The frequency count regarding the cognitive evaluations of the city reveals that there is a significant perception that the city is good for families. This links well with the top cognitive attributes associated with the city in Q4-13. In this regard, the city is considered by the majority of respondents (at least 50% Yes responses) to be home, have safe beaches, affordable, have friendly people and to be safe. Wind is the 6th attribute most associated with the city however, fewer respondents associated it with the city than not (1576 Yes responses vs 2083 No responses). As mentioned in Chapter 1, the city is known and marketed as the friendly city or the windy city among other monikers (Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism, 2015; Department of Tourism, 2015). It is apparent
Notably, the majority of the respondents consider the city to be safe (1894 Yes responses) although much fewer associate it with low crime (1314). This could imply that respondents perceive a certain level of crime, for example from news reports or the community at large, however, the crime is not directly affecting them and as such, they still feel relatively safe.
Remarkably, the majority of the respondents did not associate 15 of the 20 attributes with the city. At the most extreme, only 12% (439) of the respondents associated the city with variety. Similarly, only 21% (768) of the respondents associated the city with being multicultural. These findings imply that the city is seen as uniform and predictable, perhaps unexciting. Another notable finding is that the city is not associated with retirement (13% (476) Yes responses). This contrasts starkly with the finding that the city is most associated with home and safety which in previous studies have been found to be significant place ties that determine retirement decisions (Riemer, 2000).
The reasons for the disassociation of the city with retirement may need to be investigated further.
With regard to economic and structural cognitive perceptions, it is found that only 14% (512) of the respondents associated the city with good infrastructure; 20% with conducting business; 20% (439) with sport; 20%
(439) with employment opportunities and 20% (439) with economic growth.
The city is therefore perceived as offering limited economic, employment and business opportunities. However, in another juxtaposition of perceptions, the respondents evaluated the city cognitively as having the infrastructure to host sporting (76% or 3220 combined agree responses), culture (71% or 2598 combined agree responses) and business events (70% or 2561 combined agree responses). Therefore, on the one hand the respondents do not associate the city with good infrastructure whilst at the same time perceiving the city as having adequate infrastructure to host different events.
Furthermore, although the respondents express an evaluation of the city as having limited economic and employment opportunities, they also perceive
the city as having adequate infrastructure and facilities to host business events. They also are of the opinion (84% or 3074 respondents) that business events will provide an economic boost for the city. Similarly a significant portion (73% or 1950 respondents) believes that the city needs an international convention centre. However, a lower portion of respondents (53% or 1939 respondents) asserts that they actually attend conferences and trade shows. This shows once again a lack of conscious appreciation that the success of these business events and conferences requires citizen participation.
It is also noted that, under the cognitive evaluations variable, the city is relatively not considered as having sufficient performing arts (55% or 2012 combined disagree responses) live shows (46% or 1683 combined disagree responses), wide range of leisure activities (38% or 1390 combined disagree responses). In addition the Metro is not considered as ensuring that the heritage of the city is maintained (37% or 1354 combined disagree responses).
However, under the envisioned future variable the respondents consider cultural and religious events as well as sporting events as having the potential to create job opportunities and boost the city image. It is also noteworthy that the respondents consider the Metro as being responsible for communicating events and encouraging residents to attends whilst at the same time admitting that they do not attend events that they hear about (43% or 1573 combined disagree responses for Q5-13). In this case as well, there seems to be a level of apathy on the part of the respondents and an expectation that improving the city lies with some other authority.
The overwhelming association of Nelson Mandela Bay with home, affordability, safety and being good for families is further reflected in the responses to the Envisioned Future variable. In this regard, 84% (3074) of the respondents agreed that the most desirable future for the city is the city becoming a place to work and live. The prima facie narrative of the city is
friendly people and which is good for families but which has limited economic activities, leisure activities as well as variety but, which should be developed to become a city to work and live in.
Regarding questions Q1-19 – Q1-21 which were bipolar questions regarding affective evaluations of the city show that there is a prima facie high level of affect for the city with at least 83% (3034) of the respondents agreeing with the statements posed. Respondents are proud to live in the city; identify strongly with the city and encourage others to visit the city. These findings tie up well with the findings exploring the affective evaluations variable. In this case, where a Likert scale has been used, 74% (2708) of the respondents agree that they are happy in the city and only 10% (366) disagree with being happy.
On the other hand, regarding the conative elements of the affective evaluations variable; that is, the items relating to behaviour, the Likert scale responses reveal a reluctance to act from the respondents. Respondents are generally tepid regarding participating in various city events including exhibitions, trade shows, conferences, international events as well as visiting tourist sites. They are also foot-dragging regarding sharing events on social media. On the other hand, there is an overwhelming perception that the Metro should encourage residents to attend city events (under the envisioned future variable). It seems therefore that the residents expect things to be done differently but do not themselves participate actively in the city.
In the next section, the multivariate analyses will be carried out and the research questions 1-7 that were posed in Chapter 1 and are in Table 3.3 above will be explored.