Place Studies: A Contrasting Place

The AQA Changing Places specification requires a study of a contrasting or distant place — your "far place." This is a place you may not be able to visit easily (or at all), meaning you must rely more heavily on secondary data and develop awareness of your own positionality as an outsider. This lesson covers methodology for studying a contrasting place, the use and evaluation of secondary data, comparison techniques, and the critical importance of positionality in geographical research.

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What Makes a Place "Contrasting"?

Your contrasting place should differ from your local place in significant ways. The contrast might be based on:

Dimension of Contrast	Example Pairing
Urban vs rural	Inner-city Manchester vs a village in the Yorkshire Dales
Affluent vs deprived	Richmond upon Thames vs Jaywick, Essex
Growing vs declining	Cambridge (tech boom, population growth) vs Blackpool (deindustrialisation, population decline)
Multicultural vs homogeneous	Tower Hamlets, London (highly diverse) vs Allerdale, Cumbria (96% White British, Census 2021)
Post-industrial vs service economy	Stoke-on-Trent (former potteries) vs Bristol (creative and digital economy)
Northern vs Southern	Middlesbrough vs Guildford — illustrating the "North-South divide"

Exam Tip: The quality of your contrast matters. Choose places that are different in ways that connect to the key Changing Places concepts — sense of place, identity, representation, endogenous/exogenous factors, and change over time. The examiner wants to see you apply these concepts comparatively, not just describe two places side by side.

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Secondary Data Sources

Since you may not be able to visit your contrasting place, you will rely primarily on secondary data — data collected by others for other purposes that you can repurpose for your study.

Key Secondary Data Sources

Source	Type of Data	What It Reveals	Strengths	Limitations
Census 2021	Quantitative	Population, age, ethnicity, occupation, housing, qualifications	Comprehensive, comparable, covers every area	Conducted every 10 years — may be outdated; self-reported; does not capture undocumented residents
Index of Multiple Deprivation	Quantitative	Composite deprivation score across 7 domains	Fine-grained (LSOA level); multi-dimensional	England only; composite score may mask variation between domains; updated infrequently
Google Street View	Visual/qualitative	Streetscapes, building condition, land use	Free, accessible, covers most of the UK; allows virtual "visits"	Images may be several years old; limited angles; cannot capture atmosphere, sounds, or smells
Local newspaper archives	Qualitative	Community concerns, events, debates, local identity	Captures local perspectives and controversies	May have editorial bias; coverage may be selective
Social media	Qualitative	How residents and visitors represent and discuss a place	Real-time, diverse voices, unfiltered	Self-selecting sample; may be unrepresentative; ethical issues with using people's posts
Planning documents	Quantitative/qualitative	Development proposals, regeneration strategies, consultation responses	Official, detailed, forward-looking	Technical language; may not reflect residents' views; aspirational rather than descriptive
Photography and film	Qualitative	Visual representations and cultural associations	Powerful, memorable, shapes perception	Always selective and constructed; photographer/filmmaker's perspective dominates
Academic studies	Mixed	In-depth research findings from geographers, sociologists, historians	Rigorous methodology, peer-reviewed	May be dated; may use jargon; may reflect researcher's theoretical framework
Oral history archives	Qualitative	First-person accounts of place experience over time	Rich, personal, captures voices often excluded from official records	Memory is selective; small samples; may idealise the past

A-Level Analysis: No single secondary source is sufficient. The strongest place studies triangulate — using multiple sources to cross-check and enrich understanding. Census data tells you the demographic profile; Google Street View shows you what the place looks like; local newspaper archives reveal community concerns; academic studies provide analytical depth.

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Comparison Techniques

Comparing your near and far places systematically is essential for the AQA specification. Several techniques can structure your comparison:

Comparative Table

Indicator	Near Place (e.g., Headingley, Leeds)	Far Place (e.g., Jaywick, Essex)
IMD Decile	4–5 (moderate deprivation)	1 (most deprived in England)
Dominant land use	Residential (student HMOs), retail, cafes	Residential (bungalows/chalets), limited retail
Housing type	Victorian terraces, some purpose-built student flats	1930s holiday chalets converted to permanent housing
Age profile	Young (dominated by 18–25 student population)	Mixed — older retired residents and young families
Sense of place	Lively, transient, student-dominated, diverse	Isolated, stigmatised by media, strong community bonds
Key exogenous factor	University expansion attracting 60,000 students	Seaside resort decline; lack of government investment

Thematic Comparison

Organise your comparison around key themes from the specification:

graph TD
    A[Comparative Place Study] --> B[Physical Character]
    A --> C[Demographic Profile]
    A --> D[Economic Function]
    A --> E[Sense of Place]
    A --> F[Representations]
    A --> G[Change Over Time]
    B --> B1["How does physical<br/>geography differ?"]
    C --> C1["How do populations<br/>compare?"]
    D --> D1["What are the economic<br/>bases?"]
    E --> E1["How do insiders and<br/>outsiders perceive each place?"]
    F --> F1["How are they represented<br/>in media and data?"]
    G --> G1["What processes of<br/>change are occurring?"]

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Positionality

Positionality refers to the social and cultural position from which a researcher observes and interprets the world. Your positionality shapes what you notice, how you interpret data, and the conclusions you draw.

Key Definition: Positionality is the researcher's social, cultural, and geographical position — including their age, gender, ethnicity, class, education, and relationship to the place being studied — and how this position influences their research.

Insider vs Outsider Positionality