Intra-urban mobility in Winnipeg : a study of geographic elements

Abstract

Intra-urban migration involves the change of residence within an urban area. It indirectly causes the growth of an urban area through the addition of new residences at the periphery. The majority of studies published focussed on the socio-economic factors as related to the migrants and the spatial distribution of the destinations chosen is largely neglected. It is the purpose of the present study to look into the geographic elements associated with the origins and destinations of residential move. A move in space involves two points, the origin and the destination. The distribution of these points can be analysed by a number of methods, for example, the nearest neighbor and quadrat methods. Centrographic measures are used because it is not only necessary to determine the distribution of the destinations in relation to the origins but also in relation to tbe CBD. This last condition is achieved. by the rotation and translation of the axes. This procedure enables conclusions to be made with regard to the orientation of the moves, either towards or away from the CBD. Furthermore, the distribution of the points is approximated as close as possible by the standard ellipse through the rotation of the major axis. The standard ellipses for the origins and destinations are compared for their similarities and differences,in the location of the mean centers, the coefficients of circularity, and the standard radii. The standard ellipses for the transformed data sets are calculated to determine tbe sectoral, distance, and direction biases. However, conclusions drawn from the standard ellipses have to be made very carefully because of the inherent shortcomings of the centrographic measures...