Appendix G - Visual Preference Survey

In order to determine which specific views, as well as what types of views, are most valued by the people of northeastern Santa Cruz County, local residents and landowners who were participating in Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum Open Space Working Group meetings were asked to take part in a series of visual preference surveys. These surveys involved rating color slides of the views that can be seen along State Route 83 from the Pima/Santa Cruz County border south to Canelo; and along State Route 82 from just east of the Town of Patagonia east to near the Santa Cruz/Cochise County border. Both roads have been designated as scenic highways by the State of Arizona.

Methods

Photo points were established at 29 sites along the two highways (see map on page G-2). At each site, four color slides were taken at 90° intervals around a central point on the road. The resulting 116 slides were divided into four sets and shown to Open Space Working Group participants at meetings held on October 27, November 10, December 1, and December 15, 1999. After receiving forms that listed the slides to be viewed that evening, participants were asked to look at each view and indicate their personal opinion of its aesthetic value on the form by rating it from (5 for "very unappealing" to +5 for "very appealing" (a rating of zero meant they had no particular reaction to that view). Basic statistical analyses were performed on the ratings, with a primary focus on the average rating and standard deviation of each view.

Results

Average view ratings ranged from + 4.71 to - 3.87, with standard deviations ranging from 0.56 to 2.88 (see Table G-1 below). There was strong consensus of opinion around which views were most aesthetically appealing - i.e., high view ratings had relatively low standard deviations. In fact, the five views that received the highest ratings also had the five lowest standard deviations, indicating that people's reactions to these slides were significantly different from their reactions to most of the other slides. The "top twenty" slides included:

• views of the Mustang Mountains from Highway 82 (the top 3 views);
• views from Highway 83 in the Canelo area that showed oak woodland, a riparian meadow, the Canelo Hills, and the Huachuca Mountains;
• views of the Babocomari and Empire Ranches, both with and without mountains in the background;
• views from Highway 82 just north of Patagonia looking southeast across the Sonoita Creek bottomlands;
• views of oak woodlands along Highway 82 near the Ft. Buchanan site; and
• views along Highway 83 north of the crossroads looking across open grasslands east toward the Santa Rita Mountains, and west toward the Mustang Mountains.

Except for the highest-rated slides, there was less agreement about how appealing many of the other views were - i.e., some people thought they were very appealing, while others thought they were very unappealing. These views varied significantly, ranging from vistas of grasslands to close-up views of hillsides or oak woodland. Some included a house, road, mailbox, or other manmade feature.

The scatterplot shown in Figure G-1 illustrates the generally inverse relationship between view ratings and their standard deviations. A possible explanation for these results is that some people may have looked at a slide and rated only what was shown in the frame (which may have included a fence, weeds, road surface, a road cut, or something else not especially attractive), while other people may have envisioned the overall landscape and ignored the less attractive elements of the photograph when rating the view.

There was fairly strong agreement, nevertheless, about the three least appealing views. These views, which had by far the lowest ratings, also had lower standard deviations than would be expected given the lower rating/higher standard deviation trend (they appear as the outliers at the bottom of Figure G-1). The negative response to these views is easily explained, however: two were looking head on at a road cut, while the view with the lowest rating was dominated by a long, windowless building with a corrugated metal roof.

The presence of buildings in a slide did not necessarily result in low scores from every participant, although only one of the highest-rated views contained a building. That slide, a view of the Mustangs from Highway 82 with a house or two in the mid-ground, rated lower than otherwise very similar views of the Mustangs.

The locations and images of the highest ranking views are shown in this image, which will open in an adjoining browser window.

Table G-1. Mean Rating (Mean) and Standard Deviation (sd) for Views Along Arizona State Routes 82 and 83 (listed in descending order of mean rating).

Conclusion

Residents and landowners in northeastern Santa Cruz County clearly place a high value on views of open (i.e., undeveloped, unfenced) grasslands, especially when mountains can be seen in the background. These include views of the Santa Rita and Mustang Mountains from both Highway 82 and Highway 83, as well as views of the Babocomari and Empire Ranches. Vistas of pastoral valley bottoms and oak woodlands are also highly valued.

Next: Appendix H₂O: Water Supply and Land Use in NE Santa Cruz County

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