What do you like about Crouch End?
What do you like about Crouch End (click on the image to enlarge)
One of the primary goals of the Crouch End Neighbourhood Forum is to reflect the views and opinions of Crouch Enders. By Crouch Enders we mean people and organisations which/who live or work or trade from or are based in or sometimes come to Crouch End. We recognise of course that this is an impossible task. To paraphrase the famous old joke “ask three Crouch Enders for an opinion and you will get four different answers”. Nevertheless, this is what we have set out to do, in support of which we have devised a consultation strategy – click here to see the discussion document Crouch End Neighbourhood Forum Consultation Plan.
This spirit of consultation is one we have pursued from our very inception and earlier this year we sought responses to a questionnaire under various headings. Here is an analysis of some of those early results, for one of the questions “What do you like about Crouch End?”
Of course, the process of analysis itself introduces bias into the results, especially for a reading of free form text. Subtleties and nuances will have been lost in the aggregation of data. There may be vagaries in the software used, and possibly errors of transcription. There may be disagreements over what exactly constitutes a synonym, or whether two different phrases do actually express the same underlying idea, but we have done our best. If you would like access to the underlying unprocessed data, please let us know via an email to crouchendforum@gmail.com.
So what was it our respondents liked about Crouch End? We’ve gathered a list of 43 different characteristics, 20 of which were mentioned more than once, and 12 of them 10 or more times. The word ‘shop’ came up 81 times, a clear winner, often in conjunction with ‘independent’. Independent itself gets a lot of mentions, as a concept in its own right and as a description of shops and businesses.
A sense of community was mentioned 63 times, as was the ‘villagey’ feel – are these really the same thing? (This is not a rhetorical question – you can reply to this piece in the comments at the foot of the page – though you might think your response would simply pander to our need to feel wanted).
As for the rest, see for yourself – appended are two different graphic representations of the data, and a table with the analysed data in.
What do you like about Crouch End (click on the image to enlarge)
| shop | 81 | 81 | |
| Sense of community | 13 | 50 | 63 |
| Villagy.Neighbourhood feel , village | 3 | 60 | 63 |
| Lots of eateries / restaurants / cafes | 5 | 51 | 56 |
| independent shops | 15 | 21 | 36 |
| like ambience/atmosphere | 3 | 28 | 31 |
| friendly | 3 | 24 | 27 |
| parks/trees | 4 | 17 | 21 |
| bars , pubs | 5 | 11 | 16 |
| Town Hall | 13 | 13 | |
| Family oriented | 6 | 6 | 12 |
| good schools | 2 | 10 | 12 |
| Lovely open spaces | 7 | 3 | 10 |
| no tube good bus links to tube | 8 | 8 | |
| creative | 7 | 7 | |
| Transport & amenities | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Ally Pally/park | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| excellent bathing pool / lido | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| lots going on | 2 | 2 | |
| cultural activities | 2 | 2 | |
| the clocktower | 2 | 2 | |
| Really fun | 1 | ||
| So many clever creative people as festival shows | 1 | ||
| Like townhall square & Riley’s | 1 | ||
| Nice independent | 1 | ||
| Good mix of indep.traders & chains | 1 | ||
| Combination of creative & ‘functional’ shopping outlets-artistic feel of locality-mix of people | 1 | ||
| Close to “nature”-walkland | 1 | ||
| Small community in a large city | 1 | ||
| Lots to do for all ages | 1 | ||
| Activities for children | 1 | ||
| Good facilities for kids in terms of courses etc | 1 | ||
| Excellent library | 1 | ||
| The King’s Head | 1 | ||
| our street has good mix of social housing & owner-occupiership | 1 | ||
| Paul the newsagent | 1 | ||
| cafes | 1 | ||
| friendly & relaxing | 1 | ||
| second-hand shops | 1 | ||
| Highgate wood | 1 | ||
| like celebrating events & sunshine | 1 | ||
| nice architecture | 1 | ||
| different buildings | 1 | ||
| diversity | 1 | ||
| 1 |
3 Comments
In response to the question you pose, I think you can have a sense of community without a village and a village without a sense of community, though they are likely to correlate. So not necessarily the same thing.
There is nothing like meeting people face to face. People talk about an e community, say of people in touch by “social” media. This is just a starting point. Real things get done in the real world, by real people to trust and share, food for example. So maybe we should meet?
I would say community and villagey feel are related. People who know or recognise each other and are likely to stop and talk creates an atmosphere the opposite of anonymous. Transition Crouch End is one organisation where views can be aired.
In general, people should overcome their natural reserve and speak to their neighbours, at home or in the shops or on the bus. Street based schemes to share common values will make us feel more secure.Then spotting the few “oddballs” stands a chance.
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