TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT by Donald Ross McDonald B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1969 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in an Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Jan. ^9%~ In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of UffB^ STODlE^ The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date . itf , (Q7^ i ABSTRACT This thesis is broadly concerned with the relationship of com• munications to urban development. It specifically develops a communications perspective on spatial structure in the Vancouver, B.C., metropolitan area by examination of one communication variable, telephone traffic. Origin-destination calling data are used to identify communication networks, suggest functional associations, and relate social area structure to communicative (interactive) behaviour. A further purpose is to employ the above findings in developing suggestions as to possible imports of future communication technologies. For the first three chapters, the mode, i.e. telephone hardware, is held constant, in the fourth chapter the hardware is considered as a variable. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to Dr. R.F. Kelly who encouraged and supervised the writing of this thesis. Dr. W. Hardwick and Dr. R. Abler were also of invaluable assistance, and I am grateful. Thank you to Ms. Campbell for work on the graphics and Mr. Kerr for help with the ups and downs of the effort. The B.C. Telephone Company provided access to data on which the thesis is based. And thank you to my parents for incredible patience. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter I Preliminary Analysis 1 Telephone Data 1 Previous studies using telephone data 3 Telephone data base for G.V.R.D. 4 Conceptual Concept 6 Conceptual Background 9 Previous Studies of Vancouver spatial structure 11 Preliminary Graph Theory interpretation 12 Framework of Present Study 14 Chapter II Salient Communication Flows 17 Definition of Transactions 17 The Concept of Salience 18 Transactional Flow Analysis 20 Relative Acceptance Index as a Measure of Salience 21 Discussion of Results 22 Chapter III The Relationship of Social Structure and Communicative (interactive) 25 Behaviour Social area analysis 25 Criticisms of Social Area Analysis 27 iv Page Literature relating Conimunications and Social Structure 29 Social Area Analysis in Vancouver 21 Discussion of the Results 32 Chapter IV Future Implication of Teletechnology 35. Telecommunication Technology 35 Teletechnology and Urban Structure 49 Communication/Transportation Substitution 43 Summary and Conclusions 4g Bibliography 50 V LIST OF TABLES Table Page I Basic Data Matrix of Origin- Destination Volumes for Twenty-Two Telephone Exchange Areas 11 A II Expected Values 21 A III Table of Differences 21 B IV Salient Values 21 C V Absolute ranking for long-distance Calling (in number of messages) for intra-provincial and out-of-province data for the week ending July 10, 1971 33 A VI Relative ranking for long-distance calling (in number of messages) for intra-provincial and out-of-province data for the week ending July 10, 1971. (Messages are divided by the number of terminal connections or telephones for each exchange area) 33 B VII Absolute and Relative Ranking for originating flow volumes by area exchange 33 C vi LIST OP FIGURES Generalized framework for geographical analysis Destination of largest outflow volumes Origin of largest inflow volumes Salient two-way flows for RA. .25 and D.. 150 Salient one-way flow for RA .25 and D.. 150 Salient two-way flows for RA .10 and D. 150 Salient one-way flows for RA .10 and D.. 150 Salient one-way flows for RA 1.0 and D.. 150 Salient flows on socio-economic areas ti it ti 11 11 it it it n it it it Growth of C.A.T.V. Industry I CHAPTER I la The first chapters of this paper are broadly concerned with two questions: 1. Can intra-metropolitan, origin-destination telephone data be used as a comprehensive indicator of urban spatial relations — can such a data base be used to produce a skeleton of urban structure? 2. If the answer to 1 above proves positive, what is the spatial structure of Vancouver, B.C., as revealed by these telecommunication relationships. Thus, the first question is methodological and the second substantive. Telephone Data There are many measures of metropolitan structure and telephone calls represent only one of these. The contention is, however, that tele• phone calls do represent several important characteristics which facilitate a unique expression of urban structure. Some points which describe the nature of telephone calls are useful for an understanding of the data used. 1. Ubiquity - telephone ownership is above 90% of households and most everyone has access to phones. 2. Speed - This is a very important facet and determined much of its use. 3. Two-way - Such rapid two-way communication 2 plays an obviously important role in social and societal organization. 4. Cost - Phone calls are very inexpensive compared to other forms of travel and communication, and the cost is falling. 5. Privacy - Most phones have exclusive connections and it is against the law to 'tap1. 6. Routing - Phones are relatively free from physical barriers and have highly flexible routing. 7. Interconnections - New technological devices are providing for multiple use of telecommunication channels. The above points summarize the distinguishing media characteristics of phone calls and suggest some relationship between telephone calls and the total circulation of information. Two other considerations are important. The content of calls differs in importance depending on whatever criteria are established. For the purpose of this study, however, there is no practical method to account for this. The assumption is made that the proportion of business to social calls to each point is the same for each area. This is not strictly accurate, of course, and a closer estimation can be obtained from the portion of business connections compared to private connections for any one area or level of aggregation. 3 Secondly, the length of calls must be assumed to be equal. A measure of three minutes per call is used and this is standardized by North American telephone companies. Previous Studies Using Telephone Data There have been many spatial and functional analyses of regions by using telephone data as a metric measure. Green (1955) used such data to establish a hinterland boundary between New York City and Boston. Siddal (1957) used the frequency of calls to show that towns in Alaska were mose closely connected to Seattle than to other Alaskan towns. Schroeder (1958) used long distance calling to determine the hinterland of Chicago. MacKay (1958), comparing a distance decay function with phone calling in Eastern Canada, established interaction boundaries. He identified barriers exerted by political and linguistic boundaries and found that for messages from a Quebec city ... English speaking cities behave as if they were five to ten times as far away from Quebec cities of the same size and separation, and those in the U.S.A. as if they were fifty times distant. Using a graph interpretation of calls in Washington State, Nystuen and Dacey (1967) derived a hierarchy of functional regions highly correlated to other measures of regional analysis. A factor analysis of telephone traffic in Denmark was used by Illeris and Pedersen (1968) to indicate regional centres and influence zones. They found their results to compare favorably with several other methods used in previous studies of centrality. ;lkle and Hammer (1957) correlated telephone and 4 airline traffic to distance and "propensity to interact". Finally, Simmons (1970) found phone calls, automobile movement and truck flows all closely related as measures of interaction of Canadian cities. Telephone Data Base for G.V.R.D. The studies previously mentioned that use telecommunication tend to support the first thesis of this paper — that telephone data can i be used meaningfully in urban analysis. None of the previous efforts, however, were specifically concerned with intra-metropolitan studies. Towards this end, telephone data, in the form of origin-destination volumes, were obtained for the Greater Vancouver Regional District (G.V.R.D.) Telephone Company. This data represents telephone calling in twenty-two exchange areas which together comprise the geographical area of the G.V.R.D. (See Table I). It is displayed in the K x K matrix of Table I. Each column and row is numbered and labelled with a telephone exchange area prefix which corresponds to the first three digits of actual telephone numbers. The rows represent origins and the columns destinations, and the diagonal elements intra-zone calls. For example, entry 4:7 reports the calls that the Castle exchange area makes to the Fairfax exchange area. And. the entry 4:4 represents the flow within the Castle exchange itself. This measure is in the form of milliseconds or CCS. The time period 5 for each measure is the peak traffic hour for a morning in May 1968. Thus cell entry 4:7 means that the Castle Exchange (CAS) made calls to the Fairfax Exchange (FAI) during that hour totalling 55,100 seconds. The standard length of telephone conversations, as estab• lished by B.C. Tel is three minutes.