Where is Croydon’s CBD?

A CBD is a central business district of a town/city. This is near to where the city first developed. The obvious characteristics of a CBD are many buildings grouped together. There will be many shops, restaurants and offices. Also there will be some pubs other high rise buildings and entertainment of some description (Cinemas, arcades etc). There will be a wide range of transportation that takes you into of very close to a CBD, in Croydon, trams, trains and buses all come into the CBD. There are also car parks in the CBD to allow access to cars.

I expect the following things to be in or near Croydon CBD:

* Offices

* High rise buildings

* Shops

* Main roads

* Tran stations/bus stations

* Old houses

* Factories

I have shown where I expect Croydon’s CBD to be on the base map. I have also chosen categories these categories are:

* Retail outlets

* Banks and financial services

* Restaurants and fast food outlets

* Public buildings/ offices

* Recreational

I have seen that the people driving cars are mostly from the south of Croydon and people coming by public transport are mostly from the north.

Businessmen prefer to use their cars or a faster method of transport such as train to commute to work with. The poorer people from the north are mostly using public transport.

Unit 2

The services around Croydon are unevenly spread throughout. There are three main shopping retail areas where many people come; these are, The WhitGift Centre, Drummond Centre, and North end/ High Street. I have shown on the map where these places are. Many people would agree that the WhitGift centre / North end are the centre of Croydon. The restaurants and food establishments are situated throughout the centre but the bigger restaurants are located in the south of Croydon. Other restaurants are along George Street and Surrey Street.

Both have access via the car but only in the evenings. They also have reasonable access to public transport. Most offices are situated east of Wellesley Road. This is because most access from the south is more accessible on Wellesley road and the wealthy people will be coming from the south to work in the offices. The bigger eating restaurants are located towards the south of Croydon as well because the wealthier people want to eat out. The poorer people would cook their own food.

The transport methods into Croydon are:

Cars – they can park in the big car parks located towards the south. These car parks can be more easily access from the south because of the roads. If cars where to come from the North they would have to drive all the way down, past the car parks, onto the main road and then drive back up to the car parks. People from the south drive straight in.

Train – Fairly even access for all areas.

Buses – There are many bus routes to Croydon from the North. There aren’t many from the South though only 1 comes to Croydon from Sandstead and 2 from Selsdon etc. there is a poor service of buses from the South. Unequal provision.

Trams – Trams come from the areas which lack other modes of transport. New Addington and Wimbledon are good examples.

The transport differs for a good reason. Cars come mostly from the wealthier people who can afford more who live in the south. Bus routes from the south are poor because of this. Wealthy people wouldn’t want to come on the bus with other people so they would just drive into Croydon. The car parks are located to the south of Croydon and have easy access from roads coming from the south. This makes it easier for the wealthy people coming from the south to get into Croydon. The buses vary a lot because more people would come from the North because generally they are less wealthy and would need to use public transport they do not own cars. There are many more bus services running from the North so they can accommodate the people coming from the North.

Overall the large number of bus services for some areas cancels out the lack of tram services in the same place. Thornton heath has 9 bus routes that will take you into Croydon but does not have any tram routes taking you to Croydon.

Unit 3

The bigger retail outlets such as the WhitGift Centre and the Drummond centre have easy and fair access to all because it is in the centre of Croydon. However places where you can eat (restaurants and fast food shops) are spread unevenly throughout Croydon. Fast food shops are mostly found in the centre of Croydon and to the North. Main expensive restaurants and places where you can drink are located to the south of Croydon off the main roads. This allows for the richer south to drive straight in and eat food.

The location of these restaurants also link in to the whereabouts of banks and building society’s which are also located to the south, off of the main road. This is so that the wealthier south can drive in at night, park the car quickly just outside the bank, withdraw cash and spend it in the restaurant. The smaller fast food shops have been located in the middle of Croydon and towards the north because many shoppers will come into the shop and get food quickly because they haven’t got the time and money to eat in a restaurant.

In conclusion the retail shops are mostly situated evenly in the middle of the CBD.

Restaurants are located more to the South of Croydon

Banks and financial buildings are located off of main route ways and roads

Offices are mainly located in the east of Croydon on Dingwall Road.

I have also made maps to show routes of abled and disabled people to compare them to see if they are equal. The hypothesis does say that that it has equal access to all groups of people.

Unit 4

The hypothesis says that Croydon has equal access to services from all groups of people. This means that all people can get to wherever they desire in Croydon as such. This means that it wouldn’t matter if they are disabled or not, they can still get to the same place as an abled person. If you look back into unit 3 where I constructed the maps to show abled and disabled people’s routes. My conclusion is that all people can get around Croydon pretty easily. Disabled people can get to the same destination but it might take a little bit longer. When you look at my work in unit 2 it shows that the provision of transport is unequal but the population of Croydon is also unequal. What we see in Croydon is an answer to that inequality because the different areas have allowed for different methods of transport.