human fieldwork

Question 1

What is your fieldwork title?

Answer 1

Is the King’s Cross regeneration successful

Question 2

Why was it a suitable fieldwork title

Answer 2

1. Small-scale - 67 acres - can collect data within a day
2. Low-risk
3. Accessible secondary data - available internet - 2001 onwards
4. Can collect primary data ab topic - within walking distance
5. Can reach a conclusion
6. Has to be a geographical topic - in syllabus - urban issues and challenges

Question 3

Why was it a good location in terms of the scale of the enquiry

Answer 3

Site was only 67 acres - small scale - can collect data in one day - pedestrianised areas

Question 4

Why was it a good location in terms of links to geography

Answer 4

new redevelopment and project being built in an area that was derelict so we can study urban regeneration

Question 5

Why was it a good location in terms of availability, reliability and accuracy of data

Answer 5

Secondary= began in 2001 - available on internet
Primary = easily accessed site, lots of people to question

Question 6

Why was it a good location in terms of capacity to collect sufficient info to draw reasoned conc

Answer 6

• can get plenty of data
• have a theory to test
• development is not complete unto 2025 = diff. To make conc.

Question 7

Who was our theorist

Answer 7

Jane Jacobs

Question 8

What was our theory

Answer 8

The most successful urban areas have:
1. High conc. of users
2. Mixed uses

Question 9

How does the theory help answer our question

Answer 9

We went to KX to see if it has mixed uses and a high conc. of users. If it fíes then we can conclude that the regeneration was successful. We used Jane Jacob’s theory as a framework for success.

Question 10

What were the risks and action we took to prevent them

Answer 10

1. Hit by a car - when collecting data stand back from roads and be aware when crossing
2. Overheating/sun stroke - water, hat, sun screen
3. Getting lost - stayed in groups and 1 person in every group has a mobile phone

Question 11

What secondary data did we use in KX

Answer 11

1. Articles ab the redevelopment
2. Google maps
   =>Decide on the areas + plan the day

Question 12

Why might you use a map in your enquiry

Answer 12

1. In order to plan our journey there and back
2. Familiarise ourself w/ site
3. In order to divide up site into zones where we then collected data
4. Layered data on top of maps

Question 13

Justify your use of a land use survey

Answer 13

Jane Jacobs said that the most successful urban areas have mixed uses, if the regeneration was successful we need to know if the had included a rand of land uses in the project so we did a land use survey.

Question 14

What was good ab using a land use survey

Answer 14

• does show diff. Types of land use across site
• easy to collect data + doesn’t require complicated equipment
• due to ease, able to survey all the zones in a day

Question 15

What was bad ab using a land use survey

Answer 15

• does not show proportion of each land use - only tells you if it appears once
• sometimes it was unclear what a building was being used for

Question 16

Overall judgement of land sue survey

Answer 16

Given time constraints, an appropriate method

Question 17

Justify your use of a footfall count

Answer 17

Jane Jacobs said that a successful urban area would have a high concentration of users. By counting the number of people passing us at diff. Points we were able to see the density of users around the site

Question 18

What was good ab using a footfall count

Answer 18

• easy to collect
• doesn’t require complicated equipment
• able to collect many pieces of data in a day - multiple points within each zone

Question 18

What was bad ab using a footfall count

Answer 18

• only did once at each location
• people count done at diff. Times which skews the data
• hard to count when a large group passes by

Question 19

Overall judgement if footfall count as a method

Answer 19

Given time constraints it was an appropriate method

Question 20

Justify your use of stratified sampling

Answer 20

We divided the site into 5 zones in order to see how the level of mixed land use and users varies across the site as Jane Jacobs tells us that this is what makes a regeneration successful

Question 21

What was good ab using stratified sampling

Answer 21

• by grouping data into zones we were able to collect all the data within a day
• could share out the data collection
• can clearly compare zones

Question 22

What was bad ab using stratified sampling

Answer 22

• not all the zones were of equal sizes

Question 23

Overall judgement of use of stratified sampling

Answer 23

Given time constraints, this was an appropriate type of sampling

Question 24

Justify our use of located stacked bar charts to present out data

Answer 24

We wanted to know if the King’s Cross regeneration was successful and our theorist, Jane Jacobs, said that the most successful urban areas have mixed uses so we did a land use survey. The results were presented in a located stacked bar chart in order to see mixed land use across the whole site

Question 25

What was good ab using a located stacked bar chart

Answer 25

- can easily see anomalies - larger the stacked bar chart the more successful the zone - easy to read and pick out patterns - colour coding shows us which land use us most common across the whole site

Question 26

What was bad ab using a located stacked bar chart

Answer 26

- does not show proportion of land use so may give a false impression

Question 27

Overall judgement on located stacked bar charts as a presentation method

Answer 27

Given limitations of data collection technique it is a good presentation technique

Question 28

justify our use of isoline maps to present our data

Answer 28

we wanted to know if the King's Cross regeneration and our theorist, Jane Jacobs, said that the most successful urban areas have a high concentration of users so we did a people count. The results were presented in a isoline map in order to see concentration of users across the whole site and determine which areas were busiest and quietest.

Question 29

what was good ab using an isoline map

Answer 29

- clearly shows footfall patterns across the whole site - groups areas from low footfall to high footfall

Question 30

what was bad ab using an isoline map

Answer 30

- data is not based on a mean

Question 31

overall judgement on isoline maps as a presentation method

Answer 31

given limitations in data collection techniques, presentation method is good

Question 32

how did our results help us answer the question

Answer 32

- our question was is the regeneration of King's Cross successful? - Jane Jacobs said that the most successful urban areas have a high concentration of users - our footfall counts showed that the south of the site has more users bc footfall count was higher here. generally across the whole site there is a high concentration of users - this suggests that the King's Cross regeneration is successful, particularly in the south - our lands survey said that there is mixed land use across the whole site whit the north having a particularly high mix of land uses - this suggests that the King's Cross regeneration is successful.

Question 33

what were our conclusions

Answer 33

- King's Cross is a successful urban regeneration project according to Jane Jacobs - for mixed uses it was particularly successful in the north - for a high concentration of users it was particularly successful in the south.

Question 34

what was a problem with our land use method (conc. reliability)

Answer 34

we were unable to record the proportion of land use in each zone

Question 35

how did our problem with our land use method limit the results (conc. reliability)

Answer 35

it could've made the area seem like it had more variation/ mixed uses than it actually had

Question 36

how did our problem with our land use method affect our conclusion (conc. reliability)

Answer 36

overstating how successful the regeneration was in terms of land use

Question 37

overall judgement of reliability on conclusion based on land use method

Answer 37

given time constraints our conclusion was reliable

Question 38

what was a problem with our pedestrian count method (conc. reliability)

Answer 38

it was a snapshot in time and only did it once so can't gain an average

Question 39

how did our problem with our pedestrian count method limit the results (conc. reliability)

Answer 39

it just tells us what the people count was at one point, not a true value

Question 40

how did our problem with our pedestrian count method affect our conclusion (conc. reliability)

Answer 40

maybe making the regeneration seem more or less successful than it actually was

Question 41

overall judgement of reliability on conclusion based on pedestrian count method

Answer 41

given our time constraints our conclusion was reliable

Question 42

how could we improve the land use survey

Answer 42

- gain a proportion on the land use of each site (get numerical values) - get one person to do the survey as some people may have diff. opp.s on what the category a building falls into - use secondary data to determine the accuracy of our data

Question 43

how could we improve the pedestrian count

Answer 43

- go multiple times a day over multiple days to gain an average - multiple people collecting the data to check accuracy

Question 44

overall limitations and potential solutions to our enquiry

Answer 44

the regeneration its not complete so we can't determine the final success - solution: return when complete we did not consider environmental success, only social and economic - solution: collect info on air quality