If I was to think of my hometown without looking at statistics, I would automatically come to the conclusion that it is not very sustainable, particularly environmentally. This is because most families in the area have more than one car, and many people I know drive to a lot of places. This is because my area is slightly out of town, therefore to go shopping or out anywhere like the cinema, people would drive. Also, many places that people work are a fair distance and would therefore drive. However, saying this, many people around Hemel Hempstead commute to London to work every day, and to do this with ease they use the train services. This makes the area slightly more sustainable as public transport is used.
Socially and economically, I believe that although the area I am from is not 'poor', the majority of the people living there aren't wealthy and there are areas where conflict is caused due to peoples backgrounds and where they are from.
From looking at information about my home town from census' and surveys, it becomes evident that many of my initial ideas are proven to be correct. Out of 487 households in my SOA in 2001, there were 834 cars or vans, this is almost double the amount of households. This proves that the majority of households have at least two vehicles, which is extremely unsustainable and can cause pollution to the area and ruin the quality for the future. Statistics also show that the majority of people who live in my SAO and are working drive to work, proving my initial idea that my area was unsustainable, because there are so many ways of travelling more sustainably.
Also, it is shown that 210 out of 473 people in my SAO were not working in 2001. This shows how unsustainable the economic situation is and how it is difficult to find employment in the area.
However, there are some sustainable aspects of my area. For example, there are school buses that run to the schools that are further away than walking distance from many of their students. This encourages parents not to drive and to try to teach the children to be more sustainable in their forms of transport. Also, the school that I went to had more than one gate for entrances so that students could easily walk from where they live to encourage sustainable transport.
Overall I think that my opinions are mostly backed up by statistics about the area that I am from, and that it could be a lot more sustainable. However, it could be much worse, and there are many improvements that I know are taking place in order for the area to be improved. There are many ways for an area to be more sustainable, but the changes take time. The fact that there are some more rural areas nearby to where I live also makes sustainability aspects such as being employed more difficult as there is more of a strain on the businesses in the town centre as people on the outskirts are looking for jobs as well as people who live close by.
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