Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
EXPLANATORY RESEARCH ON LOCATION AND TRAVEL
Moving from purely descriptive to explanatory research illustrates the importance of
location as a recreational facility which someone may want to use. S.L.J.Smith (1983a)
outlined two concerns regarding the location of such facilities: those factors affecting
public and those affecting private location decisions, although the distinction between
such issues has blurred where public-private sector involvement, co-operation and
management has complicated traditional locational models developed in economic
geography, which has separated public and private goods (Hall and Jenkins 1995). For
example, L.S.Mitchell (1969b) applied central place theory to the location of urban parks
as public recreational resources, establishing that a hierarchy existed, but it rather
simplified a number of realworld issues by substituting assumptions, while also ignoring
influential variables such as land prices, availability and political influences (see Chapter
5). Other studies (e.g. Mitchell and Lovingwood 1976; Haley 1979) adopted empirical
measures to examine correlations between variables which might explain locational
patterns, where Haley (1979) observed that present-day patterns often reflect the demands
of previous generations. Likewise, where new suburban developments did not require
developers to provide park facilities, a dearth of parks exist. Communities in such areas
have not sought such provision due to local factors (e.g. private recreation sites and
access to the urban fringe). The role of private recreation provision was examined by
Mitchell and Lovingwood (1976) and Lovingwood and Mitchell (1978), who mapped
172 public and 112 private recreational facilities, using nearest neighbour analysis to
examine the spatial patterns. They concluded that public facilities had a tendency to
cluster while private facilities had a regular pattern of distribution for camp sites, country
clubs and miscellaneous uses, while waterbased facilities and hunting/fishing clubs
tended to cluster. The outcome of their analysis was that
•
public facilities
are concentrated in areas of population density to meet the wider good
and in accessible locations, having no major resource considerations
•
private facilities
are located on one of two bases: either in or near open space, as in the
case of campsites and country clubs and are located throughout the region, or
conversely, water-based facilities and hunting clubs are closely tied to a land or water
location, clustering around the resource.
In contrast, much of the geographical research on private recreational facility
development has been based on the approach developed in retail marketing and location
studies, where location is seen as the critical success factor, although Bevins et al. (1974)
observed that this was not necessarily a critical factor for private campsites in north-east
USA. Within most studies of recreational location, principal concepts are related to the
threshold population, catchment areas or hinterlands and distance to travel to the facility.
As Crompton and Van Doren (1976) observed, tram companies in mid-nineteenth-
century America built amusement parks at the end of tramlines to attract weekend
visitors, illustrating the importance of recreational travel as part of the overall experience.
