RESEARCH: TARGET MARKET/ DEMOGRAPHICS

 To follow up on the pre-project outline, I planned to research the target market and the demographics of Cromwell which is the location of the site, and then progress into Connecticut as a whole, and also look into nearby towns and states as they would be part of the target market.

Fig 1

TARGET MARKET

For the target market research, I would be looking at suitable individuals who would potentially be the users of the cultural centre from  Connecticut,, and New York.

The target audience for a cultural centre would fall into the age group of 22 and 45, that is in general young adults and families, a cultural centre could also target students or schools who may want to go to a culture centre for excursions. In terms of the income level of this audience, it would be people who are in the middle class or maybe upper-middle-class people. A building like this will have a target audience of people from a variety of educational backgrounds but will be more focused on people with an interest in art, culture and possibly education. In comparison with the educational background, the professions that would be linked are professors, artists, and even university students. Finally, based on the fact that it is a cultural centre, there is no targeted ethnicity in this project but would be focused on diverse ethnicities.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF CONNECTICUT

Connecticut is a state in the United States, it comprises several cities and towns which are very diverse in terms of ethnicity, and age group. 

Fig 2

The image in Fig 2 above shows the population density of Connecticut, it is broken down using tones of blue colour to determine to different population numbers of each area, the darkest tone being the highest populated area while the lightest tone being the least populated area. Cromwell, the town in which my project is located is in Middlesex County having a population density of 164000 people, this people are spread across towns like Cromwell, Portland, East Hampton, Middletown, Haddam, and Durham. Although this is a larger number compared to the 5000 which is the targeted capacity for my design, however, based on the purpose of my building, a larger amount should be targeted which is why the entire state of Connecticut is the target audience for my project. The population of Connecticut as of 2021 is 3.61 million (datausa.io, n.d.). My project is located in Cromwell which is in the middle of the state and allows for easy travel from all parts of the state. 

As stated above the main age group that is being targeted for this project is 22-45. Let us find out the age demographic of Connecticut.

Fig 3

The image in Fig 3 shows the distributions of the population according to their age and gender. Connecticut has a vast amount of its population between the ages of 50 - 65 amounting to a population of over 751 thousand residents. However, the targeted age for my project still has a good number of residents totalling over 886 thousand. There is also a balance between both genders.

I am designing a cultural centre and culture has everything to do with race, now what are race and ethnicity like in Connecticut?

Fig 4

Diversity has a vital link with my project, therefore targeting places with diverse ethnicities is of utmost importance. As shown in Fig 4 above, Connecticut has over 2.3 million of its population as white, then the rest 1.3 million residents are from different ethnicities for example black (African American), and Asian. Since the culture centre is based in Connecticut, the main exhibitions and activities of the centre would be targeted to the majority of the population (white ), however that does not mean that the other cultures and ethnic groups would be neglected, instead they will just have minorities. 

DEMOGRAPHICS IN NEW YORK

Other than Connecticut, New York is another large state which is just down the south-west from Connecticut. People from New York can easily travel to Cromwell via Public transport with the train line or private transport via the highway.

New York is a state with a high population amounting to over 19 million residents and it is ranked the fourth most populated state in the USA. 

Fig 5

Earlier, I wrote about the importance of diversity for my project, and New York is a great place to target such people, the image above shows the distribution of different ethnicities amongst the population of New York. The targeted age range for this project also tallies with the vast population of this age group in New York as shown in the image below. 

Based on this, A fair amount of the people that will be interested in this project would come from New York.

Fig 6

Connecticut is a home for top universities and because of this, my culture centre design can target these university students who are looking to improve their cultural knowledge and explore other cultures other than theirs.

With this blog post, I have been able to show the different demographics of the areas I intend to target for my design, and how these demographics relate to my project.

 References

datausa.io. (n.d.). Connecticut | Data USA. [online] Available at: https://datausa.io/profile/geo/connecticut/?genderResidents=sex0&pums5RacesResident=pums5Race0#demographics [Accessed 13 May 2024].

Image Reference

Fig 1, Fig 2, Fig 3 datausa.io. (n.d.). Connecticut | Data USA. [online] Available at: https://datausa.io/profile/geo/connecticut/?genderResidents=sex0&pums5RacesResident=pums5Race0#demographics. [Accessed 13 May 2024]

Fig 4 World Population Review (2021). New York Population 2020 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs). [online] worldpopulationreview.com. Available at: https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/new-york-population [Accessed 14 May 2024].

Fig 5 data.census.gov. (n.d.). Explore Census Data. [online] Available at: https://data.census.gov/profile/New_York?g=040XX00US36 [Accessed 14 May 2024].