Geography assignment practice PDF

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Aim To investigate the changes in land use, building height and environmental quality in a transect of Glasgow. Hypothesis 1 I predict that the building height will decrease with distance from the CBD. And there will be mainly commercial land use in the CBD and it will decrease with distance from the CBD and residential land use will increase. The CBD has the highest land value according to the Bid Rent Theory. This means that the land here is only affordable for shops and offices. Further out from the CBD the land value decreases so residential land use increases because it is more affordable for housing. The building height is highest in the CBD because there is limited space so businesses build upwards to make the most of this limited space. With distance from the CBD the building height decreases because there is more room and the land is cheaper, so it wont cost as much to build outwards. Hypothesis 2 I predict that the environmental quality will improve with distance from the CBD. The CBD is a route centre, cars and bus routes converge here, this will increase the amount of noise, visual and air pollution. Also because there are more people more litter will be dropped. In the inner city and suburbs the people will have already left for work so there wont be as much noise, air and visual pollution. Wealthier people tend to take care of their community more because they have the money to, so areas like the suburbs will have the best scores. General method Our class divided into groups and each group visited a different area of Glasgow. The areas included, CBD (Buchanan Street), Inner city (Govanhill), Inner city (Gorbals), Suburbs (Giffnock). When we got back to class we collated the data to compare the changes along the transect. The problems we had with this was that we had to rely on everyone to follow the methods correctly and it was difficult to analyse data when we had not visited the area. Method 1 We categorised the different land uses using RICEPOTS, R-Residential, I-Industrial, C-commercial, EEntertainment, P-public buildings, O-Open space, T- Transport and S- services. I walked along Victoria road and recorded, on a map of the street, the land use at the bottom of each building. I also recorded the building height on the map, to find the building height I counted how many windows there was, 1 window = 1 storey. Problems we had was that it was not representative of the whole buildings because some buildings had commercial land use at the bottom and residential above. To solve this we could have recorded data for each floor in the buildings. Some land uses were not covered in RICEPOTS so we had to make extra categories. Method 2 On Victoria road I did a survey for the environmental quality. I gave a number between 1 and 5 for each factor affecting the environment, 1 being the worst and 5 the best. We then collated the data in class and compared it with the other areas. The higher the totalled score the better the environmental quality was.

The survey was subjective so people had different opinions and gave different scores. To solve this one person could have been responsible to do the survey. The noise and air pollution could have been measured accurately using a decibel meter and measuring the amount of lichen on trees. Figure 1 Figure 1 shows percentage of land use in different areas of Glasgow. The graph shows that with distance from the CBD commercial land use decreased, 82% in the CBD and 20% in the suburbs, a decrease of 62%. It also shows that residential land use increased with distance from the CBD, 4% in the CBD and 31% in the Suburbs, an increase of 27%. An anomaly occurred in the Inner city (Govanhill) where there was a large amount of commercial land use and not as much residential land use. The bid rent theory shows that land value is highest in the CBD and decrease with distance from the CBD. The CBD is also a route centre, where all the routes converge, this makes it attractive for shops and offices. Residential land use is not common here because it is unaffordable for people wanting to buy homes here, so there is a large amount of commercial land use (82%) and not as much residential land use (4%). Further out from the CBD the land value decreases and there is more space. Housing is more affordable here so more residential land use is found here. The suburbs had 32% residential land use. Govan hill had a lot of commercial land use and not a lot of residential land use because we only recorded data for the bottom floor of the buildings, and this was generally commercial land use. We could have recorded data of each floor to get more accurate data here. Gorbals had high residential land use because historically tenement flats were built here to accommodate the working class who worked in the factories or docks, because it was near their work. Figure 2 and 5 Figure 2 and 5 shows the distance from the CBD and the buildings height. There is a negative correlation meaning that the building height decreases with distance from the CBD. The average building height in the CBD was 4 and the average building height in the suburbs was 1.6. The bid rent theory suggests that the land value is highest in the CBD, and the burgess model shows that there is limited space in the CBD. Due to the high prices of the land the buildings are built upwards to make the most of the expensive and limited land. Further out from the CBD the land value decreases and there is more space. Buildings can be built outwards here because it cheaper to do this and there is more space to. The buildings had a low height in the suburbs because of planning restrictions close to the CBD, the greenbelt. The buildings in the inner city were tall because the tenemant flats were built upwards to house the increasing amount of factory workers during the industrial revolution. Figure 3 and 4 Figures 3 and 4 show the environmental score against the distance from the CBD. There was a gradual positive correlation meaning that the environmental quality improved with distance from the CBD. The CBD got total score of 22 and the suburbs got a score of 32, an increase of 10. An anomaly occurred in the inner city, gorbals because it had a high score. The CBD is a route centre so cars and buses converge here, this causes air, visual and noise pollution. The CBD had a low score for these, 2 for air pollution compared to 3 and 4 in other areas. Also 1 for noise pollution compared to 2 and 3 in the other areas. Also because there are a lot of people in the

CBD more litter is dropped, the CBD got a score of 2 for the litter.In Giffnock there was low levels of noise, this was people had already left for work. Further out rom the CBD there is more open space, parks and golf courses so this increases the environmental quality. The inner city (Gorbals) had a high score because recently it has been redeveloped with tenement houses, a community centre and a library, this attracts wealthier people to move in and they can take care of their community better because they have more money. The morning the data was collected here there was a street cleaner so gorbals gto a high score for the little amount of litter there. Since the industrial reveloutin factories have been shut down and this increase the environmental quality because the air is cleaner because there is no more poisonous gasses being produced by them. Figure 6 Figure 6 is a scatter graph that compare the average building height against the percentage of commercial landuse. There is a gradual positive correlation so the building height increases as the commercial land use increases. The suburbs had a average building height of 1.6 and a percentage of 20 commercial landuse. The CBD had a percentage of 82 commercial land use with an average building height of 4. Conclusion I generally agree with the hypothesis that the building height will decrease with the CBD, an average of 4 in the CBD, and 1.6 in the suburbs. I also agree with some exceptions that the amount of commercial land use decreases, 82% in the CBD and 20% in the suburbs, and the residential land use increases with distance from the CBD, 3% in the CBD and 32% in the suburbs. I agree with some exceptions that the environmental quality improves with distance from the CBD. The CBD had a score of 22 and the suburbs had a score of 32, an increase of 10. If I were to repeat this study I would do more streets along the transect, since 4 in not enough to get accurate scatter graphs, I would also go north on a transect to compare the changes in the whole city....