IB Internal Assessment Geography Mario

Internal Assessment IB

Subject: Geography HL

Option G: Urban Environments

Fieldwork Question:

The city function changes on the example of Wola – a district of Warsaw.

Candidate name: Nguyen Long Thanh

Candidate session number: 001531-035

Date of submission:

Word count: 2415 words

Candidate’s session number: 001531-035

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Contents Page:

1. Contents Page ………………………………………………………

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2. Introduction …………………………………………………………

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2.1 Aim ……………………………………………………………

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2.2 History of Wola ……………………………………………….

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2.3 Hypothesis …………………………………………………….

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2.4 Maps …………………………………………………………..

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3. Methods …………………………………………………………….

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4. Analysis …………………………………………………………….

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5. Conclusion ……………….………………………………………....

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6. Evaluation …………………………………………………………..

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7. Appenix ……………………………………………………………..

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Introduction (552 words) A city is a large permanent settlement. Many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or

historical status based on the inhabitants. Generally, cities have systems for sanitation, utilities,

land usage, housing and transportation. A big city or metropolis usually has associated suburbs

and exurbs. Such cities are usually associated with metropolitan areas and urban areas, creating

numerous business commuters traveling to urban centers of employment. Once a city expands

far enough to reach another city, this region can be deemed a conurbation or megalopolis. City

functions changes with time. Development is one of the factors which mostly facilitate

interaction between people and businesses. It depends on location of the city and hence, its

access. Cities are divided into many regions depending on the functions. The main division are

service areas, residential areas and industrial districts. Services areas are generally located in

the center of the city, which makes it easily accessible for foreigners and the local people.

Residential areas are normally situated around the center while the industrial areas are located

on the outskirts . However industrial areas located near city center tent to lose their original

characteristics .

Aim: The aim of this investigation was to assess the present city functions of Wola in

comparison to the past. I have used collected data from which I could analyze and come to a

conclusion whether Wola’s function trend has changed or not.

History of Wola :

Before coming to the analysis of the investigation itself, I will briefly review Wola’s history

and the functions in the past.

The first mansion of Wola appeared in 1575. It was a village located on the outskirts of

Warsaw. Old routes crossed here leading from the Old Town in the direction of Sochaczew,

Poznan, Berlin and Dresden.

Countryside, Wola - originally owned by the prince, then the king - gradually passes into the

hands of nobles and burghers, who built their mansions here. Wola slowly changed, becoming

more and more a village, a hamlet, and in the end, the suburb of Warsaw. Developing

production - produced brick, breweries, distilleries, mills. It was clean. In the nineteenth

century, it became a popular place, almost like Bielany, where there were national celebrations

and trips around the town.

The biggest economic boom in Wola was in the end of the nineteenth century. It is because of

the opening of the first railway line from Warsaw to Vienna. The development of the railways

meant that Wola has become the main freight station of Warsaw: Railway freight station of the

Warsaw-Vilnius and the loading station. At the end of the nineteenth century along the tracks

more than a dozen points of loading and factories started, which had their own railway sidings.

The number of population rose from 9,000 in 1890 to 40,000 in 1915. A part from factory

owners, craftsmen and merchants, most of the population were workers employed in Wola.

During World War II, Wola suffered huge losses: in Warsaw Ghetto Jews were murdered


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during the Warsaw Uprising in Wola district where more than 50,000 people were killed.

Much of the district buildings, and streets located in the ghetto were destroyed.

Hypothesis : Assessing the past history of Wola and its present apparent, we can say that it has

changed its primary industrial function to business services function.

Maps :

Figure 1 : Decay Index of Wola (this map was drawn by me)


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Figure 2 : Intensity Index of Wola ( SERVICES) (this map was drawn by me)


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Figure 3 : Intensity Index of Wola ( RESIDENTIAL) (this map was drawn by me)


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Figure 4 : Wola district division

(Source:http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Go%C5%82%C4%99bie,+Pu%C5%82tusk+

County,+Mazovia,+Poland&msa=0&msid=104722474342979780980.00048fbf19dc6ca1ce240&ll=52.238418,2

0.980797&spn=0.055504,0.154324&t=h&z=13)


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Methods (296 words)

At the beginning of our investigation, we decided to form six groups of three people

and divide the district into six parts which is represented in the Figure 4. Each part was

assigned to one group. The task was to assess and collect data from each area of the district.

Streets were treated as boundaries to mark the areas where the assessment was done and data

collected.

We used both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. For quantitative

methods, we carried out observations and measurements. For qualitative methods, we took

photos and draw maps.

Generally, we conducted the investigation using three main issues:

- Decay Index (DI)

- Intensity Index (II)

- Photos

The DI was established with the help of provided table (see appendix 1 For each street, we

carried out observations and ticked notes in order to determine the DI. The aim of this index

was to show to what extend the considered area was destroyed or decayed. The greater the

index, the more decayed is the area.

The II was drawn by assessing the function of the buildings. Then we divided the buildings

into three groups: residential function, service function and industrial function. The index was

determined by counting the number of each functional buildings. Residential buildings

included living blocks and houses, service buildings involved any kinds of shops,

supermarkets, schools, restaurants and any other kind of services like post office, and industrial

buildings included unfinished constructions, offices, etc. The aim of this index was to conclude

whether Wola district has changed its functions over time.

The photos include the ones taken by our group as well as photos downloaded from some

useful websites.

The investigation was conducted on a common sunny day, so the weather did not have much

influence on our results.


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Analysis (1098 words)

First of all, I will go into details with the first map (Decay Index). After calculating the

numbers, we colored the map with different levels of color, in order to show the level of

decaying of each small area. We can notice that some small areas are not colored and are

marked with KRESKA, this means that we did

not investigate the decay index of these areas

because they are being under reconstruction or

some other rebuilding processes. For the colored

areas, the lighter the color (areas with 1 < DI <

5), the cleaner it is. In these areas, there is a

small number of conditions that indicate the

decay, such as: no smashed windows, very few

abandoned cars, some alcohol bottles, few

destroyed pavement, no overgrowing plants, etc.

Whereas, in the areas colored with darker blue,

the level of decay increases. For example, the

areas with DI ranging from 16 to 20, or above

21, are the most destroyed areas. For example,

there are a lot of abandoned houses, we can see

the graffiti almost on every wall, there is peeling

off paint, smashed doors, litter, etc. This means

that the areas with greater DI, like the area along

the whole street Aleja Prymusa Tysiąclecia, and

also the area of streets Okopowa, Leszna and

Towarowa, are the more destroyed ones, which indicates big changes to these small areas over

time, and that the less part of the population is paying attention to this decay.

Let’s look at these photos, which were taken by our group:

Illustration 1: Litter on the Okopowa street.

Illustration 2: Peeling off paint on old buildings on Wolska

street.


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Illustration 3: Graffiti on the Giełdowa street.

Moving on to the second map, we can analyze the distribution of service buildings within the

investigated area. As shown on the map, the darker the pink color, the more intensively the

service buildings are located. Unsurprisingly, the

most service-intensive areas are located around the

same places as the most decayed areas, that is along

the street Aleja Prymusa Tysiąclecia, the streets

Okopowa, Leszna, Towarowa and a very small part

on Aleja Jana Pawła II, where the two exclusive

hotels Hilton and Westin, the Intercontinetal

Warsaw, and the biggest shopping mall of Warsaw –

Złote Tarasy are placed. It can be evaluated that the

reason why these areas are more quickly destroyed

than the others is because of this great intensity of

services, which brings more human interactions,

more business and economic activities happening,

more social entertainment and attractions, like the

shopping mall, where millions of people visit

everyday. It can be noticed that there are many new

and very clean service buildings while there are very

few old service buildings. For example, as we look at

the photo below (taken by our group), we can see a

very new and modern building of the BPH Bank. It is

surrounded by fresh green plants, and a car parking which is kept very clean, without any

overgrowing plants. Although the DI of this area is quite high (15-16), but considering only the

bank, we can notice extremely few junks, trashes, overgrowing plants, even no graffiti on

walls, etc., which indicates big changes towards cleaner environment along with great changes

to modern services.


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Illustration 4

Illustration 5


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And the biggest proportion of buildings in Wola is represented by residential buildings, which

comprises most of this area. We can see that the

darkest green (which stands for 81-100% of

residential buildings) comprises about a half of the

map. There are some areas colored with the light

green, which means that there are few residential

buildings (1-20%). This does not make any great

influence because, still, most of the area consist of

40% or more of residential functions. However,

what we can easily recognize from this map is that

the residential is least intensive in the same places

where the service and decay index is most

intensive. The most probable reason for this is that

high intensity index for services brings high level

of noise and decay, which makes citizens unwilling

to resident in those regions. The upper part of the

map where the intensity index of service is highest

generally seems to have very low decay index. This

indicates that people tend to choose peaceful and

clean places to live rather than convenient with full

range of services. Also, this shows how the

residential function has changed from the past, as significantly less people were living in the

area with much lower intensity index. We took some photos of residential buildings, those

recently built as well as those remained from the past:

Illustration 6: New residential block on Siedmiogrocka street.


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Illustration 7: Common residential block on

Okopowa street.

Illustration 8: An old residential block on Wolska

street (the peeling off paint is clearly noticeable).

Finally, we also investigated the industrial functioning of Wola and we recognized that

industrial functions of the area has gradually decreased as many industrial buildings have been

left, are going to be reconstructed or have already been destroyed. Let us look at the beneath

photos:

Illustration 9: Industrial building destroyed for

renewing purpose.


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Illustration 10: An old industrial building waiting

for reconstruction (we can notice smashed windows, but it was not included in the decay index

because of the reconstruction purposes).

Generally looking at the industrial functioning of the Wola district, it can be recognized

that industry is not an advantage of the area. A lot of industrial factories have encountered

bankrupts or some other kinds of losses, therefore, they could not sustain industries in this area.

However, service is a very strong advantage of the area due to the fact that Wola is located

around the centre of the city, so the service interactions, business procedures and entertainment

facilities develop extensively. Citizens move around here to find apartments because there are

peaceful locations for living and meanwhile every kind of service or entertainment centre is

very close, such as cinemas, banks, shopping mall, hotels, casinos, café, etc.

Looking at this photo (taken by our group), this is an

abandoned industrial building, having most of the

windows smashed and surrounded by many graffiti’s,

which somewhat indicates lack of care paid to the

building. This partly shows the decreasing industrial

functions of Wola district occuring together with the

extreme growth of service and residential functions.

Considering the long run, it might be not true because

many reconstructions are being in process in Wola, and

they might be planned to be industrial factories. So

maybe, industrial functions are going to develop in the

near future. But considering present period of time and

comparing to the past, we can see the loss of industrial functions in the Wola district.

Illustration 11


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Conclusion (198 words)

Throughout my investigation, there is a clear conclusion drawn that industrial functions

of Wola have been significantly decreasing over the last period of time, but it may or may not

be rebuilt in the future. The service and residential functions of Wola have been instantly

increasing and are still moving towards greater level of modernity, social convenience and

economic benefits (socio-economic patterns). There is also a strong correlation between the

decay index and the intensity index of residential and service functions. Where the decay index

is higher, the intensity index of service is higher and of residential functions tends to be lower.

There are various aspects of urban areas recognized after this investigation, such as plenty of

kinds of functional buildings like very new and modern ones (BPH Bank) as well as very old

and destroyed ones (abandoned industrial factory), there are extremely clean and organized

areas (large area of the fresh and taken care green) which are very near the untidy and decayed

areas (junks and graffiti almost everywhere considering small pieces of area). This

investigation provided an fairly in-depth view of how the city function have been changing

over time and the reasons for those changes.

Evaluation (271 words)

The three main methods used in this investigation were all very useful (decay index,

intensity index and photos). The indexes helped to provide a concrete and reliable analysis of

the specific aspects in the considered areas. Although there were some errors due to human

bias and personal attitudes, the results of the investigation still supported the initial research

hypothesis. A wide range of photos helped to be more diverse in analysis and to provide clear

and true illustrative evidence for the arguments. Moreover, observations were carried out

absolutely in a natural way, without any deception or misleading measurements. There was a

possibility that we might have omitted some buildings which might affect the investigation’s

results. Overall, the investigation method was good and provided clear and acceptable

conclusion. However, there are still several recommendations for better achievement of the

study in the future. Firstly, for more accurate and careful approach, the class should be divided

into more groups in order to conduct better observations with smaller considered areas, so that

the investigation might bring some extended results that in this investigation were not present.

Secondly, if more qualitative indexes were taken into consideration, there might be a more

diverse analysis of the fieldwork issue. Thirdly, it would be better to achieve exact results if we

have conducted some surveys or interview with the local residents in order to gain more

knowledge about the area as we are not the local residents of Wola, so it will be useful for

further analysis. Finally, more detailed knowledge about the abandoned industrial buildings

would provide a more in-depth understanding of the industrial functions of Wola.


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Appendix

Appendix 1: The Decay Index Parameters.

IB Internal Assessment Geography Mario

Documents

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