Survey
(This is taken from the written submission that I sent to Canada Bay Council last week. My apologies if it comes out a bit rough - it is a straight copy and paste from Word.)
I started with a map from www.whereis.com, and selected the area bounded by

According to a BOCARS report, a survey like this was done by the Police and Newcastle Council in 2006, and as far as I am aware, it is the only example that has ever been undertaken. Council might like to suggest the idea of a survey of an area like
I then divided the area into zones, and surveyed one zone at a time. Each zone took about half an hour to walk around.
Before setting out, I used the “photo” feature in www.whereis.com to estimate the number of blocks per street. This would be easier to perform with a proper cadastral map, but I used the only thing that I had available.
I then walked the streets of each zone, up one side and down the other, and marked down the number of “fresh” and “old” tags per property frontage, as well as the property type (commercial or residential).
Zone 3 | | | | | |
Sector | FRESH | OLD | TOTAL | TYPE | COMMENT |
A1 | 2 | | | 1 | |
A2 | 1 | | | 1 | |
A3 | | | | 1 | |
A4 | 1 | | | 1 | |
A5 | 5 | 1 | | 1 | |
A6 | | | | 1 | |
A7 | | | | 1 | |
A8 | 1 | | | 1 | |
A9 | 5 | 1 | | 1 | |
A10 | | | | 1 | |
For the purpose of this survey, a “fresh” tag was one that was clearly visible and stood out. An “old” tag was one where an effort had been made to clean it off or paint it over. A fresh tag could be a year old – you could also think of them as tags where an attempt had been made to clean them vs where no attempt had been made.
Summary info - zone 1 | Number | Percentage |
Number of commercial premises | 17 | 24% |
Number of residential premises | 55 | 76% |
Total premises | 72 | |
| | |
Number with "new" graffiti | 12 | 17% |
Number with "old" graffiti | 8 | 11% |
| | |
Commercial premises with some graffiti | 13 | 76% |
Residential premises with some graffiti | 5 | 7% |
Total with some graffiti | 18 | 25% |
Total number of tags | 95 | |
Summary info - zone 2 | Number | Percentage |
Number of commercial premises | 22 | 44% |
Number of residential premises | 28 | 56% |
Total premises | 50 | |
| | |
Number with "new" graffiti | 11 | 22% |
Number with "old" graffiti | 9 | 18% |
| | |
Commercial premises with some graffiti | 13 | 59% |
Residential premises with some graffiti | 3 | 11% |
Total with some graffiti | 16 | 32% |
Total number of tags | 55 | |
Summary info - zone 3 | Number | Percentage |
Number of commercial premises | 93 | 100% |
Number of residential premises | 0 | 0% |
Total premises | 93 | |
| | |
Number with "new" graffiti | 44 | 47% |
Number with "old" graffiti | 36 | 39% |
| | |
Commercial premises with some graffiti | 52 | 56% |
Residential premises with some graffiti | 0 | 0% |
Total with some graffiti | 52 | 56% |
Total number of tags | 151 | |
Total to date | Number | Percentage |
Number of commercial premises | 132 | 61% |
Number of residential premises | 83 | 39% |
Total premises | 215 | |
| | |
Number with "new" graffiti | 67 | 31% |
Number with "old" graffiti | 53 | 25% |
| | |
Commercial premises with some graffiti | 78 | 59% |
Residential premises with some graffiti | 8 | 10% |
Total with some graffiti | 86 | 40% |
Total number of tags | 301 |
Note that many premises have “old” and “new” graffiti on them, so the total number of premises with “some” graffiti is not the sum of those with old and new graffiti.
Also note that a property fronting onto two streets would be counted twice – so corner blocks, or blocks that run right through to a lane at the back have both frontages counted. For this reason, the number of commercial and residential properties will be higher than the number of blocks in the area.
As far as I am aware, only a handful of the above tags were found on property that is the responsibility of Council. It is therefore interesting to compare the results of this survey with the official statistics for the whole of
- 732 incidents in 14 months
- 63% Council – 454 incidents
- 24% private – 176 incidents
- 11% commercial – 102 incidents
The survey enabled me to produce a site map of where graffiti is being applied. I have lifted this idea from a map of Cholera produced by Dr John Snow in 1854 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Snow_(physician)
(map)
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