Thursday 5 May 2011

Systems of Classification

I have been busily engaged for some weeks in the mammoth task of making a map of all the uses in the vicinity of Tottenham Hale, according to the system of use classes which structures our planning system in the UK. This was inspired by out discussion with Liza yesterday, who had mapped the buildings identified by Dalston residents as 'important', and defined their 'use class' according to the Dewey Decimal System.


This is a very interesting idea. A couple of weeks ago, I tested a system where I equated the planning use classes with something a little intangible - 'levels of socialness' ie. the amount which each type of building facilitates people being sociable with one another. For example, in my 'levels of socialness' scale, offices are the most social place. So, the [simplified] use classes look like this:

A1: shops
A2: services (estate agents, hairdressers, laundrettes, taxi firms and beauty parlours)
A3: restaurants and cafés
A4: drinking establishments
A5: 
hot food takeaways
B1: businesses (offices, light industry), general industrial, storage and distribution, including scrapyards
D1: non-residential institutions (schools, libraries, surgeries)
D2: assembly and leisure (theatres, cinemas, swimming baths, gymnasiums, theatres, nightclubs)



And the re-arranged use-classes according to 'socialness' look like this: 

B1: businesses (offices, light industry), general industrial, storage and distribution, including scrapyards
D1: non-residential institutions (schools, libraries, surgeries)
A3: restaurants and cafés
A4: drinking establishments
A2: services (estate agents, hairdressers, laundrettes, taxi firms and beauty parlours)
D2: assembly and leisure (churches, theatres, cinemas, swimming baths, gymnasiums, theatres, nightclubs)
A1: shops
A5: 
hot food takeaways




Ignoring for the moment the obvious serious flaws in my classification (like, for example, the problem of groupings), re-classifying the categories makes the information look very different. For example, it starts to look as though the major routes are lined with the least sociable uses, although there are obviously further variables which are relevant, for example, people probably visit shops more often, but stay for much less time than they would visit a church.


So, perhaps it is an obvious thing to say, but the system of classification is very, very important. Again, it's obvious, but you cannot show shades of information for which there is no classification. This relates directly to the masterplan. The master cannot plan for classifications which don't exist, hence Muf's fantastically clever use of the Dewey decimal system, which has an almost endless number of subtle subcategories. The choice of categories also speaks volumes about the chooser. For example, I visit neither the gym nor the church, so to group these things together is unproblematic for me, in a way which I suspect would not sit comfortably with a regular user of both. The use classes themselves, as a system, define very particularly the kind of cities they allow to be planned,which is a fascinating idea.


As a next step, I am going to attempt to classify a street according to the Dewey Decimal system. Wish me luck!

4 comments:

  1. Dave Skinner to me:

    It all sounds very interesting. Here's some thoughts-

    Is there a distinction between socialness and sociability in your system? I'm not sure if i am being a pedant but you use the term sociable several times.

    This sentence is a little clunky:

    “A couple of weeks ago, I tested a system where I equated the planning use classes with something a little intangible- 'levels of socialness', ie. the amount which each type of building facilitates people being sociable with one another.”

    It could maybe read (can something be 'a little intangible'? Maybe 'less tangible'? Or just 'intangible' )

    “A couple of weeks ago, I tested a system equating the planning use classes with something a little intangible- 'levels of socialness', a classification based on how a type of building facilitates social interaction.”

    or

    “A couple of weeks ago, I tested a system equating the planning use classes with something a little intangible- 'levels of socialness', a measure of how a type of building facilitates social interaction.”

    “Ignoring for the moment the obvious serious flaws in my classification...”

    I've been told by my supervisor, among others, to never state that something is obvious.

    This sentence could do with being split up. You have two 'For example's in it.

    “For example, it starts to look as though the major routes are lined with the least sociable uses, although there are obviously further variables which are relevant, for example, people probably visit shops more often, but stay for much less time than they would visit a church.”

    Dave

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  2. Jane Clossick to Dave:

    Thanks Dave! Helpful comments (clunkiness always needs editing out of my prose).

    I guess I was interested in your opinion about content as well as
    style. I am trying to bridge a peculiar gap, between a precise,
    objective mapping of data, and categories which are intrinsically
    subjective. I wanted to know what you thought about that.

    Jane

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  3. Dave Skinner to me

    Sorry. I don't know much about the social sciences, and am looking at it with a mathematical scientist's eye, so my opinion may be worthless.

    My initial thoughts are to wonder how you decided on the order of the scale? Is it based on any data? Are you using some sort of metric to reorder the classifications? I don't really understand how the dewey decimal system comes into it.

    I would be careful to define, as precisely as you can, what you mean by 'level of socialness'. I would assume that when ' trying to bridge a peculiar gap, between a precise, objective mapping of data , and categories which are intrinsically subjective ' one needs to be as thorough as possible in explaining how you are bridging that gap.

    You have to remember that I have been conditioned to believe that all social science is wishy washy. Your blog may also be pitched at people who have a better understanding of this stuff than me.

    Dave. X

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  4. Jane Clossick to Dave

    Skinjob,

    The blog isn't pitched at anybody :o) I am spewing thoughts and to
    tell them to someone who thinks that social science is wishy-washy is
    AWESOME, because I need to interrogate the shit out of my ideas to see
    if they're worth anything. These ideas remind me of the drunken
    conversation we had with Dom about whether mathematics really exists
    in a way which is independent of human beings. I know this is
    important, I'm just not entirely sure how to say it, or what I'm
    really saying (I think generations of philosophers have been at this
    before me, the likelihood of my giving a better account than they have
    seems low).


    So . . .

    There are bits of the social world which it is impossible to measure
    with Cartesian logic, and to impose a system with limited categories
    simplifies some phenomena into meaninglessness. However, the
    qualities of the physical space we occupy are measurable in objective
    terms.

    They way these two things operate together is the question I am
    concerned with (the gap I am trying to bridge by mapping [Cartesian]
    something which varies between individuals).

    I chose 'socialness' is because it is not an objective set of
    categories. The point of the Dewy decimal system in this context, is
    that it contains hundreds (thousands) of nuances. Could such a highly
    nuanced set of categories be constructed for 'socialness'? It could
    for me, but then yours might well be different, so we encounter the
    same problem again.

    This raises the question: is the 'right' order the order which is
    subscribed-to by the majority of people? If so, to find the 'right'
    order, I would survey a representative sample of people, and the order
    which was preferred by the majority would then structure my map.

    Is there some deep truth and humanity which ultimately we all share,
    and if one could find it one could make it into a set of categories?
    The other possibility is that the 'level of socialness' and the
    mapping of categories, do not belong in the same sphere at all and a
    different way should be found to understand and represent for study
    the phenomena of 'socialness'.

    The upshot is, it's all bollocks :o))

    xx

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