In the Spring of 2018, I participated in the course CEP303, Social Structures and Processes. This is a core course in the Community, Environment, and Planning (CEP) major and focused on the fundamentals of basic urban planning concepts and techniques in regards to communities and neighborhoods and how these are affected by planning and planning decisions.
For my final project for this class, I created a survey asking individuals who live, work, and play in the International District about their perspectives and experiences of the area. Topics explored included safety, change over time, what they do in the International District, among others.
Considering I had a very limited time scope to complete this project, creating and soliciting responses from the International District Community proved difficult. I wanted to get responses from a variety of individuals, but sometimes ran into language barriers as a notable population in the International District, particularly older residents, are not fluent in English. However, I was able to leverage some connections I had in the International District as well as get in contact with some community members who helped me solicit responses. Other responses I received by asking random strangers who I met in the International District and a few individuals preferred a simple Q&A interview over filling out the survey.
Overall, I was able to get 16 interviews/survey responses after 3-4 weeks of soliciting in May and June of 2018. However, my data was likely not very accurate or representative of the larger International District population, as I was able to get more responses from English-speakers who spent most of their time in the Chinatown area of the International District. I believe a future study would have to be much more comprehensive in its outreach and have a more diverse and representative response data set.
Summaries of some of my survey data are below:
For my final project for this class, I created a survey asking individuals who live, work, and play in the International District about their perspectives and experiences of the area. Topics explored included safety, change over time, what they do in the International District, among others.
Considering I had a very limited time scope to complete this project, creating and soliciting responses from the International District Community proved difficult. I wanted to get responses from a variety of individuals, but sometimes ran into language barriers as a notable population in the International District, particularly older residents, are not fluent in English. However, I was able to leverage some connections I had in the International District as well as get in contact with some community members who helped me solicit responses. Other responses I received by asking random strangers who I met in the International District and a few individuals preferred a simple Q&A interview over filling out the survey.
Overall, I was able to get 16 interviews/survey responses after 3-4 weeks of soliciting in May and June of 2018. However, my data was likely not very accurate or representative of the larger International District population, as I was able to get more responses from English-speakers who spent most of their time in the Chinatown area of the International District. I believe a future study would have to be much more comprehensive in its outreach and have a more diverse and representative response data set.
Summaries of some of my survey data are below: