or terms in the tenancy contract are broken. The rules can often include no animals in the building, or allowing other persons to inhabit that space without paying rent themselves. In addition, a housing association or non-profit organizations can provide accommodation, privately rented.
C) Council Rental
This involves the renting of public housing, it is built and maintained by the local council and is then rented out to the public, often people who find it difficult to rent a privately owned house, or have been refused a mortgage for their own. The rent is often cheap and an agreement is signed to give tenants the legal right to stay there.
Socio-Economic Groupings
These groups are a way of splitting up the working populating into different groups with diverse levels of skill and invariably earnings. These groups are well established and known throughout the business world and anyone who frequently relates to employment statistics or figures.
You can see the groups and the type of people in each in the table below from the UK Registrar General Classification of Occupations.
UK Registrar General Classification of Occupations
Ipswich Wards
For my investigation I am using a method of splitting up Ipswich into it’s various ‘wards’. There are 16 of these in Ipswich and they’re all established and recognized areas of the town made so for political reasons. It helps when it comes to voting for local government representatives and also distribution of services such as health, police and fire services and also residents needs in certain areas can be addressed more individually.
The census data also uses this system of wards when presenting it’s information, so using it will allow me to make much easier comparisons between them and integrate the information into my reckonings much easier.
The map of these wards can be seen below in Image #1, each ward is labeled and their location in Ipswich can be seen in relation to the others.
The method I am using to compare the wards and to eventually conclude whether or not owner-occupied housing does increase, I shall be splitting the wards up using 5 lines called ‘transects’.
These transects have not just been placed randomly on the map as their location is important to the process. All 5 transects together pass through every single ward in Ipswich so together covering the entire area. It is important they do this to incorporate all the necessary areas and ensure accuracy in the conclusion.
These 5 transects have now formed the structure upon which I shall be analysing the data collected. I will need to look at which wards the 5 transects pass through and then analyse those wards for that individual transect:
Transect #1
Town, Broom Hill, Castle Hill, Whitton and White House
Transect #2
Town, St. Margerate’s, Rushmere and Bixley.
Transect #3
Town, St. Clements, Priory Heath and Bixley.
Transect #4
Town, Bridge and Gainsborough.
Transect #5
Town, Chantry, Stoke Park and Sprites.
The Burgess Urban Model
Housing Tenure for Wards of Ipswich UK, 1991
This table of information shows the percentage of housing tenure for each of the wards in Ipswich. Once these wards have been put together into the 5 transects I can then put them into graphs, such as the ones on the next page - for each transect.
Socio-economic Group in Wards of Ipswich UK, 1991
The Hoyt Urban Model
Graphs showing the socio-economic groupings in the wards of Ipswich.
Each of the 5 transects again has it’s own graph and on each one you can see the percentage of people in each socio-economic group.
