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Dividing it up…
Posted on March 13th, 2009 No commentsI spent a bit of time recently looking at some of the various geographic boundaries that come into play when thinking about a place to go. As a starter, I picked Gatley Young People’s Centre and found three aspects:
1 – Address Geography
Gatley Young People's Centre
Gatley YP Centre is found at:
Church Road
Cheadle
Cheshire
SK8 4NQSo – the address tells me three things about where this venue is:
- I presume that this is in a place called Gatley
- Which is within a town called Cheadle
- Which is in a county called Cheshire
2 – Administration Geography
Gatley YP Centre - local authorities and wards
All well and good – but when I took a look at the official administrative geographic that governs our local authorities, there was a different story:Gatley YP Centre is actually in:- The ward known as Cheadle and Gatley
- The local authority known as Stockport
- The Metropolitan Sub Region known as Greater Manchester
Therefore, we have a mismatch between what the Post Office tell us, and what the official administrative geography tells us.3 – Postcode Geography
Gately YP Centre - administrative + postcode boundaries
I might be splitting hairs (I do like maps!) but I then pulled up the postal boundaries to get a fuller picture of where this venue sat. This would include:- The postcode area known as SK
- The postcode district known as SK8
- The postcode sector known as SK8 4
Where does this leave us?This starts to build up a complex set of boundaries and sub-divisions. What is interesting in this example is that I still can’t be clear if:- The venue is in Cheshire?
- Where exactly is Gatley?
I think this begins to illustrate two things:- That whilst official geographic boundaries and landscapes are important, they may not always best serve the point
- The need for a finer knowledge of local areas and the social knowledge around this
Questions for youIf you were searching for your local youth centre – what geographic terms would you be using? Are they the ones that will be captured by databases of any of the sorts of geographies listed above?I’ve put all the slides together available below – or youth venues and geographic boundaries in case you can’t see Slideshare.
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When is a 00 not a 00??
Posted on December 7th, 2007 No commentsWe have been trying to fathom out the coding system for the Counties and Metropoliatan districts recently – riveting stuff indeed!
As you will no doubt have spotted our listings on the Places channel situates Manchester in Lancashire, and parts of London in Middlesex, etc – which is not how our land is organised and administered!
The problem lies in the coding system we have for the metro areas. All of them begin with a 00 – which means it is difficult to automatically piece places together. Anyway, with some luck, and clever spreadsheets, we are near a solution – to put our geography back in 2007 rather than 1974!
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