Problems of Regional Survey
| Date | 01 January 1934 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1934.tb02371.x |
| Published date | 01 January 1934 |
Problems
of
Regional Survey
By
HENRY
A.
MESS,
B.A.,
Ph.D.
[Paper
to
be
discussed
at
the
Northern Regional
Grot@s’
Conference,
Liverpool, February,
19341
HE
earlier social surveys were usually of single towns
:
London,
T
York, Dundee, West
Ham,
Norwich. Professor Bowley broke
new ground with
I‘
Livelihood and Poverty,”
a
simultaneous study
of
four towns (Reading, Warrington, Northampton, and Stanley) in
different parts of the country, bringing
to
light many similarities and
many differences. Professor Geddes pressed upon our attention the
interweaving of adjacent towns into
a
partly unified community, and
coined to describe
it
the word conurbation.’’ Industrial Tyne-
side
”
appeared
in
1928,
a study of a group of thirteen adjacent
towns, distinct and in some ways diverse, but having much in
common, and woven together inextricably in their destinies.” The
results of
a
social survey of Merseyside are now in the press. It is
to be hoped that there
will
be other studies of groups of adjacent and
related towns; one thinks, for instance, of the group of mining towns
in
Derbyshire, of Wellingborough and its neighbours in Northampton-
shire, and of many clusters in Lancashire, in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, and in the county of Durham, as being suitable
for
such
treatment.
Material lies ready to hand for the maker
of
surveys in a multitude
of
official and unofficial reports, in which have been assembled
with
much labour, and at considerable cost, masses of figures, which for
the most part do not become widely known and whose significance is
often unperceived even by their compilers.
So
far as Government
publications are concerned, their use has been much facilitated by the
publication of the excellent annual
‘I
Guide to Current Official
Statistics.”
The second main source of information is the special inquiry
directed
to
obtaining facts and figures which are not normally col-
lected. The survey of Merseyside is an outstanding example of a
special investigation on
a
large scale. The
work
is
usually lightened
nowadays by the adoption of the sampling method,
a
description
and
illustration of which is to be found in Bowlct~’~
‘I
Livelihood and
Poverty.”
53
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