To what extent is
social inequality in
West End reflected in
the built
environment?
By The ap M n
,Table of contents:
Page 1 - Introduction and sub hypotheses
Page 5 - How the title links to the specification
Page 6 - Locational context and maps of my data sites
Page 7 - Methodology - risk assessment, ethical considerations, equipment
Page 8 - Methodology - method, methodology table
Page 14 - Photos of the 14 locations
Page 17 - Data presentation, analysis and interpretation
Page 32 - Conclusion
Page 34 - Evaluation
Page 37 - Appendices
Page 43 - Bibliography
,Introduction:
The aim of my investigation is to discover how my local area’s social inequality is represented
by the buildings in it as well as the local environment. Social inequality is the extent to which
there are differences between separate groups in society, and this can be measured in a
variety of ways including living standards, levels of income and crime rates. The local
environment refers to both the natural and man made aspects of the area, from the levels of
air and noise pollution, the greenery, all the way to how run down the buildings are. I want to
find out if there is a clear way to tell how an area is performing on the social level by looking at
the features of its built environment.
To help me solve the question of to what extent social inequality in West End is reflected in the
built environment, I have 3 hypotheses that I will evaluate along the way. I seek to solve these
by carrying out a number of surveys and data analysis in 14 different locations and coming to
conclusions by comparing results between multiple surveys to determine whether one factor
has a definitive impact on another. I want to find the root causes of the social issues I will
cover in these 14 areas so that I can say with clarity whether my hypotheses can be proved
right or wrong, and so that I can forge a deeper understanding of what geographical theory
and principles’ effects are on the wider world.
Sub hypothesis 1 : Areas with high deprivation will have a poor environmental
quality.
Hypothesis 1 refers to deprivation. Deprivation can be measured in more than one way, but it
is not the same as income. Deprivation refers to how people live and it can be a
“consequence of a lack of income and other resources, which cumulatively can be seen as
living in poverty” (poverty.ac.uk). There are varied ways to measure deprivation as lots of
factors can show it exists in an area. These include things such as levels of income, education
rates and quality of housing. I chose to use the index of multiple deprivation to measure
deprivation in each of the 14 locations as it takes a lot of these different factors into
account,and gives a numerical ranking to areas all over the country. The index of multiple
deprivation (IMD) is “published by the department for communities and local government on a
regular basis and informs national and local government decision making and associated
patterns of investment” (AQA human geography textbook). It ranks 32,000 neighbourhoods in
the UK according to their performance in 7 categories - income, employment, education,
health, crime, barriers to housing and services and the living environment and gives each of
these a weighted percentage of importance, with income being the most important factor.
Environmental quality is “a general term which can refer to: varied characteristics such as air
and water quality or pollution, noise, access to open space, the visual effects of buildings, and
the potential effects which such characteristics may have on physical and mental health”
(European environment agency glossary). For my investigation, I made my own environmental
quality survey (EQS) where I measured a group of factors under this definition. These factors
included the amount of greenery in an area, the amount of noise pollution and amount of litter,
, graffiti and vandalism amongst others. I kept the scale numerical so that it could easily be
compared to the index of multiple deprivation and the relationship between the two could be
graphically represented.
After comparing the index of multiple deprivation to the environmental quality survey, I will
compare the results of the building decay survey to the environmental quality survey as well,
because quality of buildings is one of the factors that can also highlight deprivation in an area,
and in addition to this it is also numerical, meaning that the relationship between the EQS and
building decay survey can also easily be represented graphically. The Building Decay Survey
(BDS) takes into account many factors which can measure the general quality or lack of
quality of buildings in an area. I chose to use the BDS to represent deprivation because
deprivation is a broad term and can be used to describe many different factors. One of these
is its impacts on the buildings in an area, which are highlighted in the Building Decay Survey
as it essentially rates buildings in lots of different categories. These categories include
damage to walls, roofs and broken glass and they show a property’s overall rating in terms of
its quality. I expect to find that areas with high deprivation will have a lower environmental
quality as low building quality is one of the factors that makes an environmental quality worse
due to the “visual effects of buildings” as mentioned before from the European environment
agency glossary, and also because areas with more run down buildings often will have less
money than areas with better buildings, as the prices of houses are lower and the area is
more deprived. Therefore people won’t be likely to have nearly as much money to spend on
improving the local environment when they also have to spend money on their own problems
such as rent, bills, commuting and more.
Sub hypothesis 2: Areas with high dereliction will have high crime rates.
Hypothesis 2 is to do with dereliction. There are many ways of describing dereliction, but the
general consensus is that it can be used to describe a situation whereby buildings have been
left to decay or get progressively worse over time due to a social or economical abandonment
of the area they are in. According to the AQA human geography textbook, “derelict (neglected
or abandoned) urban land results from: the inevitable ageing and decay of buildings with the
passage of time.” Coolgeography.co.uk claims that urban dereliction is when “areas of cities
are abandoned and the buildings become dilapidated”. Therefore the effects of dereliction
can be seen through its impact on the built environment. A way to measure this is by carrying
out a Building Decay Survey (BDS) in each location in order to give a representation of how
dilapidated the buildings are. On my BDS, I recorded several data points such as damage to
roofs, damage to walls and broken glass, amongst others, and gave numerical values to each
of these points. I believe that locations with higher scores on this survey will have higher crime
rates because dereliction is so heavily linked with the lower end of society, where crime is at
its most prevalent. A study carried out by the US department of justice found that “the number
of drug, property, and violent crimes is higher on blocks with abandoned residential buildings
than on comparable blocks without abandoned buildings”. Places with high dereliction have
often been abandoned or forgot about and this leads to a lack of development and an
environment that encourages crime and antisocial behaviour.
