To Alan, Bill and Noah,

Thanks for your input re/ the spatial configuration of Canadian arctic
communities. I've included a powerpoint file with the axial maps of
Arviat and Rankin Inlet - two communities on the west coast of Hudson
Bay. The scatterplots for ATC (all terrain cycle) and pedestrian
movement are also included (both r and r^2 values). I've also included a
sample of the axial maps of a few other Arctic communities as a pdf
file. There seem to be two primary types of layouts - radial and linear.
Of the 23 communties I've analyzed, intelligibility ranges from 0.079 to
.410

At the present time, I've only been able to collect movement data for
Arviat. Gate positions were set up on every street - usually midway
along. Observations were made for 8 minutes at a variety of times during
the day. Each Gate was visited at least 5 times during the field season
(summer). The pattern of movement may differ radically by season. For
example, in winter snowmobiles are used instead of all terrain cycles
and cold temperatures may alter where people go, how frequently they go
there, and how they get there.

My current thinking is that the low pedestrian movement correlations may
have something to do with 'what' is attracting movement and how that
'what' is distributed within the community. The land use pattern in
Arviat is one in which retail outlets (primarily the Hudson Bay Company
store) and Government services lie along the most integrated routes.
People (households), on the other hand, are distributed along the edges
of the community. I "shadowed" the movements of several Inuit (with
their permission) and observed that they spent 75% of their time
circulating around the outer edges of the community visiting with
family, and 25% of their time accessing retail businesses and government
services in the integration 'core'. This strikes me as opposite to what
one would expect to see in a southern Euro-Canadian town where people
spend far more time cirulating around integrated locations accessing
retail outlets, workplaces, government services, etc, and far less time
circulating around their neighborhoods systematically visiting neighbor
after neighbor (as do Inuit).

In Inuit society, the family is the essential socio-economic unit of
production and an important network of mutual assistance. Many families
obtain most of their food through hunting, and pool their labour and
equipment (ATC's, rifles, GPS's) to do so. So, I'm wondering if the
pattern of movement I observed in Arviat is used to sustain these types
of relationships? If so, then this might represent an example of how
'cultural effects' can occasionally cirumvent or at least reduce the
influence that the configuration of the community might have on human
movement. As Bill has suggested, the other possiblility is that the low
correlations could simply reflect the fact that the landuse pattern in
these implanted and predetermined communities has not been shaped over
time by the natural movement pattern. Perhaps it is some combination of
the two. Regardless, would the mis-match between human movement and
spatial configuration eventually have social consequences? Could the
natural movement patterns of Inuit be used to develop new urban planning
principles for Arctic communities?

I'd be interested in getting some opinions from the space syntax
community on this. I'm fairly new to space syntax, but I'd like to
expand this study to other communities in the Canadian Arctic to see if
the pattern persists.

Noah - I am familiar with Doug Anderson...small world! I had no idea
that he was interested in space syntax!

cheers,

Peter