Survey on Urban Housing

family dynamics in the domestic space

DATABASE STRUCTURE

The information available in the "Survey on Urban Housing" (IHU) was systematized in a more structured way, in a market standard relational database management system (RDBMS). The model chosen was that of an SQL database, which is accessible by tools that are more standardized and easier to use than those used in the doctoral thesis (which for example imply knowledge of scientific programming languages such as Python).

The database is available for download in Microsoft SQLServer and Access file formats.

The complete set of information for the 279 homes was organized in the following relational scheme:

This relational scheme is almost canonical (in terms of the relational database' canon), with only one or another detail in which the canon was broken (for example the HouseType field in the HouseRooms table), in terms of redundancy. This was due to a sought after facilitation of future manipulations, for example in queries to the database.
However, users of the database should be careful in maintaining the integrity of the database, as it is not automatically ensured in these cases by the RDBMS

The information provided in the two volumes of the "Survey on Urban Housing" does not reveal the same logical organization care that an RDBMS has. As all the work of the survey was carried out over several years and predictably with many stakeholders, there is a certain lack of consistency in criteria in the records.

Therefore, some heuristic assumptions had to be made, although care was taken to make the least inferences, which could create biased analysis in the future. In fact, if certain theoretical assumptions are assumed in the accumulation of facts, future analysis can only confirm these initial assumptions. In this way, we tried to maintain the same level of information and only a few obvious errors were corrected.

Some noticed problems:

All data from Pereira, Luz Valente, & Gago, Maria Amélia Corrêa (1984). Inquérito à habitação urbana. Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil.