What conclusions can be drawn from your graph and CBD services table? (6)
Hypothesis 1: Reading does not conform to standard models of Urban structure. On one hand, this hypothesis was proven to be if we were to only look at our footfall readings. These results were very inconsistent and showed no pattern to how dense the population of a certain area was. For example, the total pedestrian count, our first recording was 6 but when we got to the outer suburbs, one of the readings we took was 0. This would not conform to the theory that population density rises entering the city due to a surplus of residential housing. However, the limitations of these results are that we took more than one reading in each zone and so the reading of 0 could be treated as an anomaly. On the other hand, it could be argued that Reading did conform to typical land use models such as the Burgess model. This model shows a constant flow of charges of land use (edge of city - outer suburbs - commercial - inner suburbs - inner city - CBD) structured with concentric rings. Therefore we can compare Reading to Chicago on which the Burgess model was formed. reading also reflects the theory of changing houseing types, finding more terraced housing and residential regions nearer to the city centre in comparison more detached housing and more open spaces at the edge of the city. We found using the ‘R I C E P O T S’ system that more land was used for residential purposes, the closer we got to the CBD. Hypothesis 2: There is no visible pattern to the distribution of EQ in Reading This hypothesis was proven true from our data as there was no pattern indicating that the EQ consistently rose or fell the whole way through. The EQS scores in the twilight zone were higher than some of the scores in the inner suburbs but the other scores in the inner suburbs were higher. There were also very dramatic changes (0 to -26 in 400m) which revealed no straight forward pattern of increasing/decreasing EQ in Reading. Hypothesis 3: The quality of the built environment is less