Outline Maps of Sheffield City Centre

PERCEPTIONS OF IMPRECISE REGIONS IN RELATION TO GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

A study submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Management

THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

LINDA MANSBRIDGE

Abstract The Internet is an increasingly important source of information. Many Web searches are for geographical information or for other information within a geographical context. However, there is a disparity between the way in which geographical information is stored in information systems and the way in which most people think about geographical space. While in some cases this arises from problems with place names, much ‘everyday’ geography concerns imprecise or vague regions which have no single or officially-recognized boundary. The boundary of an imprecise region is, by definition, vague. The organization of geographical space into areas bounded, usually by lines, is a necessary component of having a sense of ‘place’. Research in the early days of GIS necessarily focused on the technology required for establishing effective systems for presenting geographical information. However, in more recent years, research has involved workers from a wide variety of disciplines looking at the ways in which humans perceive their geographical world. The field of psychology has been instrumental in investigations into how humans form cognitive maps, a mental representation of the world around them. Cognitive maps do not necessarily match the empirical reality of geography very closely; distortions in the perception of location and distance may arise from individual perceptions of a place. The aim of this study was to investigate how people perceive Sheffield City Centre, which is a ‘real’ place, known by that name, but having no single official boundary. This was done by means of a street survey. Participants were also asked about their perception of where the vague region of the Midlands is. The results show that while there is broad agreement of the location and extent of these imprecise areas, there are, too, some variations in people’s perceptions of them. In particular, this study sought to investigate the possibility that perception may be influenced by current location. Participants were asked at three main locations in central Sheffield about their perception of membership of the City Centre of a number of landmarks. Some differences were seen in the responses from the different locations; in addition, some differences were seen in responses from residents of Sheffield living in different parts of the city.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Paul Clough, for his help and encouragement during the course of my work on this study.

Contents 1. Introduction...... 1 2. Literature Review...... 3 2.1 Geographic Information Retrieval ...... 3 2.2 Imprecise regions and boundaries ...... 6 2.3 Spatial Cognition...... 9 2.3.1 Primary learning ...... 10 2.3.2 Secondary learning ...... 13 3. Background to the study...... 14 4. Methodology ...... 15 4.1 Boundaries...... 15 4.1.1 Sheffield City Centre ...... 15 4.1.2 The Midlands...... 19 4.2 Pilot study...... 22 4.3 Central Sheffield survey ...... 25 4.3.1 The sample surveyed ...... 25 4.3.2 The questionnaire...... 26 4.3.3 Answer options ...... 27 4.3.4 Location selected for the survey ...... 27 5. Results ...... 28 5.1 Survey participants...... 28 5.2 Analysis of results...... 30 5.3 Sheffield City Centre...... 30 5.3.1 Distribution of responses ...... 30 5.3.2 Home post codes of participants...... 32 5.3.3 ‘Don’t know where it is’...... 33 5.3.4 Landmarks in the City Centre...... 37 5.3.5 Landmarks not in the City Centre...... 44 5.3.6 Landmarks on the boundary of the City Centre...... 47 5.3.7 Landmarks vs. location...... 50 5.3.8 Core of the City Centre...... 52 5.3.9 Outlines of the City Centre ...... 53 5.4 The Midlands...... 54 6. Discussion...... 58 Bibliography ...... 62 Appendix A: City Centre Boundaries ...... 66 Appendix B: Questionnaire...... 72 Appendix C: Post code areas...... 76 Appendix D: Outline maps of Sheffield City Centre...... 77 Appendix E: Perceptions of the Midlands...... 82

1. Introduction

Geographic information systems (GISs) are being used with increasing frequency in everyday life as well as by industry, government and other organizations, who use them for planning, marketing and the delivery of emergency services. Geographic information research was largely in the domain of geography, surveying and computer science but more recently, with the broadening of the application of GIS, has also involved a broader range of disciplines, such as the social and environmental sciences, philosophy and psychology.

This shift in the emphasis of research in GIS from the technological issues necessary for the development of such systems more towards social aspects and user perspectives is welcomed by Schuurman (2003). Public participation GIS (PPGIS) uses the technology for the participation of groups otherwise unheard in decision making and the drawing up of policies. GIS has been exploited by non-governmental organizations and by smaller- scale neighbourhood groups. The importance of GIS in community affairs is described by Romasubramaian (1999). In a legal case of discrimination in Milwaukee, GIS was used by both of the opposing sides. However, the small community group’s access to and use of GIS enabled it to support their case against a major insurance company by showing that the company’s use of GIS data had been selective in a discriminatory way.

Couclelis (1999) considers that GIS and society are inextricably linked, particularly in the way that the geographical world is defined and represented. She identifies these two aspects as those that distinguish GIS from other information technologies. GIS technology developed using ‘geocoded measurement’ based on ‘cartographic tradition’, and Couclelis outlines the danger of representing the world as only what can be shown visually, and of omitting other views of the geographical world. There is potential for the creation of ‘unrealities’, where the real is displaced by the representation; the way the geographical world is represented by GIS may influence how the world comes to be defined.

1 Geographic information systems generally have empirical, map-based referents and officially-designated place names, whereas vernacular geography is more informal and less exact. This disparity between place names in GIS and how most people think about places has implications in many areas of life. A search on the Web may be made by someone looking for information relating to a particular region, for example house prices, job vacancies, golf courses or road works. The results of their query will be confined to documents containing the name of the region and will not necessarily provide the information required.

Possible solutions to bridge this gap of geographical terminology include an interactive approach and an a priori approach (Montello et al. 2003). The interactive approach, in which the system determines the geographical location in the query by interrogating the searcher, would demand more time and thought on the part of the user. In the a priori approach, the system stores geographical information in a form more similar to the way searchers think about the real world. Both approaches are dependent on knowledge of human perceptions of geographical spaces.

The aim of the proposed study is to discover how people perceive ill-defined geographical space in relation to factors that might be expected to influence their conceptualization of the space, based on the methodology of Montello et al. (2003). In their study, Montello et al. asked a sample of 36 individuals to sketch an outline map to include what they perceived as ‘downtown’ Santa Barbara. In their discussion of the results, they posed the question of whether an effect would have been observed had they asked the question at different locations, to what extent a person’s current location affects their perception of an area such as downtown.

The study recorded here is of a survey conducted at three locations in central Sheffield investigating whether location affects perception of Sheffield City Centre. This study also investigates perceptions of the Midlands, an imprecise region on a larger scale than Sheffield City Centre. The objectives of the study were, firstly, to discover if there is sufficient agreement on ‘membership’ of the City Centre of landmarks in central Sheffield to define the City Centre; secondly, to assess the extent to which a sense of

2 place (of the City Centre) is affected by current location; and finally, to compare these perceptions of the City Centre with how the area is defined by organizations and official bodies such as the emergency services and the City Council.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Geographic Information Retrieval

Much of the information on the World Wide Web has a geographical context, and many search engine queries are for spatially-related information. It has been estimated that approximately one fifth of queries relate to geographical location (Purves and Jones, 2004). A Position Statement from Europe’s GISDATA Scientific Programme considers the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure as one of the important developments arising from the increasing use of geographical information in the 1990s, along with similar developments in Australasia, Japan and Europe (Burrough et al., 1997). The geographical component of the information is of central importance in the area of strategic planning and the provision of services. The Position Paper proposes greater co- ordination between European countries and the development of a European-wide gazetteer linking place names to a common geographical framework. Attention is drawn to the use of place names, rather than co-ordinates, in ‘common-sense geography’.

However, Web search engines, in the retrieval of information related to geographical space, are poorly adapted to cope with, for example, variations in the spelling of place names, especially between different languages, the ambiguity of place names (the same name often refers to more than a single location or a place may be known by more than one name or have an informal name) and the identification of ill-defined or vaguely- named places without officially recognized boundaries. Kuhn (2001) observes that much of the geographical information available on the Web is based on the assumption that it should represent reality in a literal way, and that this has resulted in a large amount of difficult-to-use geographical data collections and geo-processing software. Other researchers have made similar observations; Sheppard et al., (1999) note the tendency for GISs to represent places as crisp, contiguous and non-overlapping, whereas

3 places are dynamic interconnected networks. The strict classification of space into, for example, urban, residential and rural, gives rise to the artefacts of points and polygons.

Egenhofer and Mark (1995) consider what they term ‘Naive Geography’ to be an essential basis in the design of GIS. They define Naive Geography as ‘the body of knowledge that people have about the surrounding geographic world’ (Egenhofer and Mark, 1995:4). For GISs to be accessible to the average citizen, without the need for specialist training, the systems must reflect the terminology and reasoning people use when they are thinking about geographical space.

The storage of accurate, correct data, avoiding repetitious (redundant) data and inconsistencies, is fundamental to database design. By contrast, naive geographical reasoning may include both errors and inconsistencies. It is not unusual for people to use several interchangeable concepts of a geographical space; concepts have different levels of granularity depending on context and purpose. The sources for the conceptualization of geographical space are the multiple views gained from our navigation within it, and this distinguishes it from table-top scale space.

An example is seen in the way in which distances are measured or judged. The traditional measurement of distance by units of length, used in GIS, may not be the most appropriate or helpful way in which information of this sort is presented. While it is empirically true that the distance from A to B is the same as that from B to A, other factors affect the distance if measured in, for example, units of financial and environmental cost or the time and effort taken to move something or someone between A and B or B and A. These can include topographical features, such as hills or stretches of water, or the means of transport. A discrepancy in the distance between A and B depending on direction results in the perception of the distance as asymmetrical. These factors also affect how people think about the distance between places.

World geography is complex and dynamic at every level from very small-scale to very large-scale representations. Kuhn (2001) suggests that GIS should be designed to support human activities rather than as models of the world lacking context, and Egenhofer and Mark (1995) argue that the use of GIS would be greatly enhanced by

4 reasoning that more closely resembles that of humans, with the incorporation of human concepts and ways of thinking about the world. The goal is the development of formal models mimicking people’s perception of geographical space.

The retrieval by search engines of geographical information is dependent upon the inclusion of the name of the area or region specified in the query within a Web page. Many other Web pages may contain information pertinent to the query but not be retrieved for this reason. Spatial factors such as proximity or containment are not understood by search engines (Jones et al., 2002).

Geographical information is organized in GIS by reference to officially recognized factors: place names, physical features, areas defined by contextual boundaries for specific purposes such as administrative regions, parishes, or areas covered by public services, such as education and health. However, in the ‘real world’ people do not necessarily consider places in these terms nor in terms of their metric location or size. Real-world data and information may differ between individuals and is usually context dependent. Similarly, there are different types of users of GIS.

GIS uses co-ordinates to derive the geographic footprint of a place which favours the placing of geographic objects which are well-defined, and consistently defined, at least in the short term. Indeed, in some rural areas of the UK, residents are provided with GIS co-ordinates for their home which they are advised to quote if they need to request one of the emergency services.

The content and format of digital gazetteers, atlases and other place name-related information sources available on the Web follow no common standards thereby inhibiting the sharing of information across the systems (Hill, 2000), and the only certain way of identifying a particular location may be by its geospatial footprint. This can be expressed as a single pair of co-ordinates of latitude and longitude, a grid reference, or by a set of co-ordinates representing the extent of the place.

The Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) provides a geographic footprint for each object in the collection (Hill, Frew and Zheng, 1999). The Library built its own gazetteer and, in

5 doing so, identified a need for a standard conceptual schema for gazetteers for the sharing of information, the expression of location as a point, line or area as appropriate to the place being described, and a hierarchical system of categorizing features by type. Further, the often ill-defined nature of geographical features requires ‘fuzzy’ footprints which take account of uncertain boundaries and locations, and the changes that take place over time. The ADL gazetteer allows for multiple footprints, variant names in addition to the designated name, and relationships between entries (such as x is part of y).

2.2 Imprecise regions and boundaries

‘Perception is of two sorts, one of the senses, one of the understanding. Perceptions of the latter sort depend only on the things perceived, while those of the former sort depend also on our senses, and are therefore apt to be deceptive.’ (Russell, 1961:89)

In her paper on the certainty of uncertainty, Couclelis (2003) points out that in addition to its functions of ‘data storage, manipulation, management, visualization and analysis’, GIS is also used to synthesize geographical information from a variety of sources in the production of, for example, maps and graphical representations of the geographical world. These products are subject to the limitations of knowledge. A lack of knowledge may arise from issues related to quantity and quality of data or to the social context or theoretical framework of the research from which they are derived. However, lack of knowledge is inherent in geographical information. While the term ‘information’ implies a measure of validity or truth, knowledge about the environment is based on sujective information, impressions and beliefs (Moore and Golledge, 1976).

Couclelis cites the sorites paradox as an illustration of some of the problems related to the representation of geographical vagueness.

If 1 grain does not make a heap, 1+1 grains do not make a heap, 2+1 grains do not make a heap...then 9,999+1 grains do not make a heap either. (Couclelis, 2003:169)

6 When applied to geographical space, whether urban or rural, this illustrates the difficulties involved in the categorization of places, of naming them and of bounding them.

The location of a place can be by reference to its boundaries, which enclose the place, or to its ‘core’, which is within the place. A region with imprecise boundaries, or with boundaries that depend on context for their location, can be described in terms of the features or towns within the region. Lacking officially-defined boundaries, the regions of Britain may be represented with some imprecision or elasticity. For example, the Midlands may be described as the region containing Nottingham and Birmingham; likewise, the ‘Black Country’ is another imprecise region which is itself in the imprecise region of the Midlands. Encyclopaedia definitions of the Midlands refer first to the ‘Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia’ [6th - 9th centuries] and then to the counties included in the region, from Derbyshire in the north to Oxfordshire in the south (e.g. Hutchinson, 1999). The core of the Midlands, perhaps Birmingham, is likely to be identified as such by non-residents as well as by those who live there. However, towards the margins of the region, there is more likely to be equivocation: is Chesterfield (Derbyshire) in the Midlands? is Oxford in the Midlands? For each there is another, possibly overlapping (imprecise) region to which it could belong (the North and the South, respectively).

Burrough (1996) points to the problems associated with the Aristotelian principle of the excluded middle, in which every statement is either true or false, in the context of geographical information, especially with respect to vague regions or areas whose boundaries are not fixed or certain. He illustrates this with the following example:

‘A Cockney was said to be someone who was born within the sound of Bow Bells in the City of London, but does this depend on the direction and strength of the wind, or on the background level of traffic noise? (Burrough, 1996:15)

The different ways in which geographical space may be viewed, by different people or by the same people over time, is seen in the perception of boundaries. Leung (cited in Worboys, 1998) describes the boundary between two areas as a zone with continuously changing attribute values for each of the areas. In other words, rather than being a sharp,

7 linear demarcation between one area and another, a boundary is itself a heterogeneous area; the nature of each area being most evident in that part of the zone closest to it and absent in that part of the zone furthest away from it.

A boundary not only encloses an area of land into a unit with a place name, which has some functional and/or social integrity, but separates it from other bounded areas (Egenhofer and Mark, 1995). It is seen from at least two territories, inside and outside the bounded area. The location of the boundary may not be agreed by those on either side: there may be multiple locations of a boundary separating two named areas, each depending on the functional context of the boundary.

This is not uncommon for boundaries between countries, especially over time, as conflicts and agreements often have an impact on the placing of a national boundary. Thus, many boundaries, even ‘official’ ones, lack certainty. Burrough (1996) suggests that ‘Poland’ has a meaning for Polish people that may not fit easily into the area enclosed by its present-day boundaries, reflecting the numerous changes of the border in the country’s history. Jones et al. (2003) consider time, as well as space, to be a fundamental characteristic of geographical places.

The tendency for smaller-scale geographic ‘footprints’ to change over time has also been noted by Lam et al. (2002) in their work on a neighbourhood-specific gazetteer of Los Angeles County. The strategy they developed for ‘defining’ neighbourhoods gave rise to overlapping boundaries. They considered that this is a desirable feature of the gazetteer, for the reasons that neighbourhood boundaries change over time and that they are, in any case, ‘fuzzy’ or imprecise. They noted that this could represent a flexibility some residents of the neighbourhood would welcome in some circumstances, such as selling their house, since it might be possible to include their property in a more desirable, and therefore more expensive, neighbourhood.

Historical factors, in addition to social factors, can also play a role in the perception of the location of boundaries in small-scale geographical space. This is illustrated by Ferrari’s example of the boundary of an Italian village (Ferrari, 1996). Amongst the inhabitants of the village, there is a consensus that a single point is the boundary of the

8 village; this point is not a prominent feature, merely the corner of a house. Ferrari suggests that its status as ‘boundary’ probably dates back to a time when it was the limit of the area from which the local abbey collected taxes, and persists in the villagers’ perception of the borderline despite the loss of its practical applications.

In a discussion of urban spaces, Campari (1996) draws attention to the uncertainty and invisibility of administrative or bureaucratic boundaries. In the minds of people, urban areas are subdivided not only by bureaucracy and the functional areas of utilities, but by their social characteristics and qualities, such as house prices and open spaces. The necessity for administrative boundaries and their dependence on the physical entities of a city are acknowledged; while such boundaries are often drawn up to enclose areas according to quantitative criteria, such as population size, physical entities do not move, as people do. Nevertheless, administrative or district boundaries can divide streets, blocks and, indeed, neighbourhoods. Therein lies their uncertainty. Urban spaces are complex and subject to differing cultural interpretations which can lead to an overlapping of informally recognized areas based on, for example, religious buildings or residential areas of a particular socio-economic group.

2.3 Spatial Cognition

Geographical cognition is a particular type of spatial cognition. It concerns large-scale spaces which cannot be perceived in their entirety, as a hand, table or room can be. Such spaces are described as ‘transperceptual’ by Downs and Stea (cited in Mark et al., 1999:748) in that geographical-scale spaces are: ‘experienced only by integration of perceptual experiences over space and time through memory and reasoning, or through the use of small-scale models such as maps’.

The concepts of geographical space are often different from those of manipulable, smaller-scale space. While the latter occupy three dimensional space, and are perceived to do so, geographical space is essentially two dimensional: the vertical axis becomes disassociated from the horizontal axes (Egenhofer and Mark, 1995).

9 The ability to ‘place’ oneself geographically (on a large- or small-scale) requires some concept of boundaries and some knowledge of where they are. The determination of boundaries involves both absolute reference points, such as north/south or left/right, and relative reference points such as north of/south of or left of/right of (Ferrari, 1996). While the absolute referent is fixed, even though it may not be known with certainty, the relative one is more fluid and may be influenced by non-geographical factors.

The use of maps to represent geographical space is very ancient, dating from the 14th century BC, with lines of latitude and longitude first used in the 3rd century BC. The usefulness of maps in investigations of perceptions of a place is strongly influenced by an individual’s prior experience of using them. Furthermore, an individual’s understanding of a place based on direct experience may differ from that learnt from maps. A map shows spatial relationships of the area it covers as a whole, whereas spatial relationships gained from direct experience are built up gradually.

2.3.1 Primary learning

Geographical knowledge learnt from direct experience with the real world, by navigating through it, is termed ‘primary learning’ by Kitchen and Blades (2002). The three main theories of primary learning are outlined as being based on environmental cues, such as landmarks; path-based information; views and scenes, or ‘vistas’.

Nevertheless, geographical knowledge gained directly from moving through space involves physical environmental features, perceived visually for the most part, combined with the intangible subjective aspects of moving through space, such as the time and effort taken and the aesthetic qualities of the space (Montello, 1997).

As Bennett (2002) points out in a workshop concerned with Geo-ontology, while geography is seen as a study of physical aspects of the world, ontology is an abstract discipline concerned with concepts. However, the perception of geographical space, and spatial behaviour, involve reference both to external information, such as maps, and to some acquired knowledge of the environment (Kitchen & Blades, 2002); acquired knowledge will necessarily differ between individuals according to their daily lives and past experiences.

10 An individual’s knowledge of geographical space grows with time, taking on greater depth or breadth or both. Liben’s conceptual model of the interaction between individual and environmental factors contributing to the knowledge gained by an individual illustrates the potential for differences in perception of a geographical space (Kitchen and Blades, 2002). He suggests that the cultural and individual history of an individual forms the basis of that individual’s acquisition of geographical space and, by extension, is a fundamental influence in how it is perceived.

Characteristics of the INDIVIDUAL

(Physical, Cognitive, Socioeconomic)

Cultural and SPATIAL individual HISTORY ACTIVITY

(Biological, Social, Psychological) REPRESENTATION

Characteristics of the PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Figure 1 Liben’s model of cognitive map knowledge acquisition. (Kitchen and Blades, 2002:34)

The term ‘cognitive map’ was first used by Tolman (1948) in his study of the behaviour of rats navigating a maze, and is used as an ‘umbrella term’ (Kitchen and Blades, 2002) to describe the cognitive processes by which humans acquire and mentally represent spatial knowledge. While there is general agreement that the term cognitive map is taken to mean a mental representation of an external environment, there is a divergence of views on the form this representation takes (Tversky, 2000). A cognitive map may range from a mental image similar to a map on paper, with metric and relational

11 qualities, to a collection of information which differs according to purpose; the latter is termed by Tversky, a ‘cognitive collage’ rather than map (Tversky, 1993).

In his work on lateral thinking, Edward de Bono places perception as the first stage of thinking (de Bono, 1987). The second stage is one of processing the perceptions and subjecting them to logic and reasoning; it is only in this second stage that something is done with our perceptions. He defines perceptions as ‘a particular way of looking at some part of the world’; they are the patterns which have formed as a result of grouping, or isolating, features and relationships formed from exposure to the world directly or indirectly.

Work carried out by psychologists on the mental representation of geographical and environmental information suggests that spatial mental models are hierarchical and, as such, are subject to distortions of judgement and memory of spatial relations (Mark et al., 1999). An example cited is a study by Tversky (1981) showing the general positioning by Americans of South America as due south of North America, whereas most of it lies further to the east than North America. Within the hierarchy, the geographical elements of North and South America are mentally organized as in alignment by virtue of their comparability rather than any consideration of metric qualities, which determine their physical representation on a map.

In addition, a study by Stevens and Coupe (1978) showed that distortions of relative geographical direction and distance may result from the hierarchical conceptualization of geographical space. In their study on the judgement of spatial relations, they found that judgement seemed to be based on the relative direction of a city as that of the state containing the city, rather than the city itself. If the state containing the city is to the east, then so, too, is the city. This can result in gross distortions: Reno (Nevada) is north-north-west of San Diego (California) but was judged to be east of San Diego. This can be explained by a hierarchical cognitive map in which the category of state is superordinate to the category of city. Similarly, distortions were found for distance between places depending on whether the places are in the same or different categories or clusters, suggesting an influence of the hierarchical organization of the cognitive map.

12 However, not all distortions or biases can be explained in this way (Egenhofer and Mark, 1995); other factors such as an association of colder climate with a more northerly location may influence the judgement of relative latitude between places.

A place that is known usually has associations for the individual (Sheppard et al., 1999): they may have been there alone or with others; in summer or winter, sunshine or rain; or for a specific purpose which may have had its own associations. While knowledge of a place is affected by familiarity with that place, familiarity is usually more complex than simply ‘knowing a place’. The term can encompass meanings from mere recognition of the place name to include emotions associated with the place itself or the place name alone (e.g. fondness, fear, safety). There are many factors which can influence not just the way an individual feels about a place but about where and how extensive it is. In other words, in practice, places are more than a place name with co-ordinates and do not mean the same for all people or even for one individual over time.

Sheppard et al. (1999) suggest that while place and boundaries are closely linked to identity, the traditional physical and geographical bases of place may be of diminishing importance in community identity as modern communication technologies bring people together forming new types of electronically-based communities.

2.3.2 Secondary learning

The acquisition of geographical knowledge from textual descriptions and graphical representation, most obviously maps, is termed ‘secondary learning’ by Kitchen and Blades (2002); in other words, this is not knowledge gained from direct experience. Secondary learning is necessarily part of an individuals geographical knowledge of places they have no direct experience of and of areas that are too large-scale to allow direct experience to be the basis of a cognitive map, such as continents, countries and regions. Although it has been found that cognitive maps built on textual sources are similar to those based on cartographic representations, the latter appear to be longer- lasting (Mark et al., 1999).

The medium of speech, as opposed to the written word, is another means by which geographical knowledge can be passed on and acquired. A study by Saarinen et al.

13 (cited in Kitchen and Blades, 2002) compared how individuals drew a map of the world with their assessment of the relative importance of secondary sources of information in contributing to geographical knowledge. It was found that the best maps were drawn by those who rated atlases, books and school experience most highly, while the poorest maps were drawn by those who rated television, travel and talking to people as important.

The influence of media coverage of a place on individuals’ cognitive maps is equivocal. Some, but not all, studies suggest that it may enhance geographical knowledge of the place being covered. In this context, it is worth noting that, in the survey of the Midlands, recorded here, it was apparent that the extensive media coverage of the London bombings, which included many references to towns in the Midlands, had not had a great impact on the geographical knowledge of the participants of the survey despite their concurrency.

Virtual reality can provide an intermediate means of gaining geographical knowledge which, while mimicking movement through space, does not provide the same richness of sensory stimuli that movement through real space does. Perceptions of kinaesthesis and smell, for example, are not experienced through the medium of virtual reality.

3. Background to the study

A study by Montello et al. (2003), in which a method for measuring vague regions was tested, formed the theoretical framework for this study. The purpose of that research was to investigate individual perception of the location and extent of downtown Santa Barbara. The study used a questionnaire-type method of three tasks: participants were asked to draw an outline of the downtown area on a base map of the wider region; they were then asked to repeat the task but with 50% and 100% confidence that the outline enclosed the area; finally, participants were asked to site the ‘core’ of the area. The study showed broad, although not exact, agreement in the definition of the location and extent of downtown.

14 The authors considered the possibility that bias had been introduced by the presentation of the base map, which may have affected the responses: if the map had included a larger or smaller area, would the respondents’ outlines of downtown have been different? They suggested that one way of eliminating any map bias would be to ask people at various parts of the town whether they were in downtown Santa Barbara or not. This study adopted that approach to the City Centre of Sheffield, focusing on membership of the City Centre of current location and of landmarks listed on a questionnaire. Like downtown Santa Barbara, Sheffield City Centre has no officially- recognized boundaries but is nevertheless a ‘real place’, appearing as a destination for buses and acknowledged as an area of Sheffield by the City Council.

The study differs from that of Montello et al. in that participants were not asked to give answers at different confidence levels. It was felt that a street questionnaire should be relatively simple to avoid deterring potential participants. In addition, comparison was made between individual perceptions of the small-scale, local area of the City Centre with those of a larger-scale, (possibly) more distant region by asking participants about the Midlands; the format was consistent with that of the section on the City Centre.

4. Methodology

4.1 Boundaries

In order to draw up lists as objectively as possible of landmarks and towns in and around Sheffield City Centre and the Midlands, some background research on boundaries was done by consulting authoritative sources.

4.1.1 Sheffield City Centre

While many organizations use some means to define the City Centre, there is no unanimity on where exactly the boundary is placed. Outlines of the City Centre as defined by the organizations below are shown in Appendix A.

15 Sheffield City Centre Alert Scheme

The City Centre has a single fixed boundary for the purposes of emergency evacuation of the city and for providing ‘information about events in the City Centre area that may impact on the “normal work” of organisations located in the area’ such as transport or traffic problems or demonstrations (Priority Alert, 2005). The boundary was drawn up by South Yorkshire Police in conjunction with Sheffield City Council Emergency Planning Team, and with the Fire and Rescue Service and the Ambulance Service as participating organizations.

This suggests that the need to co-ordinate the work of local agencies, such as the police, health authorities and local government, as outlined in the discussion of local geographical information strategies in the UK by Craglia and Signoretta (2000), seems to have been addressed, at least in the planning for emergencies affecting the City Centre.

Open Forum For Economic Regeneration

The Open Forum For Economic Regeneration (OFFER) is a company and registered charity accountable to the government for its role in leading Sheffield’s Community Empowerment Network.

A visit in person was made to the organization’s offices to ask the City Centre worker about their definition of City Centre. Their original definition was decided on by internal discussion within OFFER. However, the boundary currently used was extended to include the Kelham area, which lies just north of the original northern boundary. This adjustment was made by the City Centre worker to enable OFFER to work with the already established Kelham Action Group.

Sheffield City Council

Sheffield City Council does not use a single definition of the City Centre, although they do have a definition based on the Unitary Development Plan, adopted in 1998 (Sheffield City Council, 2005). For the purposes of the UDP, the City Centre is defined in the text in the following way: ‘essentially, it is bounded by the Inner Ring Road to the west and

16 south, and the rail lines to the east and north’. The UDP document refers to a series of 10 maps defining the areas of Sheffield, with the City Centre area being defined as shown on Map 10. Map 10 is entitled ‘Central Area y Area 10’ and is shown in Appendix A3.

Sheffield City Council, Planning Department

The Planning Department does not use area boundaries when dealing with planning applications. According to information provided by a Planning Officer, the department’s use of boundaries within the Sheffield area is more or less restricted to the allocation of work between the area teams. The ‘City Centre and East Team’ deals with applications concerning the east of the city as well as the City Centre.

Sheffield City Council, Council Tax Department The Council Tax Department divides its work into 14 areas consisting of a ‘circle around the City Centre with the remaining areas spreading out [from the centre]’. They use a system of street codes drawn up 25-30 (or more) years ago when the rating system was still in operation. This system was described as ‘very unofficial’. All properties have a Property Reference Number, the first two digits of which are the street code. If a Property Reference Number begins with ‘00’ it is deemed to be in the City Centre. The Council Tax Officer described the outer boundary enclosing the ‘00’ code by means of street names in a clockwise direction from the northeast corner of the area (see Appendix A4 for the boundary described). It is of interest that when naming the streets on the northern limits of the ‘00’ code, the Officer commented that although Queen Street and Bank Street did not have that code, they were ‘probably closer to the City Centre than the Moor [for example]’; this implies that he considers the City Centre to be focused around the Cathedral area.

The Council Tax Officer made reference to the boundaries of the Unitary Development Plan as probably being the only boundaries recognized by the Council as official boundaries.

17 City Centre Management

City Centre Management is the body responsible for ‘City Centre Ambassadors’ who work in conjunction with South Yorkshire Police in reducing street crime. The Ambassadors patrol the City Centre which, by their definition, includes the area within the Inner Ring Road, but not the area in the north-west between Broad Lane and Shalesmoor. Again, the northern boundary is the one that differs. It does not extend as far north as that used by the Alert Scheme, OFFER, or South Yorkshire Police.

Emergency Services

None of the emergency services uses the term City Centre in a formal or official way. When responding to emergency calls, a more specific location is needed, such as a street name, although the Ambulance Service would require more detail than, say, the High Street. However, if the call is made from a public telephone, the Service automatically has information about its location.

Fire Prevention Officers categorize areas by postcode when organizing their activities whereas the Ambulance Service does not categorize the city by area at all. When attendance is required, the nearest ambulance is identified by satellite tracking. Standby ambulances are situated at a few places within the (unofficial) City Centre, such as the Bus Station, Fargate or Arundel Gate, and the locations are based on the record of frequently made emergency calls; the crews have some discretion in the selection of these locations.

South Yorkshire Police formally recognize an area called ‘Sheffield Central’ which has an official boundary and includes the City Centre, but it extends further east and south- east by approximately 4.5 km than most other definitions of the City Centre do. The southern boundary zigzags to form a triangle, with its southern apex about 1 km south of the Inner Ring Road, which includes Sheffield United Football Club.

Comparison of boundaries

A comparison of the definitions of the ‘City Centre’ by these official bodies shows that the southern and western boundaries are reasonably consistent, and are marked by the

18 inner ring road. Two exceptions to this are South Yorkshire Police (see above), and the UDP definition, which appears on the map as extending westwards to include of ‘Western Bank’; this area is not included in the textual description which states that the western boundary lies on the Inner Ring Road. The eastern boundary is approximately the same for all definitions (apart from the Police Service’s ‘Sheffield Central’ area) differing only in following either the railway line or the adjacent road (Sheaf Street and Shoreham Street). However, there is greater variation seen for the northern boundary, with the most southerly-placed being that used by the Council Tax Department. The more northerly-placed northern boundary is that of the UDP. The northern boundaries of OFFER and the Alert Scheme differ from each other in that OFFER’s boundary extends further in the north-west corner and the Alert Scheme’s extends further in the north-east corner.

As Cohn and Gotts (1996) point out, the placing of a boundary to enclose a vague region is necessarily arbitrary to some extent. It will depend not only on the perceptions of those deciding on the boundary, but on the purpose for which a boundary is deemed desirable.

4.1.2 The Midlands

In a similar way to Sheffield City Centre, the boundary used to describe ‘the Midlands’ differs according to source, and varies in the different contexts and purposes for which the Midlands is defined. The definition given for the Midlands by two encyclopaedias (Hutchinson, 1999; Wikipedia, 2005) is, in the first instance, by reference to the mediaeval kingdom of Mercia. Mercia covered the area of central England bounded by the Thames in the south, the Humber in the north, East Anglia to the east and the Welsh border to the west. Both encyclopaedias go on to define the present day Midlands by the counties included in the region (see Table 1). According to Wikipedia, the decline in manufacturing and the changing nature of the region as it has become less industrialized, is held to be of importance in influencing perceptions of the Midlands, such that Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire are now sometimes also considered to be in the region.

19 Hutchinson’s definition divides the region into East, West and South Midlands:

E Midlands Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire. W Midlands the former metropolitan county of West Midlands created from parts of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire; and (often included) S Midlands Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. (Hutchinson, 1999)

In other words, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire are not in themselves part of the Midlands in this definition, but only as part of the West Midlands, an administrative area. Herefordshire and Lincolnshire are not included at all. Rutland is included, although not by name since in 1999, the publication date of the encyclopaedia, Rutland was part of Leicestershire.

Wikipedia Hutchinson Enc. Brit. Direct.gov Derbyshire √ √ √ √ Bedfordshire (√) Buckinghamshire (√) Gloucestershire (√) Herefordshire √ √ √ Leicestershire √ √ √ √ Lincolnshire √ √ √ Northamptonshire √ √ √ √ Nottinghamshire √ √ √ √ Oxfordshire (√) (√) Rutland √ √ √ Shropshire √ √ √ Staffordshire √ √ part √ √ Warwickshire √ √ part √ √ West Midlands √ √ √ √ Worcestershire √ √ part √ √ Table 1 Counties included in the Midlands

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the ‘Midland counties of England’ as ‘(usually) the central counties south of the Humber and Mersey and north of the Thames, excluding (sometimes) the coastal counties and the counties on the Welsh border’. It goes on to give a definition specific to hunting: ‘the counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire’. The Encyclopaedia Britannica and Direct.Gov both include all the counties specified by Wikipedia and Hutchinson’s except Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Gloucestershire.

20 On-line weather forecasts are often available by region. Four examples for the Midlands are shown below.

BBC, 2005 Sky News, 2005

Times Online, 2005 The Met Office, 2005

The BBC’s weather Web page shows the Midlands as an area large enough to include all anticipated perceptions of the region, which is approximately the original area of mediaeval Mercia. The Sky News weather page shows an area which is nearly as extensive, but does not quite reach to the Humber and names only four towns, including Gloucester; interestingly, Gloucestershire is not included in the definitions of either encyclopaedias quoted above except as a possible recent addition in the entry in Wikipedia. However, neither of these Web pages provides a boundary; the impression is

21 of an area portrayed which will include the area sought without the commitment of exactness.

The areas shown on the weather Web pages of Times Online and the Met Office both enclose a specific area to define the region. They differ only in that Times Online includes Northamptonshire whereas the Met Office does not. Both encyclopaedia definitions include Northamptonshire. However, the Met Office has a rather unusual system of naming British regions: the area of Britain shown for the ‘West Country’ is of the counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Avon (but not Devon, Dorset or Cornwall); South-east England consists of Oxfordshire, Surrey, Middlesex, Greater London and Kent (but not Sussex).

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (2005) in the USA provides a GIS freely available on the Internet to locate places worldwide. Point locations are given in the form of latitude and longitude, and the co-ordinates given for the Midlands are those of Ashby-de-la-Zouch: 52° 45' N, 1° 30' W. It is assumed that GNS has identified this point as the spatial centre of the region. If that assumption is correct, then the GNS excludes Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and either includes or excludes both Shropshire and Lincolnshire (and possibly Cambridgeshire).

4.2 Pilot study

A pilot study was carried out prior to the survey in central Sheffield. The results of the pilot study affected the form and content of the final questionnaire used in the street survey.

The questionnaire was piloted among students and other members of Sheffield University to test how long it takes to answer all the questions and to check that the questions were clear and unambiguous. Some of these participants volunteered the comment that the questions were straightforward, even though they did not know where all the locations and towns specified are. The time taken to complete the questionnaire was found to be between five and ten minutes. None of the participants found any of the questions objectionable; all were willing to answer all the questions. However, it was

22 concluded that the original layout of the questionnaire was a little intimidating in that the lists of locations and towns appeared very long. The format of the lists was changed in the subsequent version.

Some reactions to the questions influenced the way in which the instructions and explanations of the project were given. It appeared from the participants’ hesitance and general body language that not knowing where somewhere is caused some self- consciousness or even embarrassment. This led to a greater emphasis being placed on explaining that the City Centre and the Midlands do not have a single unequivocal definition and that the answers to the questions are not right or wrong, merely the perception of the participant.

The pilot exercise also demonstrated that places that are clearly well-known to a participant are not necessarily known by name. For example, almost everyone gave shopping as one of their reasons for visiting the city centre but some said they did not know where the landmark ‘Fargate’ is; Fargate is the main shopping area of Sheffield city centre. It is difficult to imagine that someone who goes shopping in the city centre does not go to Fargate.

Knowledge of the location of towns in England was evidently a problem, and it was apparent that lack of geographical knowledge was causing some embarrassment, despite frequent reassurance that ‘Don’t know where it is’ appeared many times on all completed questionnaires. In an attempt to avoid causing discomfort to the participants, and to reduce the likelihood that responses would be randomly guessed ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, the original list of 42 towns in the piloted questionnaire was cut to 32 in the final questionnaire. Most of the towns retained are either large towns or county towns bearing a similarity to the name of their county, so that they might be ‘placed’ on a mental map of the country more easily. The exceptions to this rule fall into two categories: Buxton, Chesterfield and Worksop are all within 40 kilometres of Sheffield and judged to be more likely to be known for that reason; Burton-upon-Trent, Cheltenham, Chester, Grantham, Shrewsbury, Stratford-upon-Avon and Swindon are all

23 towns that may be perceived as bordering on the Midlands and without larger better- known alternatives near to any of them.

The Sheffield landmarks for which the response in the pilot study were ‘Don’t know where it is’ are presented here (Figure 2) because this response was influential in modifying the questionnaire for use in the street survey.

6 Number ofresponses 4

0 Moor Wicker Fargate Ice Rink Leadmill Park Hill Moorfoot Waitrose West Bar Cathedral Cole Bros Town Hall Town River Don Law Courts Bus Station Campo Lane Ponds Forge Weston Park Weston Lady's Bridge Kelham Island Fitzalan Sqare Fitzalan Victoria Quays Fire Service HQ Service Fire St Mary'sChurch Devonshire Green Fire/Police Museum Royal Victoria Hotel Hallamshire Hospital S. Yorkshire PoliceHQ Figure 2 Number of ‘Don’t know where it is’ responses, Pilot survey

Lady’s Bridge and Campo Lane were both largely unknown (by name, at least) by the participants of the pilot survey. Nevertheless, they were retained in the final questionnaire as it was judged that they were likely to be better known in the general population of Sheffield than amongst members of the University. St Mary’s Church was not kept as a landmark in the final questionnaire partly because it was not known by many in the pilot survey but also because it was clear that many people initially confused it with the Catholic Cathedral Church of St Marie which is in the centre of the city, whereas St Mary’s is just outside the Inner Ring Road.

24 Other landmarks were omitted in the modified questionnaire either because they were unanimously classed as out of the City Centre (Hunters Bar) or because they were not widely known but are very close to another, better known, landmark (Cole Bros/John Lewis, directly opposite the City Hall; Moorfoot, directly adjacent to the Moor; St Mary’s Church was replaced by the nearby and much better known Sheffield United Football Club). West Street Post Office replaced the less specific West Street, which some people thought was in the City Centre at one end and either out of the city or on its boundary at the other. Similarly, West Bar was omitted as the more specific landmark of the Fire and Police Museum is situated at one end of West Bar; it was judged that West Bar as a whole could legitimately fall into more than one category of answer.

4.3 Central Sheffield survey

4.3.1 The sample surveyed

Data on individuals’ perceptions of Sheffield City Centre were collected from residents and visitors, including some long-term visitors from outside the UK. Individuals were approached at three locations in central Sheffield. Selection of participants was as random as possible, although an attempt was made to approach unaccompanied individuals since the questionnaire was not completed by the participants themselves, rather, the questions were asked and responses noted down; solitary participants were selected to avoid the possibility of composite or advised opinions. This was not successful in every case as a few participants were solitary only because they were waiting for their companion who arrived before the completion of the questionnaire but, usually, the participants were by that time more keen to give their own opinion than that of their companion.

Surprisingly few people who were approached in the final locations chosen declined to take part. Most of those said they did not have enough time, were on their way to or from work, or meeting someone. A few declined before they were asked: there are many market research surveys carried out in the city and participation is not very popular.

25 4.3.2 The questionnaire

Some background details were requested to provide information about factors which may possibly influence perceptions of the City Centre. These included where in the city the participant lives (residents) and works/studies (if applicable) and for how long they have lived and worked/studied there. Following the pilot study, the participants were also asked what region of the country they ‘come from’ as this might have influenced their answers to the section about the Midlands.

Since this was a street questionnaire, with quite a long list of landmarks, participants were not asked to indicate a level of confidence (as in the study by Montello et al.) with which they placed a landmark in, out, or on the boundary of the City Centre or the Midlands.

Based on the various existing definitions of Sheffield City Centre, a series of landmarks was compiled to include those within, outside and on the boundary of the City Centre. There are parts of this area that present no obvious landmarks; that is to say, areas that are predominantly residential, notably the north-west section of the central area. The pilot test of the questionnaire had no landmark in this area but, subsequently, one was added (Shalesmoor) which it was judged might be known as the tram stop bears the same name.

Several landmarks were included for the reason that, although they are certainly within the City Centre, they are well-known and would therefore be easy questions to answer. It was felt that the list should include some very well-known landmarks to gain the confidence of the participants. These well-known City Centre landmarks included the Town Hall, City Hall, Cathedral and Crucible and Lyceum Theatres. Some landmarks were omitted because the participant might have been predisposed to include them by virtue of their name, for example the Central Library. Streets in general were avoided, with some exceptions, since part, but not the whole length, might be perceived as in the City Centre.

The final questionnaire was ‘slimmed down’ in appearance as it had become apparent that the layout of the pilot questionnaire was rather intimidating. The number of

26 landmarks in the City Centre was only reduced by three (to 38), but appeared to be much shorter.

Towns in central England were selected on a similar basis to the locations in central Sheffield, i.e. to include towns that might be viewed as on the boundary or outside the Midlands as well as those considered to be in the Midlands. The list of towns on the pilot questionnaire was quite long and included towns close to each other. Several towns were subsequently omitted because they were not known by most participants.

The final questionnaire used in the central Sheffield survey is shown in Appendix B.

4.3.3 Answer options

Five options were offered for answers on the pilot questionnaire: yes, no, maybe, on the boundary, don’t know where it is. The option of maybe was included because it seemed possible that it might give an indication of context, that a landmark might or might not be in the City Centre depending on the purpose of a visit. However, it was omitted after the pilot study since it did not appear to be selected on that basis, rather as a way of saying ‘don’t know’ (whether it is in the City Centre or not as opposed to ‘don’t know where it is’) and confused the analysis of the results of the pilot study. By excluding this option, the final questionnaire demanded a decision on the part of the participant as to membership of the location or town in the City Centre or the Midlands; while ‘don’t know where it is’ was a necessary possible choice of answer, ‘don’t know’ was not an option.

The option of ‘Don’t know where it is’ is abbreviated to DKW in Section 5, Results.

4.3.4 Location selected for the survey

After the provisional questionnaire had been modified in light of the pilot exercise, the first location in which members of the public were asked to participate was Moorfoot. This was selected because although the Moor itself is generally considered to have membership of the city centre, the small area of Moorfoot is probably not considered a focus for shopping or meeting up with friends or family members. Except for the presence of a Post Office and public toilets, it is more a place people pass through on the

27 way to and from the Moor and other locations in the centre. These factors place it as a possible boundary point for the city centre. However, these same factors were perhaps reasons for the difficulty in finding people willing to take part in the survey at that location: fewer people are there and those who are there are usually in a hurry, many of them on their way to or from work. This southern location was shifted slightly, by about 50 metres, to the Moor.

The next location selected was the Peace Gardens, which is a busier place and somewhere that people choose to eat their lunch or meet up with friends. This proved a more successful location with respect to the number of people willing to participate. The third location was the Railway Station on the east of the city.

All the locations are quite busy places, with seats or benches.

Castle Market, in the north-east of the city, was another location considered, but there was an insufficient number of willing participants.

5. Results

5.1 Survey participants

A total of 93 people took part in the survey and all participants answered the section on Sheffield City Centre. The number of participants in each of the three locations selected for comparison was as follows: 23 on the Moor; 20 in the Peace Gardens; 22 at the Railway Station, a total of 65.

The larger number of people surveyed on the Moor and at the Station resulted from the re-assessment of completed questionnaires. Initially, questionnaires with a high number of ‘don’t know where it is’ (DKW) responses were considered unsuitable for inclusion. However, in the light of the variability of frequency of this response, and the occurrence of a high number from several participants who had always, or for a very long time, lived in Sheffield, those excluded at the start of the survey were reinstated: the lack of

28 knowledge of some landmarks does not invalidate the responses to those that were known.

However, the variable number of DKW responses resulted in very different effective sample numbers for some landmarks. For this reason, results for landmarks placed in the City Centre, not in the City Centre and on the boundary of the City Centre are presented as percentages of those who did know the landmark, rather than the number of participants giving each of those responses.

Results described as being from ‘all participants’ are those from the total number of participants, 56 women and 37 men. There were 65 participants from the three locations, 23 from the pilot study, and five from locations which were deemed unsuitable due to the lack of willing participants. The distribution of participants amongst the age groups is shown in Figure 3.

30 30

15 15 14 13

11 10 Number of participants 10

0 Under 26 years 26-35 years 36-45 years 46-55 years 56-65 years Over 65 years

Figure 3 Age distribution of survey participants, all participants

‘Location’ refers to the place where the questionnaire was answered, i.e. the Moor, Peace Gardens, Railway Station and Sheffield University (Pilot study). ‘Landmarks’ are

29 those in the list of places on the questionnaire. Responses to the question about the Midlands were not considered in relation to location.

5.2 Analysis of results

The results were coded and entered on an SPSS data file. The data from the three locations were analyzed using the chi square test. However, the expected frequency is small for many categories and breaks Siegel’s ‘rule of thumb’ concerning restrictions on the use of the chi square test: if the number of categories is greater than 2, no more than 1/5 of the expected frequencies should be less than 5, and certainly none should be less than 1. (Ebdon, 1985:67)

The results are presented as percentages of responses from participants who knew where the landmark is situated. In the comparison of perceptions between the three locations, only data obtained at those locations are used. In presenting results that are dealt with independent of survey location, responses recorded on all 93 questionnaires for Sheffield City Centre are used.

In general, results from the pilot study, held at Sheffield University, are not discussed in great detail. This is because the differences in the questionnaire make direct comparisons dubious: there are no results from that survey for the additional three landmarks on the final questionnaire, that did not appear on the pilot questionnaire. The answer option of ‘maybe’ also confuses comparisons. Nevertheless, when these factors do not seem to cloud the results, consideration is given to those from the survey at the University. The results from the pilot study are also included in the figures.

Of the 93 participants, 18 were unwilling or unable to answer the question about the Midlands; a total of 75 questionnaires were completed for that question.

5.3 Sheffield City Centre

5.3.1 Distribution of responses

Responses from all participants placing landmarks in the City Centre totalled more than those placing landmarks outside the City Centre and on the boundary combined (see

30 Figure 4). This suggests that the perception of the participants broadly fits in with a boundary following the Inner Ring Road, which encloses most of the landmarks on the questionnaire.

60 57

30 27 % of responses 20 16

0 In the City Centre Not in the City Centre On the Boundary

Figure 4 Distribution of responses to Sheffield landmarks

The low incidence of placing a landmark on the boundary may be because, despite attempts to include landmarks covering all the categories of response, the participants were not able to find many places from the list that they perceived as marking the boundary. Another explanation is that people’s perceptions of Sheffield City Centre are not in the broader sense of a coherent place called the City Centre, bounded in a definite way, but rather of individual places and landmarks and whether they are part of the City Centre or not. Several participants expressed the view that the City Centre is somewhat spread out, rather than a strongly connected and easily definable area. It is also possible that the option of ‘Boundary’ seems equivalent to ‘Don’t know’.

There is a reasonably even distribution of the response of ‘Boundary’ across the three locations: 13% of all responses on the Moor, 9% in the Peace Gardens and 11% at the Railway Station. The distribution of the responses ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ are also evenly distributed and a summary of the quantitative distribution of responses is shown in Table 2, below.

Moor Peace Gardens Railway Station In the City Centre 49% 51% 45% Not in the City Centre 23% 23% 20% Boundary 13% 9% 11%

Table 2 A comparison of the distribution of responses between the three locations

5.3.2 Home post codes of participants

A majority of participants on the Moor resident in Sheffield, 17 out of 21, live on the eastern side of the city (see Appendix C). The map shown in Appendix C was compiled after informal conversations with estate agents about the variation in house prices and the ‘desirability’ of different areas of the city. Generally, the more desirable, and therefore more expensive, areas of Sheffield lie to the west and southwest, closest to the Peak District. In addition to this area, properties in the City Centre have, in recent years, also become fashionable. The area of S7 may be regarded as intermediate between its neighbours to the east and the west in terms of desirability and house prices. The post code area of S6 may also be termed ‘intermediate’ in that it is a traditionally less wealthy area, with ‘disadvantaged status’ as judged for the purpose of EU funding, but is becoming more popular thanks to the combination of its location on the western side of Sheffield and the development of the tram route to Malin Bridge and Middlewood. The S18 post code is on the outskirts of the city and regarded by some as part of Sheffield only officially or by virtue of the Sheffield post code.

These are necessarily broad generalizations which include many anomalies and should be recognized as such. However, the predominance of residents from the eastern and northern parts of the city amongst those surveyed on the Moor is perhaps a reflection of the nature of the Moor. It is a pedestrianized shopping area with most of the shops offering cut-price goods, such as book remainder shops and shops where each item costs ₤1, although there is also a branch of a major supermarket and two department stores. It accommodates market stalls and several mobile food outlets for street-eating.

By contrast, the Peace Gardens is a recently reconstructed area of outdoor seating, water features and fountains adjacent to the Town Hall and with a large continental-style cafe

32 bar on its edge. It is also close to the main shopping area of Fargate and only about 250 metres from the top end of the Moor. Of the 15 people who were surveyed in the Peace Gardens who were residents of Sheffield, eight lived in the same eastern area of the city as the majority of those on the Moor, and the remaining seven lived either in the western part of the city or in the intermediate areas of S6, S7 or S18.

Participants of the survey at the Railway Station who were resident in Sheffield also had home postcodes that were fairly evenly distributed between the eastern and western sides of the city.

Of the 20 participants of the pilot study who were resident in Sheffield, 12 lived on the western side of the city. The postcode area where most student accommodation is found is S10 and, although only seven of the participants were students, it is an area that is very convenient for those working at the University as well as for students.

5.3.3 ‘Don’t know where it is’

The option of ‘don’t know where it is’ (DKW) was recorded for 18% of all possible responses (483 out of 2660). However, there was not an even distribution between the different locations where the questionnaire was conducted, as shown in Figure 5.

33 201 200

150

131 128

100 Number of responses Number

0 Moor Peace Gardens Railway Station

Figure 5 Number of ‘DKW’ responses from the three locations

The highest incidence of DKW was found at the Railway Station. This is perhaps unsurprising as railway stations are peopled by those who are passing through, departing, arriving or meeting others; in other words a population of great diversity and mobility. Questionnaires completed at the Railway Station were from people covering a range of familiarity with Sheffield; some knew it very well, having lived in the city for many years, while others knew it only slightly from a brief period of living in Sheffield or from visits from their homes in nearby places such as Chesterfield and Derby. Several individuals at the Railway Station willing to participate were unsuitable for the reason that they didn’t know Sheffield at all.

A lower incidence of DKW was seen from participants surveyed on the Moor, and in the Peace Gardens. The proportion of participants on the Moor who reported that they had always lived in Sheffield was high: 15 out of 23; of the remaining eight, three had lived in Sheffield for many years (20, 23 and 42 years). By comparison, four participants at each of the other two locations reported that they had always lived in Sheffield; eight

34 participants in the Peace Gardens had lived in Sheffield between 10 and 55 years and four participants at the Railway Station had lived in Sheffield between 10 and 36 years.

The distribution of DKW responses between the landmarks is shown in Figure 6.

45 43

34 35 33 31

30 28 28 27 27

25 24 22 21

n = 93 19 19 20 18 18

Number of participants 15 12 11 11 10

4444 5 33 2222 1 0 Moor Wicker Fargate Ice Rink Crucible Leadmill Park Hill Park Waitrose Cathedral River Don Town Hall Showroom Law Courts Bus Station Shalesmoor Campo Lane Ponds Forge Ponds Weston Park Weston Lady's Bridge Lady's Castle Market Castle Mappin Street Kelham Island Kelham Fitzalan Sqare Fitzalan Victoria Quays Victoria Winter Garden Winter Furnival Square Fire Service HQ Service Fire Devonshire Green Sheffield University Sheffield Sheffield United FC Sheffield Royal Victoria Hotel Royal Fire/Police Museum Fire/Police Hallamshire Hospital Hallamshire S. Yorkshire S. Police HQ West Street Post Office Post West Street

Sheffield Hallam University Figure 6 Landmarks of unknown location, all participants

Several of the landmarks seemed to be broadly unknown, at least by name, by participants in general. For some of these landmarks, for example Devonshire Green, the Fire/Police Museum and Mappin Street, the proportion of participants who answered DKW was evenly spread across the three locations. However, for a number of landmarks with a high incidence of DKW, there were differences between the three locations.

The same number of participants (10) on the Moor and at the Railway Station did not know where Kelham Island. At the Peace Gardens, however, only 4 of the participants answered DKW to this landmark.

35 Kelham Island houses an industrial museum, and the nature of the location surveyed seems likely to be related to the knowledge shown of the landmark; while there are seats at both the Peace Gardens and the Moor, people are not likely to visit the Moor for its own sake whereas they do visit the Peace Gardens simply to sit and relax. The seats on the Moor are used more by people waiting for their companions to emerge from shops, or eating ‘on the hoof’. The subjective impression that participants on the Moor were predominantly from lower socio-economic groupings may be supported by the fact that the shops there are predominantly aimed at people on a low budget. To speculate on any relationship between familiarity with Kelham Island and the different characters and amenities found on the Moor and in the Peace Gardens would be unwise and impossible to justify without larger samples from the locations.

Participants on the Moor were more familiar with long-established landmarks, some of which may have represented former boundaries of the city. An example is Lady’s Bridge, which crosses the River Don and leads on to a road which used to be the site of many of Sheffield’s major steel works before they were demolished in the late 1980s. Lady’s Bridge is ‘one of Sheffield oldest landmarks’ (Vickers, 1978:16). A larger number of participants on the Moor also knew where Shalesmoor, the Police Headquarters and West Street Post Office are than at either of the other two locations.

A number of landmarks were almost universally known amongst participants of this survey. All knew the whereabouts of the City Hall and the Railway Station. Somewhat surprisingly, one person did not know where the Town Hall is: a young woman at the Railway Station, who has been attending Sheffield University for one academic year. It seems likely that she is familiar with the building itself but simply does not know it by name. The Bus Station was known by all except one participant in the Peace Gardens; similarly, the Crucible Theatre was known by all but one participant at the Railway Station. The Hallamshire Hospital, Ponds Forge and Sheffield University each scored two DKW responses.

Despite being identified as a well-known landmark in the pilot survey, Mappin Street may have been a poor choice for inclusion in the questionnaire. Part of Sheffield

36 University is situated on Mappin Street which would, therefore, naturally be part of the mental geography of members of the University amongst whom the pilot survey was carried out. In the pilot survey, Mappin Street was placed in each of the categories except for DKW and so appeared to be a good candidate landmark.

5.3.4 Landmarks in the City Centre

Landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre as a percentage of all people surveyed are shown in Figure 7. The six highest ranking landmarks are centred around the Town Hall and Fargate, and the nine highest ranked landmarks, are all perceived to have membership of the City Centre by more than 90% of all participants.

99 99 99 99 99 100 98 92 91 91 89 90 87

80 77 74 73 69 70 65

60 57 57 56 53 51 47 47 50 44 37 40 35 % of responses % of 30 22 20 17 16 14 14 14 14 10 66 2 0 Moor Wicker Fargate Ice Rink Ice Crucible Leadmill Park Hill City Hall Waitrose Cathedral River Don Town Hall Showroom Law Courts Bus Station Shalesmoor Campo Lane Ponds Forge Weston Park Lady's Bridge Castle Market Mappin Street Kelham Island Fitzalan Sqare Fitzalan Victoria Quays Victoria Winter GardenWinter Railway Station Furnival Square Fire Service HQ Service Fire Devonshire Green Sheffield University Sheffield Sheffield United FC Fire/Police MuseumFire/Police Royal Victoria Hotel Hallamshire Hospital S. Yorkshire Police HQ West Street Post Office

Sheffield Hallam University Hallam Sheffield

Figure 7 Landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre, all participants

This indicates a general agreement on landmarks in a small central area of the city as being in the City Centre.

The ‘top ten’ landmarks placed in the City Centre by all participants compared with those at the three locations are shown in Table 3, below.

37 Sheffield % All % Moor % Peace Gardens % Railway Station % University Cathedral 99 Cathedral 100 Cathedral 100 Crucible 100 Cathedral 100 City Hall 99 City Hall 100 City Hall 100 Moor 96 City Hall 100 Crucible 99 Fargate 100 Crucible 100 Cathedral 95 Crucible 100 Fargate 99 Furnival Square 100 Fargate 100 City Hall 95 Fargate 100 Town Hall 99 Town Hall 100 Town Hall 100 Town Hall 95 Town Hall 100 Winter Garden 98 Winter Garden 100 Winter Garden 100 Winter Garden 95 Winter Garden 91 Fitzalan Square 92 Crucible 96 Bus Station 95 Fargate 94 Moor 91 Furnival Square 91 Fitzalan Square 94 Castle Market 95 Fitzalan Square 94 Fitzalan Square 87 Moor 91 Campo Lane 93 Moor 95 Furnival Square 92 Campo Lane 80 Castle Market 89 Castle Market 91 Fitzalan Square 94 Fire Service HQ 91 Castle Market 78

Table 3 Highest ranking landmarks placed in the City Centre

While there are some differences in the percentages, it should be noted that the sample sizes differ slightly between the four locations and that the ‘All’ sample consists of the pooled results from all four locations together and a further five participants from other locations. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to state that there is a general consensus that the top-ranking seven landmarks perceived as being in the City Centre by all individuals surveyed are all in the top 10-ranked landmarks regardless of location: Cathedral, City Hall, Crucible, Fargate, Town Hall, Winter Garden and Fitzalan Square (in italics in Table 3).

All seven of the landmarks perceived as the ‘core’ of the City Centre (Section 5.3.8) are amongst those perceived as in the City Centre by more than 90% of participants, regardless of location, with the exception of Castle Market (89%).

There are some differences between the results from the different locations, however. These differences are more marked further down the ranking of landmarks in the City Centre. The greatest differences apparently related to location, are seen for the Showroom Cinema, the Railway Station, the River Don, West Street Post Office, Waitrose and Kelham Island. This is shown in Figure 8, below.

38 100

40 % of responses

0 Moor Wicker Fargate Ice Rink Crucible Leadmill City Hall Park Hill Waitrose Cathedral Town Hall River Don Showroom Law Courts Bus Station *Shalesmoor Campo Lane Ponds ForgePonds Weston Park Lady's Bridge Castle Market Mappin Street Kelham IslandKelham Fitzalan Sqare Victoria QuaysVictoria Winter Garden Winter Railway Station Fire Service HQ *Furnival Square Devonshire Green Sheffield University Royal Victoria Hotel Museum Fire/Police *Sheffield United FC *Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital S. Yorkshire Police HQ West Street Post Office Sheffield Hallam University Hallam Sheffield Location of survey:

Moor Peace Gardens (PG) Railway Station (RW) University (Pilot study) Figure 8 Landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre (*location not included in Pilot study)

The Showroom cinema was a landmark well-known to participants at the Railway Station, with only two people not knowing where it is. By contrast, 7 participants at the Peace Gardens and 9 on the Moor did not known where the Showroom is. It may have been perceived as part of the City Centre to those at the Railway Station by virtue of its closeness to the Station while at the same time being part of city nightlife, especially in view of the high number of participants at the Station having associations with the two universities. The Showroom is an independent cinema which offers educational workshops and often screens foreign films as well as films that are not generally being screened by the large national cinema complexes. All participants in the pilot study (Sheffield Univeristy) knew where the Showroom is, which may support the association between familiarity with the landmark and membership of a university.

The Railway Station is approximately 1 km from the Moor whereas it is about 0.57 km from the Peace Gardens. The greater distance may influence individuals’ perceptions of its membership of the City Centre for someone who is on the Moor whereas from the Peace Gardens, it may seem ‘just down the road’. Similarly, for

39 people surveyed at Sheffield University, the Railway Station is probably both frequently visited and further away from their homes than many other landmarks in the city.

Generally, a smaller proportion of participants at all locations perceived Castle Market to be in the City Centre compared with the River Don. This is most marked in data collected from the Railway Station where more than twice as many participants identified Castle Market as a City Centre landmark. The river is only about 75 metres from the market but is separated from it by the A61, a busy trunk road forming part of the Inner Ring Road. This may result in the two landmarks lying in differently perceived sectors of the city. It is also true that while the market is a busy bustling place, the best known stretches of the river lie further out of the City Centre where riverside walks have been developed in recent years. The river may be associated with leisure activities and free time in contrast to the market which may be associated with activities of domestic necessity (shopping). Perhaps the narrower gap between the two landmarks found from people on the Moor is related to the route home: many of the participants on the Moor live in areas where a bus route will take them across Lady’s Bridge, over the River Don, on their way in to or out of the City Centre. They may, therefore, have greater familiarity with the proximity of the two landmarks. This may also be an influence in the perception of the Royal Victoria Hotel as in or not in the City Centre, where similar, but less marked, differences are seen.

It is difficult to understand why 84% of participants at the Railway Station perceived West Street Post Office as part of the City Centre while only 42% of those on the Moor did so. One factor could be the higher incidence of those associated with the universities, eight compared with two on the Moor, although most of these individuals were attending Sheffield Hallam University, the main part of which is not near West Street. However, it is possible that they were in departments away from the central campus of the University and nearer to West Street. It is likely that the proximity of the Post Office to Sheffield University, and its position on the route to the City Centre, result in a perception by many participants in the pilot study that it is in the City Centre.

40 Only one participant at the Railway Station thought that Waitrose is in the City Centre compared with six on the Moor. Waitrose is about 400 metres from the Moor and, although they are separated by another part of the A61 Ring Road, they may be perceived in a similar way, as places for shopping.

Only three individuals, one at the Railway Station and two on the Moor, thought Kelham Island is part of the City Centre compared with seven individuals in the Peace Gardens. Familiarity with Kelham Island has been discussed in a previous section (5.3.3) and the issues raised in that context may also be relevant to the apparent difference in the perceptions of individuals in the three locations where the survey was conducted. It seems likely that those surveyed in the Peace Gardens were more disposed to be aware of and visit places such as the Industrial Museum situated at Kelham Island. However, members of Sheffield University do not appear to be equally disposed to such visits.

An equal number of participants in the pilot study placed the Police Headquarters in the City Centre as on the boundary. Most of them knew where it is but it may be in a part of the city less frequently visited by people at Sheffield University thereby making it less likely to be seen as part of the City Centre.

Other notable differences in perception are seen for the Moor, the Fire Service HQ, the Bus Station, Sheffield Hallam University, Devonshire Green, Lady’s Bridge (discussed in Section 5.3.3), and the Royal Victoria Hotel (discussed above).

Differences between home postcode areas The results showing responses indicating landmarks perceived in the City Centre according to home postcode area are shown in Figure 9. It should be noted that, although the area covered by postcodes in the north and north-east is larger than that covered by postcodes in the south and south-west, it is not proportional to the number of postcodes; the postcode area size in the north and north-east is smaller than in the south and south-west. (For an outline of the areas covered, see Appendix C.) The number of participants who live on the eastern side of the city is 52, with 27 living on the western side. The large difference in sample size is not ideal and may make any observations based on the results somewhat spurious.

41 100

40 % of responses

0 Moor Wicker Ice Rink Leadmill Park Hill Waitrose River Don River Showroom Law Courts Bus Station Shalesmoor Campo Lane Ponds Forge Ponds Weston Park Lady's Bridge Mappin Street Kelham Island Victoria Quays Railway Station Fitzalan Square Furnival Square Fire Service HQ Devonshire Green Sheffield University Sheffield UnitedSheffield FC Royal Victoria Hotel Fire/Police Museum Hallamshire Hospital S. Yorkshire Police HQ West StreetWest Office Post Location of survey:

Sheffield Hallam University S10, S11, S17 S2, S3, S4, S5, S8, S9, S12, S13, Figure 9 Landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre, all participants resident in Sheffield

When comparing landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre with the two main postcode areas identified, (Section 5.3.2), some differences can be seen, most notably for the following landmarks: Landmark: North, North-east West, South-west South Yorkshire Police HQ 86% 41% River Don 72% 33% Devonshire Green 30% 62% Royal Victoria Hotel 44% 14% Furnival Square 96% 71% Law Courts 63% 38% Ponds Forge 66% 42% Victoria Quays 38% 16% West Street Post Office 38% 60% Fire Services HQ 70% 90% Sheffield United Football Club 20% 0%

Table 4 Landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre, by home area

Just as for the River Don and Lady’s Bridge, South Yorkshire Police HQ, the Royal Victoria Hotel, the Law Courts, Ponds Forge and Victoria Quays are on or near possible routes between the City Centre and home for people living on the eastern side of the

42 city. As discussed above in relation to the river, this may influence perceptions of the membership of these landmarks to the City Centre.

The greater tendency for those living in western areas of the city to see Devonshire Green as being part of the city may be related to its closeness to Sheffield University and West Street. It is an area for relaxation and eating lunch (in sunny weather) for those based in the immediate area.

Differences between the sexes The perception of landmarks’ membership of the City Centre was quite similar between male and female participants, as shown in Figure 10.

100

40 % of responses% of 30

0 Moor Wicker Fargate Ice Rink Ice Crucible Leadmill City Hall Park Hill Waitrose Cathedral River Don River Town Hall Showroom Law Courts Law Bus Station Shalesmoor Campo Lane Campo Ponds Forge Ponds Weston Park Weston Lady's Bridge Lady's Castle Market Castle Mappin Street Mappin Kelham Island Victoria Quays Victoria Winter Garden Winter Railway Station Railway Fitzalan Square Fitzalan Furnival Square Furnival Fire Service HQ Service Fire Devonshire Green Devonshire Sheffield University Sheffield Sheffield United FC Fire/Police Museum Fire/Police Royal Victoria Hotel Hallamshire Hospital Hallamshire S. Yorkshire Police HQ West Street Post Office Post Street West

Sheffield Hallam University Hallam Sheffield Males Females

Figure 10 Landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre, all participants

Of all the participants, 40% (37) were male and 60% (56) were female. The greatest difference shown in this survey was for the Showroom Cinema: 85% of the men surveyed perceived the cinema as part of the City Centre compared with 54% of the women.

43 Differences between age groups

The uneven distribution of participants between the six age groups makes comparison group by group impractical. However, combining the two youngest groups splits the number of participants more evenly with 44 under 35 years and 49 over 35 years of age. The age of 35 years seems a reasonable age by which to divide the sample. However, perceptions of membership of the City Centre did not differ greatly between these two age ranges apart from Campo Lane, Fitzalan Square and Ponds Forge. Of the three landmarks, only Campo Lane was placed in the City Centre by more over 35-year-olds than younger participants.

100

40 % ofresponses

0 Moor Wicker Fargate Ice Rink Ice Crucible Leadmill City Hall Park Hill Waitrose Cathedral Town Hall River Don Showroom Law Courts Bus Station Bus Shalesmoor Campo Lane Ponds Forge Weston Park Lady's Bridge Castle Market Mappin Street Kelham Island Victoria Quays Victoria Winter Garden Railway Station Railway Fitzalan Square Furnival Square Fire Service HQ Service Fire Devonshire Green Devonshire Sheffield University Sheffield United FC Fire/Police MuseumFire/Police Royal VictoriaHotel Hallamshire Hospital S. Yorkshire Police HQ West Street Post Office Sheffield Hallam University Under 35 years Over 35 years Figure 11 Landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre, all participants

5.3.5 Landmarks not in the City Centre

There was more variation between the different locations in the number of responses indicating that a landmark was not perceived as part of the City Centre than for landmarks perceived as being in the City Centre. This is shown in Figure 12.

44 100

40 % of responses

0 Moor Wicker Ice Rink Leadmill Park Hill Waitrose River Don Showroom Law CourtsLaw Bus Station *Shalesmoor Ponds Forge Weston Park Lady's Bridge Castle Market Mappin Street Kelham Island Victoria Quays Victoria Railway Station Railway Fitzalan Square Fire Service HQ Fire Service *Furnival Square Devonshire Green Sheffield University Sheffield Royal Victoria Hotel Royal Victoria MuseumFire/Police *Sheffield United FC *Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital

S. Yorkshire Police HQ Location of survey: West Street Post Office Post Street West Moor Sheffield Hallam University Hallam Sheffield Peace Gardens Railway Station University (Pilot study) Figure 12 Landmarks perceived not to be in the City Centre (*location not included in Pilot study)

The Hallamshire Hospital, Weston Park and the Ice Rink are all outside the Inner Ring Road and were generally not considered to be part of the City Centre. Shalesmoor was perceived to be out of the City Centre by a majority of participants, although the proportion of participants holding this view varies between locations: 60% at the Railway Station, 76% on the Moor and 90% in the Peace Gardens. (This landmark did not appear on the questionnaire for the pilot study.) However, this was a landmark which was not well-known by name, even though there is a tram stop bearing the same name.

Nearly 70% of participants at both the Railway Station and the Moor compared with 50% of those in the Peace Gardens, perceived Kelham Island as being out of the City Centre.

The Wicker is the name of the road continuing from Lady’s Bridge and, as such, is another of the city’s oldest landmarks (Vickers, 1992). While fewer than 40% of the responses from the Moor placed the Wicker out of the City Centre, 71% in each of the

45 Peace Gardens and the Railway Station did so. This, again, may be related to the higher proportion of participants on the Moor who have always lived in Sheffield, or have done so for many years; it may also reflect home postcode areas (see below).

Perceptions of the River Don, West Street Post Office and the Showroom Cinema also varied with the ‘No’ response, just as they did with ‘Yes’ (see Section 5.3.4).

Differences between home postcode areas

There are some differences in perception of some of the landmarks not being part of the City Centre between participants living in different areas of the city. These have been discussed in Section 5.3.4.

100

40 % of responses % of

0 Moor Wicker Ice Rink Ice Leadmill Park Hill Waitrose River Don Showroom Law Courts Bus Station Shalesmoor Campo Lane Campo Ponds Forge Weston Park Lady's Bridge Lady's Mappin Street Mappin Kelham Island Victoria Quays Victoria Railway Station Fitzalan Square Furnival Square Fire Service HQ Service Fire Devonshire Green Devonshire Sheffield University Sheffield Sheffield United FC RoyalHotel Victoria Fire/Police Museum Hallamshire Hospital S. Yorkshire PoliceHQ West Street Post Office Location of survey:

SheffieldUniversity Hallam S10, S11, S17 S2, S3, S4, S5, S8, S9, S12, S13, Figure 13 Landmarks perceived not to be in the City Centre, all participants resident in Sheffield

It seems likely that the Wicker and Park Hill are perceived as out of the City Centre by those living on the north and east side of the city for similar reasons to why they perceive Lady’s Bridge and the River Don as in the City Centre. The Wicker is just beyond those two landmarks and is on the route to the north-east part of the city: it is a

46 likely part of the route between home and the City Centre for those living in that area. Similarly, Park Hill is alongside the tram route on the eastern side of the city.

Differences between the sexes

As might be expected from the results showing the distribution of landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre, those perceived not to be in the City Centre are similar between men and women.

100

% of responses % of 40

0 Moor Wicker Ice Rink Ice Park Hill Leadmill Waitrose River Don Showroom Law Courts Law Bus Station Shalesmoor Ponds Forge Ponds Campo Lane Campo Weston Park Weston Lady's Bridge Castle Market Mappin Street Mappin Kelham Island Kelham Fitzalan Sqare Fitzalan Victoria Quays Victoria Winter Garden Winter Railway Station Furnival Square Fire Service HQ Devonshire Green Devonshire Sheffield University Sheffield Sheffield United FC United Sheffield Royal Victoria Hotel Fire/Police Museum Fire/Police Hallamshire Hospital S. Yorkshire Police HQ Police Yorkshire S. West Street Post Street Office West Men Sheffield Hallam University Hallam Sheffield Women

Figure 14 Landmarks perceived not to be in the City Centre, all participants

It may be culturally significant that the men in the survey are more likely to perceive Sheffield United Football Club as being out of the City Centre. While very similar proportions of men and women surveyed were found to perceive it as being part of the City Centre, more women than men place it on the boundary.

5.3.6 Landmarks on the boundary of the City Centre

The people surveyed at the Peace Gardens all perceived both their current location and the corresponding landmark on the list (in this case the Town Hall) to be in the City

47 Centre. At each of the Moor and the Railway Station, five participants were somewhat equivocal about City Centre membership of their current location and its corresponding landmark on the list, as shown below:

Moor as location B B B Y B Moor as landmark Y Y Y B N Y: In the City Centre N: Not in the City Centre Railway Station as location B B Y B N B: On the Boundary of the City Centre Railway Station as landmark Y Y B N B

In other words, five people in each of the two locations appeared to have different perceptions about where they were, depending on whether they were asked directly ‘would you say you are in the City Centre at the moment?’ or whether their location appeared as one landmark on a list of many landmarks. However, it is clear that these individuals were wavering between the status of boundary and in/not in the City Centre, rather than between being in or not in the City Centre. Although this might suggest that both the Moor and the Railway Station are candidate ‘boundary’ landmarks, this does not seem to be true for the people surveyed in this study. Only four participants (5% of all participants), regardless of location, perceived the Moor as being on the boundary of the City Centre. The larger proportion of 29% of all participants placed the Railway Station on the boundary. Although this is less than a third of the sample, it should be noted that participants generally did not frequently place landmarks on the boundary appearing to perceive them more positively as either being in or not in the City Centre.

48 60

30 % of responses % 20

0 Moor Wicker Fargate Ice Rink Ice Crucible Leadmill Park Hill Hall City Waitrose Cathedral River Don Town Hall Showroom Law Courts Bus Station *Shalesmoor Campo Lane Ponds Forge Weston Park Lady's Bridge Castle Market Mappin Street Mappin Kelham Island Victoria Quays Victoria Winter Garden Winter Railway Station Fitzalan Square Fitzalan Fire Service HQ Service Fire Devonshire Green Devonshire Sheffield University Royal VictoriaHotel Museum Fire/Police *Sheffield United FC United *Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital Location of survey: S. Yorkshire Police HQ West Street Post Office Moor

Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield Peace Gardens Railway Station University (Pilot study) Figure 15 Landmarks perceived to be on the boundary of the City Centre (* location not included in Pilot study)

49 5.3.7 Landmarks vs. location The tables below show the differences in response from the three locations concerning those three locations as landmarks.

Landmark: the Railway Station

Location: Railway Peace the Moor Station Gardens Yes 40% 76% 80% No 25% 10% 10% Boundary 35% 14% 10%

Landmark: the Moor

Location: Railway Peace the Moor Station Gardens Yes 80% 95% 95% No 10% 5% 0% Boundary 10% 0% 5% DKW 10 5%

Landmark: the Town Hall

Location: Railway Peace the Moor Station Gardens Yes 100% 95% 100% No 0% 0% 0% Boundary 0% 5% 0% DKW 5

Table 5 Perceptions of landmarks vs locations

The perception of where the Railway Station is seems to differ for those participants questioned on the Moor from those at the Station and the Peace Gardens, with a more even spread of views from the Moor that it is in, out and on the boundary of the City Centre. All participants knew where the Railway Station is. The distance between the Railway Station and the Moor and the Peace Gardens has been noted elsewhere as a possible influence in the apparently differing perceptions between the Moor and the Peace Gardens (see Section 5.3.4).

50 The Moor seems to have been placed within the City Centre fairly consistently, regardless of where the participant was at the time.

There was near unanimity that the Town Hall is in the City Centre, regardless of where the participants were. The single exception (other than an individual who did not know where the Town Hall is) was a woman who lives in Chesterfield whose response was quite definite and very unlikely to have been a disguised ‘don’t know’. She visits Sheffield City Centre for shopping, socializing and as a travel departure/destination point. It is interesting that Chesterfield Town Hall could be said to be on the boundary of, or just outside, Chesterfield town centre. The same participant perceived the Bus Station as being in the City Centre but not the Railway Station, which was where she answered the questionnaire. It was noted that this particular participant gave responses which were rather puzzling; however, on closer examination, they seem to indicate that she perceives the City Centre as two areas, one based around Castle Market and the other around the Moor. In addition to the Town Hall, the participant’s responses showed that she perceived the City Hall, the Cathedral, the Fire Service HQ and Fargate as on the boundary, splitting central Sheffield roughly along its geographical middle. Again, it is of interest in this context, to record that several participants remarked conversationally and informally that the City Centre was rather ‘spread out’ or ‘not really in one place’.

Nevertheless, from the pooled responses from all participants, those placing landmarks on the boundary indicate a single area centred around the Town Hall, City Hall, Cathedral, Fargate and the Moor. The distance of the boundary from these central points varies from landmarks fairly close by, such as Campo Lane and the Fire Service HQ to as far away as Sheffield United Football Club, Sheffield University and Kelham Island. Although the Moor was also thought of as a boundary landmark by some, it is most likely that they think of the Moorfoot as being the boundary point; it was for this reason that the original questionnaire included Moorfoot in the list of landmarks (it was subsequently removed because very few participants in the pilot survey knew it by name).

51 5.3.8 Core of the City Centre

Approximately 50% of all participants surveyed perceived the core of the City Centre to be the Town Hall (see Figure 16, below) and about 25% of participants thought of Fargate as the core of the City Centre.

Fargate is a pedestrianized shopping street that runs for less than 250 metres starting from the Town Hall. The two landmarks could be said to be adjacent, but having different purposes. The shopping area of Fargate has street performers, especially during the summer months, and is home to specialist market days, such as the Continental Market and the Christmas Market; it is also the focus point for those carrying out market research surveys and groups gathering petitions for issues of local and national interest. The Town Hall is an imposing Victorian building but does not now house departments of the City Council that are visited in an everyday sense, which have been relocated to a new building, with the exception of the Register Office which has recently been moved to the Town Hall following the demolition of its previous site. In other words, the Town Hall and Fargate are within the same small area of the city but may be thought of respectively as formal and informal versions of that area.

1 1 2 4 2

Location of survey: Town Hall Fargate Castle Market City Hall Winter Gardens Cathedral 24 Fitzalan Square Moor West Street

Figure 16 Perceptions of the core of the City Centre, all participants

52 The perception of where the core of the City Centre is did not appear to be greatly affected by the participants’ location, as shown in Figure 17.

40 5

20 13 10 Number of responses 15

10 5

14 4 5 4

4 3 0 Town Hall Fargate Castle Market City Hall Winter Gardens Cathedral Fitzalan Square Moor West Street

Location of survey: Moor Peace Gardens Railway Station University (Pilot study) Figure 17 Perception of the core of the City Centre

As an aside, it was interesting to hear the comment (from more than one participant) that the core should be, because it used to be, the ‘Hole-in-the-Road’. The Hole-in-the-Road was a rather unpleasant underpass open to the sky, beneath a very large roundabout in Castle Square, and was filled in ten years ago during the construction of tramlines for the new tram transport network; it was not a symbol of administrative activity or officialdom. Nevertheless, in the writer’s perception of Sheffield, it was indeed the core of the city, and is clearly still thought of as such by others.

5.3.9 Outlines of the City Centre

Outlines to enclose landmarks perceived by two thirds and more of participants have been drawn on a map of the City Centre. These are shown in Appendix D. It can be seen that these outlines differ from each other between the locations where the survey

53 was carried out. The observations below are all of the areas enclosed by landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre by this proportion (more than 66.6%) of participants.

Outlines drawn from responses on the Moor and from Sheffield University (pilot study) are quite similar and cover a smaller area than from the other two locations. The shapes are slightly different with the Fire Service Headquarters, Police Headquarters and the River Don all enclosed by the outline from responses on the Moor, whereas these landmarks are not enclosed by the responses from Sheffield University. However, the outline from the University does enclose Sheffield Hallam University which the Moor outline does not. This results in a less smooth outline for the Moor since from the Bus Station (enclosed by both), the outline must be turned in towards the City Centre to avoid enclosing Sheffield Hallam University.

The outline drawn from responses at the Railway Station covers the largest area of all location outlines. The number of landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre was 21; at the Peace Gardens, 18 landmarks were perceived to be in the City Centre and that outline is the second largest. Participants at both these locations thought the Railway Station is in the City Centre. However, it may be that those at the Station considered they were on the eastern edge of the City Centre resulting in some distortion in judging how far to the west the City Centre extends. It could also be true that, for many, the western side of the city is very familiar to them if they are associated with one of the many university departments there, as discussed in Section 5.3.4. However, the similarity between outlines from responses on the Moor and at Sheffield University would suggest otherwise.

5.4 The Midlands

From the total of 93 individuals who participated in the survey, including the pilot study, 18 were unwilling or unable to answer the section about the Midlands. Of those, 12 had always lived in Sheffield and two more had lived in Sheffield for many years (25 years and 42 years). The remaining four participants who did not answer the Midlands section of the questionnaire were from overseas (Slovakia, Spain, South Africa, Russia).

54 Three of the participants who did answer the Midlands section were also from overseas. One person from Georgia was unfamiliar with many of the towns but for those that he did recognize, he appeared to be quite definite about his answers and to have a concept of the region known as the Midlands. Another participant was from Germany but had lived in the Midlands (Nottingham) for five years before moving to Sheffield. A participant from the USA was familiar with the concept of the Midlands and knew where most of the towns are.

It was noticeable that many or most participants were reluctant to answer with ‘Don’t know where it is’, more so than for the questions about Sheffield City Centre. As noted previously (Section 4.2), it became clear early on in the pilot survey that it was very important to emphasize that these questions were not a test of geographical knowledge. The section was approached in a light-hearted way with frequent reassurance that previous participants had answered ‘DKW’ to many of the towns on the list, and that there were no correct or incorrect answers. However much this is stressed, it seems that questions such as the one on the questionnaire are perceived as a test and result in a great deal of self-consciousness.

The extreme reluctance of participants to respond with DKW, combined with their apparent tendency to answer ‘No’ instead, makes an assessment of towns definitely not perceived to be in the Midlands impossible. It is for this reason that only results for towns perceived to be in the Midlands are recorded. There were very few responses of ‘on the boundary’ in this section.

It is interesting that many participants, in their ‘thinking aloud’ in this section, were identifying the name of the county that the town is in before deciding if it was part of the Midlands.

From the 75 questionnaires for which this section was completed, nine of the 32 towns on the list were considered to be in the Midlands by more than two thirds of participants (excluding those who did not know where the town is).

55 99 100

90 81 80 77 76 73 70 68

60 56

50 44 39 40 38 35 35 % of % responses 31 30 28 21 19 20 18 13 10 8 8 7 7 7 3 3 0 Luton Derby Bristol Burton Oxford Buxton Telford Lincoln Chester Stafford Reading Swindon Warwick Stratford Hereford Sheffield Coventry Worksop Leicester Grantham Worcester Gloucester Cambridge Nottingham Shrewsbury Birmingham Chesterfield Cheltenham Northampton Peterborough Stoke-on Trent Stoke-on Wolverhampton Figure 18 Towns perceived to be in the Midlands; all participants

Taking the towns considered to be in the Midlands by one third or more of the participants, it is possible to sketch a smooth outline of the Midlands stretching from Worksop in the north-east to Worcester in the south-west and from Stoke-on-Trent in the north-west to Northampton in the south-east (see Appendix E1). An outline to enclose towns considered to be in the Midlands by two thirds or more of participants results in a smaller but still smooth outline, with Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham towards the outer edges of the enclosed area. In other words, there seems to be a core of towns which for the participants of this survey qualify as the Midlands, without the need for an awkward or jagged outline. Both outlines fit in with definitions of the Midlands found in sources such as the encyclopaedias mentioned in Section 3.2, although they tend to cover a somewhat smaller area.

The perception of towns associated with the Midlands varies slightly with the participants stated origins. It should be noted, though, that this, too, is subject to individual perceptions of region. Several people taking part in the survey as a whole seemed reluctant or unable to say which region of Britain they ‘come from’. Amongst the 25 people who have always lived in Sheffield, 14 said they come from the North, six

56 from the Midlands and five were unable to select a region, saying instead that they simply come from South Yorkshire.

Thirteen of the 25 participants who have always lived in Sheffield answered the question about the Midlands. Of those, 10 said they were from the North, one from the Midlands and two were unwilling to say which region they come from. The subjectivity of region makes it difficult to compare perceptions of the Midlands between groups of participants with different regional origins. It is equally likely that participants who do not ‘come from Sheffield/South Yorkshire’ perceive their region of origin with as much variation as Sheffielders. For example, one participant from the South and another from the Midlands might both come from, say, Oxford. In order to see any trends that might exist in the perception of the Midlands in relation to regional origins, it would be necessary to standardize the regions of origins, rather than recording the perceived region of origin.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that while Northerners included every town on the list of 10, below, as being part of the Midlands, even though only two participants answered ‘Yes’ for each of Cambridge and Luton, no participant from the Midlands answered ‘Yes’ to any of them: Bristol Luton Cambridge Oxford Cheltenham Peterborough Gloucester Reading Hereford Swindon

An outline enclosing the remaining towns produces the reduced area without any awkward zigzagging. However, the caveat noted above, together with the very small sample of Midlanders (12 participants) make any relationship or trend seen from the results of this survey purely speculative.

The results of the survey on the Midlands, split according to region of origin of participants, are presented in the Appendix E2.

57 6. Discussion

The survey described here was an exploratory study of where people consider the vague area of Sheffield City Centre to be. The results indicate that there appears to be some general agreement amongst the participants in the survey about the location and extent of the City Centre. This finding is similar to that of Montello et al. (2003) in their study of downtown Santa Barbara. Sheffield City Centre also appears to vary to some extent depending on the location where the survey was carried out, when taking a two-thirds majority of landmarks perceived to be in the City Centre. While the area of the City Centre was found generally to be smaller than that of any of the definitions used by organizations and official bodies in Sheffield for any purpose (see Section 4.1.1), it does lie within the boundaries set by most of the sources cited.

Similarly, the outline enclosing the Midlands as perceived by the participants of this study also shows a smaller area than that of any of the definitions found although, again, it was within the areas covered by the definitions even when based on only one third of the responses perceiving the town to be in the Midlands. This suggests that, in this respect at least, the scale of the geographical space did not influence the perceptions of people surveyed.

As might be expected from the variation seen in the northern section of the boundary, the more northerly landmarks seem to constitute an area with a diversity of views. It would appear that the location of the participant’s home may be influential in determining where that part of the boundary is perceived.

The eastern side of the city is also subject to a variety of perceptions of how far the city extends, although the landmarks concerned tend to be closer to the area generally considered to be the City Centre. The area around the Railway Station contains landmarks, such as the Showroom Cinema and the Leadmill, about which there are considerable differences of views of their membership of the City Centre.

It is noteworthy that approximately 50% of the participants in this survey considered that the Town Hall is the core of Sheffield City Centre; further, that together the Town Hall

58 and Fargate accounted for approximately 75% of the participants’ perceptions of where the core is. That such a large majority of the, admittedly small, sample of 93 individuals should perceive the core of the City Centre to be around the Town Hall and Fargate is interesting in the context of the apparent view of a City Centre that may be described as rather ill-defined and ‘spread out’, having been subject to many changes in recent years.

In the life of a city, the persistence of a stable core may be influential in the identity of the city. It is beyond the scope of this study to ascertain just how persistent this view of the core is. The observation that the ‘Hole-in-the Road’ is still considered by some to represent the core of the city may be an indication that the core has shifted slightly with the changes that have taken place in Sheffield over the past couple of decades. Nevertheless, the fact that the core is perceived to centre around the Town Hall, which symbolizes the administrative ‘hub of the wheel’ of Sheffield, is perhaps relevant to the current cultural view of the city.

The extension of Sheffield City Centre’s boundary northwards by OFFER was for the practical purpose of including an already-established group working in a similar field (economic regeneration), and is an example of how boundaries differ according to purpose. The definition of the City Centre by a public participation GIS may not coincide with that of a group focusing on economic issues. Web site definition(s) of Sheffield City Centre would, ideally, take into account the different boundaries drawn up to serve different purposes.

It is interesting that the emergency services each use their own system for categorizing areas, if they categorize them at all, but have an agreed definition of the City Centre for co-ordination in the event of a city-wide emergency. That definition differs from the one the Police use, and from the definition most widely recognized by the City Council, that of the Unitary Development Plan. However, geographical information such as digital maps and road network information is supplied by the Ordnance Survey to the emergency services at the national level (Ordnance Survey, 2005).

In the context of the increasing use of GIS, the Ordnance Survey acknowledges the difficulties associated with places that are represented on maps but have no specific

59 boundary. The Ordnance Survey is the official body responsible for mapping the UK, and part of their research programme is concerned with how to include in their data places lacking crisp boundaries (Ordnance Survey, 2005).

Search engines using an interface based on natural language do not necessarily allow the use of vague place names. For example, Google Local does not recognize a place known as ‘Sheffield City Centre’. For GISs to allow the use of such terms, more knowledge of the perceptions of vague places is needed. That knowledge can be gained from human subjects, as in the study by Montello et al. (2003) and that recorded here, or it can be Web-based, as in the study by Arampatzis et al (2004). A comparison of human perceptions of vague places and the working definitions on the Web suggests that the two are compatible.

The method used in this study, while offering some insight into perceptions of the City Centre by members of the public, does have some drawbacks. One practical consideration is the time taken to gather data in this way, by a street questionnaire. The time period of the study was such that only a small number of locations could be surveyed, and placed a limitation on the number of peopled surveyed, with the small sample size restricting the use of statistical tests.

Despite the prevalence of computer ownership and Internet connection, the proportion of participants with experience of on-line geographical searches is unknown. It might be of interest to investigate the effect of such activity on spatial perceptions, which may be influenced by this sort of experience. This is not to say that the perceptions of those without Internet access are irrelevant to defining a geographical space even, or especially, in the context of the manner in which areas are defined by GIS. For GIS to represent geography in a way that has meaning for expert and non-expert alike, then perceptions of geographical space cannot be limited to particular sections of society.

It should be noted that, regardless of the method used to assess perceptions of vague regions, such regions have a tendency to change over time. In the case of the Midlands, despite having an areal definition which clings to that of a mediaeval kingdom, definitions are different from those for Mercia in terms of the counties the region

60 contains and the area covered. However, the time scale of changes appears to be slower than for Sheffield City Centre. It is possible, simply, that the changes that have occurred in Sheffield are more recent, and that its City Centre was fairly stable until two or three decades ago; this study has not looked at the historical location of the City Centre.

The variety of boundaries of the City Centre currently used, and the apparent ease with which they are accommodated, might be interpreted as supporting the view of Sheppard et al. (1999) that modern communities are becoming centred more on communication technologies than on geographical location. However, it seems more likely that such communities will grow alongside those based on geography, rather than supersede them. The desirability of areas in terms of house prices and access to public services, for example, as well as the more serious issue of the plans in place for evacuation of the city, demonstrate the human trait of dividing geographical space into parcels of labelled land. The diversity of reasons for such divisions, together with the growth in the use of GIS by non-experts, requires the development of systems that can cope with the demands of people using ‘naive’ geographical terms when seeking information.

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Appendix A: City Centre Boundaries

Appendix A1

Map of Sheffield City Centre as defined by the Sheffield City Centre Alert Scheme

Appendix A2

Map of Sheffield City Centre as defined by the OFFER

1 Bus Station 2 Campo Lane 3 Castle Market 4 Cathedral 5 City Hall 6 Crucible Theatre 7 Devonshire Green 8 Fargate 9 Fire/Police Museum 10 Fire service HQ 11 Fitzalan Square 12 Furnival Square 14 Ice Rink 15 Kelham Island 16 Lady’s Bridge 17 Law Courts 18 Leadmill 19 Mappin Street 20 the Moor 21 Park Hill 22 Ponds Forge 23 Railway Station 24 River Don 25 Royal Victoria Hotel 26 Shalesmoor 27 Sheffield United FC 29 Sheffield Hallam University 30 Showroom 31 S Yorks Police HQ 32 Town Hall 33 Victoria Quays 34 Waitrose 35 West Street Post Office 37 the Wicker 38 Winter Garden

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

Appendix A3

Map of Sheffield City Centre as defined by the Unitary Development Plan

Appendix A4

Map of Sheffield City Centre as defined by the Council Tax Department

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

Appendix A5

Map of Sheffield City Centre as defined by City Centre Management

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

Appendix A6

Map of Sheffield City Centre as defined by South Yorkshire Police

71 Appendix B: Questionnaire Appendix B 1 Questionnaire

Section 1: Background details Question 1 What region would you say you ‘come from’? Southwest South Midlands East Anglia North Northwest Northeast Do you live in Sheffield? Yes No If yes, y how long have you lived in Sheffield? y where in Sheffield do you live and what is the first part of your postcode? If no, y where do you live (town or nearest town)? ------Question 2 Are you or have you been based in Sheffield for your job or for education/training? Yes No If yes, y how long in total have you been based in Sheffield for work and education/training? y where in Sheffield is your present or most recent workplace or education/training place?

------Question 3 Are you: Male Female ------Question 4 What is your age? Please circle: under 26 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 over 65

Sections 2 and 3 consist of questions about Sheffield city centre and the Midlands:

Section 2: Sheffield city centre Question 5 Would you say you are in the city centre at the moment? Please circle: Yes No on the Boundary Don’t know ------Question 6 For what purposes do you visit the city centre? Please tick (as many categories as are true for you): Shopping Health (dentist, health centre, etc.) Travel (departure/destination point) Religious purposes Theatre/concerts/cinema Personal business (mortgage, accountant/bank manager, solicitor, etc.) Sporting activities Work-related business Social activities (restaurants, pubs, Other (please give a general indication of the clubs etc.) purpose): Library ------Please turn over

72 (Appendix B1, Questionnaire, continued)

Question 7 Which of the following places are in Sheffield city centre? Y = Yes N = No B = on the Boundary D = Don’t know where it is Bus Station the Moor Campo Lane Park Hill Castle Market Ponds Forge Cathedral (Anglican) Railway Station City Hall River Don (any part) Crucible & Lyceum Theatres Royal Victoria Hotel (Holiday Inn) Devonshire Green Shalesmoor Fargate Sheffield United Football Club Fire/Police Museum Sheffield University (main part) Fire Service Headquarters Sheffield Hallam University (main part) Fitzalan Square Showroom cinema Furnival Square South Yorkshire Police Headquarters Hallamshire Hospital Town Hall Ice Rink - Queens Road Victoria Quays Kelham Island Waitrose (former Safeway) Lady’s Bridge West Street Post Office Law Courts Weston Park the Leadmill Wicker Mappin Street Winter Garden

------Question 8 Choosing one place from the list above, what is the part of Sheffield city centre that is the ‘core or focal point’ of the city centre; in other words, what part is most representative of the city centre, and most clearly in the city centre?

Section 3: the Midlands

Question 9 Which of the following places are in the Midlands? Y = Yes N = No B = on the Boundary D = Don’t know where it is Birmingham Grantham Shrewsbury Bristol Hereford Stafford Burton-upon-Trent Leicester Stoke-on-Trent Buxton Lincoln Stratford Cambridge Luton Swindon Cheltenham Northampton Telford Chester Nottingham Warwick Chesterfield Oxford Wolverhampton Coventry Peterborough Worcester Derby Reading Worksop Gloucester Sheffield

73 Appendix B 2 Information sheet given to participants.

You are being invited to take part in a research project entitled: ‘Perceptions of imprecise geographical areas’. This study will provide data for the dissertation, due to be completed by September 2005, of a Master’s degree in Information Management at the University of Sheffield. More information about the study is given below. y Your participation in the study involves answering some questions about where the places described as ‘Sheffield city centre’ and ‘the Midlands’ are. y No identifying personal details are asked for - your answers will be anonymous. y Most of the questions have boxes to tick from a choice of possible answers and the questionnaire will not take a long time to answer – 5-10 minutes only. y This is not a test of geographical knowledge - your answers are your opinions, NOT right or wrong answers. Background to the research project. Searching on the Internet is an important way of finding information. Many Web searches are related to geographical regions and areas. Many of these areas are known by imprecise place names, such as the Midlands or the city centre. Since these commonly-used names do not have official boundaries, the results of searches may differ according to the definition of the system or search engine being used. The system’s definition may differ from that of the person looking for the information. People looking for information may have different ideas of where the place is depending on how well they know it or where they are at the time. The use of the term ‘city centre’ is also important on a local scale when, for example, the emergency services are needed. It is also used to describe the location of amenities, shops and offices; and in estate agents’ details of properties for sale and to let. This study aims to look at the way residents of Sheffield and visitors to the city would say where the city centre is and how far it extends. To get an idea of whether this depends on where someone is at the time, people are being asked the same questions at various places around central Sheffield. Contact for further information Dr Paul Clough, project supervisor, Department of Information Studies, Regent Court, University of Sheffield. Telephone (0114) 222 2664; e-mail

Thank you for your participation in this project

Appendix B 3 Map showing Sheffield landmarks on the questionnaire

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

75 Appendix C: Post code areas

Map showing post code areas

76 Appendix D: Outline maps of Sheffield City Centre

Appendix D1

Map based on responses from the Moor

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

Dashed line represents landmarks perceived by two thirds and more of the participants to be in the City Centre. Dotted line represents landmarks perceived by at least half of the participants to be in the City Centre.

77 Appendix D2

Map based on responses from the Peace Gardens

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

78 Appendix D3

Map based on responses from the Railway Station

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

79 Appendix D4

Map based on responses from Sheffield University (Pilot survey)

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

80 Appendix D5

Map based on responses from all participants

Off the map: 13 Hallamshire Hospital 28 Sheffield University 36 Weston Park

81 Appendix E: Perceptions of the Midlands

Appendix E1

Outline map of the Midlands, all participants.

Inner dashed line represents towns perceived by two thirds and more of the participants to be in the Midlands.

Outer dashed line represents towns perceived by one third and more of the participants to be in the Midlands.

82 Appendix E2

Towns perceived to be in the Midlands, participants from the North and participants from the Midlands

100

40 % of responses

0 Luton Derby Bristol Burton Oxford Buxton Telford Lincoln Chester Stafford Reading Swindon Warwick Stratford Hereford Sheffield Worksop Leicester Coventry Grantham Worcester Gloucester Cambridge Nottingham Shrewsbury Chesterfield Birmingham Cheltenham Northampton Peterborough Stoke-on Trent Wolverhampton From the North From the Midlands