New Urban Infrastructure - Essay Example

Running Head: Office activity Office Activity appears here] of appears here] Office Activity The topics of industrialization, urbanization, and globalization are inextricably linked. The evolution of industrialization spawned the latter two social phenomena. Industrialization played a central role in many economic developments and improved the prospects for the improvements in health and social well being. Like every story, we can't seem to have the good without the bad. To establish the link between the three, we'll first start with industrialization and its pros and cons, and then we can transition into urbanization, and then conclude with globalization. It was industry which caused massive migrations into inner city centers (urbanization), secondary to developing industries and the wealth of new jobs they created. These busy urban centers, prolific in mass production, became economic hubs through which business dealings with other business centers, such as those located abroad, would occur. This phenomenon engenders globalization, not only of material capital, but of human capital as well. The benefits of the industrial age are ubiquitous. The plethora of available consumer goods, efficiencies in transportation, and advances in all types of communication, give evidence to the dynamic impacts that industrialization has had throughout the world. Improvements in production leading to an increase in the availability of jobs provides elevations in per capita income, this in turn elevates the overall standards of living and quality of life for certain individuals. A side effect was urbanization. The positive effects of the situation, can and have, started to take a turn for the worse for some people, not in a pandemic fashion, but in a sporadic way throughout many large cities. The degrees of severity may be more endemic to certain areas, or affect certain peoples based on the demographics, as it pertains to geography. The downsides to urbanizations sequela include overcrowding, environmental degradation, and crime. Economic disruption, unemployment, and homelessness are played out on the streets of every urban center throughout the globe. Adaptations to the many problems provided by industrialization, urbanization, and globalization, occur via social ecology. Social, economic, and moral inequities do not balance themselves, such as molecules across a semi-permeable membrane. What it boils down to, at times, is survival of the fittest. Not of the genetically fit, but of the financially fit. These precepts are based on the "Chicago" school of thought. Unlike the, usual, distribution of resources, as seen in nature, social ecology molds the social environment via unnatural social forces. These unseen forces shape-shift the way social milieus are geographically formed and situated. An example, as pointed out in the text, is that of the formation of ghettos. Formation of ghettos does not happen by a conscious social choice, of the inhabitants therein, but by external social forces dictated by the majority social-rule of a given urban industrial area. Globalization seems to be the social forces of industrialization and urbanization on a larger scale, throughout the globe, if you will. Increasing social interactivity between and global cities and people's, spawn new social worlds within the context of the industrial/ urban/global environment. This helps to create social constructs secondary to the blending of cultural ideologies and behaviors. People are able to adopt new philosophies about life and its social interactions, as opposed to being pigeonholed into a particular moral and social philosophy. The terms and conditions of industrialization, urbanization, and globalization may be dictated by the world's leaders, but the subtle social dynamics that occur within the context of this social paradigm will be dictated by the interactions of men and women across to all geographical, tangible and intangible, borders. Urban Policy looks at ways of regenerating urban areas and reducing poverty levels in certain areas. There have been two main arguments as to which the best method of doing this is, whether you should regenerate 'the people' i.e. training, education or the place, i.e. the local economy and buildings etc. In the UK, thirteen million of the fifty eight million populations are classified as poor. There is and always has been a great need for urban policy on regeneration in an attempt to lift this thirteen million people over the poverty level. There has been three of ways since the 1960's in which this has been attempted. In 1970 the Conservative party started a socially driven attempted to reduce poverty in urban areas, this was later taken over by labor in 1974 until the conservatives once again took power in 1979. This time under Margaret Thatcher, who took a new view on urban regeneration. She believed that rather than helping the people, you need to first help the economy and so, took an economic focus, and she concentrated on the place rather than the people. It wasn't until 1990 when John Major took over, that the policy changed again to a hybrid of the periods of urban policy. He introduced a socio-economic policy, concentrating not just on the economy or the social aspects but also on how the effect one another and how you make them help each other. The reign of the conservatives (1970-1974) followed by labor (1974-1979) saw the start of urban policy, known as 'The Urban Program,' this is one of the only urban policies that are still in place today. In this program, $20 million a year was put up for local communities (CDP's) to bid for, the condition being that they had to be spent on socially oriented goals such as education, health and training programs. In other words, asking the people to help themselves. This becomes a completely new issue at this point. Asking people to help themselves is a risky business according to Oscar Lewis (1966), who believed that people were in poverty because they were lazy and lacked ambition. He believed that poverty was caused by traits in a personality rather than social factors. So if we were to believe Lewis, then this system would fail as it involved the people helping themselves. Lewis also saw that an area being in poverty was due to individuals rather than a community, thus community based projects were bound to fail. Now, although this method of urban policy was not successful, I very much doubt that it was due to the reasons that Oscar Lewis believed. It was found that the problems in the UK British cities were getting worse, and this was due to deindustrialization. The positive effects of urban policy, however few, were being masked by the massive deindustrialization going on in Britain at the time. As some were being helped by policy, others were being put into poverty due to increasing levels of unemployment and structural economic changes. This showed that maybe social changes were not what was needed, but economic development, give people jobs. This was realized almost too late for labor in 1977, however when the conservatives won power again in 1979, Margaret Thatcher continues the economic reform. Another writer against this socially oriented urban regeneration was Charles Murray who believed that welfare is a bad idea, as it does not give people the 'need' to work. He did not think that maybe there were no jobs or that they couldn't work. He also blamed people who are in poverty on their history and heritage that if a child's parents don't want to work then there will not encourage their children to strive for a better life. Although there is some truth in this, Murray makes gross generalizations and is very stereotypical. His article "Choosing a future" is in response to the actions of the conservatives socially driven regeneration, however he sees this is about race more than anything. "Race is central to the problem of reforming social policy, not because it is intrinsically so but because the debate about what to do is perverted by the underlying consciousness among whites that 'they' - the people to be helped by social policy- are predominantly black, and blacks are owed a debt" (Murray 1984) Although Murray is talking about America in this article, he does introduce some interesting points of view as to why the socially/people urban policy was not a success. In 1979 Thatcher too over the conservative government and continued with the economic strategy to urban policy and launched the urban White Paper, a policy for inner cities. Thatcher's view was that the best way to help people is to give them jobs and that this would lead to the solving of so many of Britain's problems. She did this in two ways, entrepreneurialism and property led regeneration and new town spaces. The entrepreneurialism was aimed at local people as well as foreign investment. It started with the enterprise zones in the early 1980'and by 1995 there were 15 set up nationwide. The main aim of these areas was to 'facilitate' private investors in inner cities. These enterprise zones (as designed by Hall, a former lecturer at the University or Reading) aimed to attracted businesses to specific areas as well as encouraging local people to start their own. They did this with financial incentives, tax breaks, looser planning controls and free ports within inner city areas. These policies had many implications, most obviously, cost. The cost of all these incentives in enterprise zones mounted to a huge £ 400 million!! However, these actions created 63,000 'new' jobs although it was thought that only 50% of these were actually new employment rather than employment transfer. Many off these jobs were as a spin of effect of the actual zone itself, such as construction. Planning controls were loosened for businesses however the companies that were helped were very small and this did not necessarily entice larger businesses. Other features of these enterprise zones were free ports- ports that were exempt from custom controls. Six were set up in total, including Birmingham, Southampton, Liverpool, Cardiff, Preswick and Belfast. During this period in time, you would have thought that there would have been a huge shift from manufacturing industry (deindustrialization) into service industries. However, while from 1981-91 manufacturing decreased -308%, services did not significantly increase but infact decreased by -84%!! (Census of Population. Special Workplace Statistics. 1991). It must also be noted that while enterprise zones are a good idea in practice, they have a hugely negative impact on the areas around them, as businesses relocate within the zones boundaries (Hall 1998). Businesses would relocate leaving unemployment behind them; counter acting the new employment created in the zones area. The problems were just moved, not solved. Property led development looked at the regeneration of buildings and structures and how they could reduce poverty with this. This is the key to the changing of the place rather than the people. In changing the type of place, it attracts different type of people therefore reducing the poverty in that area. However, these poorer people do have to go somewhere, causing gentrification. So in building new types of property you attract different sorts of people, however at the same time, you create jobs for the local people. The construction industry creates 1.4 million jobs (very gendered), and 7.4% of Britain's GDP. Neighborhoods were revitalized in order to make these areas nicer places to be and therefore making companies want to located there. By 1990, not much progress had been made. The initial deindustrialization had passed, however British cities were as is as much of a state as they had been ten years previously. In 1990 John Major took over from Thatcher and learnt from her mistakes. Instead of continuing her mistakes of the 1980's and the mistakes of her predecessors, Major started a hybrid of people and place policy. While he aimed to create jobs and economic growth, he also aimed to help the social problems of Britain's cities, with improved health, training, and welfare. Tony Blair is continuing this type of policy. It is my opinion that urban policy must be looked at as targeting not just a place, but also the people. Without jobs, training is not much good. Without suitable jobs for local people in poverty stricken areas, they are little use. Social regeneration and economic regeneration must go hand in hand and cannot be looked at separately. The key to making an urban policy successful is to look at all aspects of what makes an area unsuccessful, both the place and the people. Melbourne For a long time now, Melbourne has been the dominant element of Australia's urban and economic geography. Its place emerged as they acted as administrative centers for the trade in raw materials, and was consolidated by the location of most of Australia's manufacturing within or nearby them. In turn their sheer size made them politically significant. In recent years, the leaders of most parties have been from Melbourne and their suburban electorates have played a special role in most national elections. They have competed for influence and power over much of this century, with first Melbourne and then more recently Sydney claiming the role as the nation's commercial capital. Some of the competition related to the sites selected by the banks and manufacturers of the day. In recent years the banking sector has favored Sydney, while many manufacturers have consolidated operations in Melbourne, making it the nation's major manufacturing location. The location of media and the arts, too, has changed as first one place, then the other was the mecca for creative activity. That activity now seems to have centered in Sydney. These old battles for leadership are gradually changing as Australia's geography responds to a new set of forces. Shifts in population have begun to favor Queensland, while the international character of the economy has created a new role for Sydney (in finance and tourism) and Melbourne (in trade and research). Today both metropolitan areas continue to dominate the national pattern of settlement, but are more inter-dependent than competitive. They have adjusted to the new context by spreading their influence in to their surrounding regions. This article will identify and account for these new roles, and indicate the consequences for the nation, and for the individual metropolitan areas. International Linkages One of the key forces in the development of modern metropolitan areas is the number and strength of their international links. It is these activities that provide the diversity of jobs, and generate the demand for services that make big cities economically prosperous. Research on the location of the 500 largest exporters from Australia found 70 per cent located in New South Wales and Victoria. Almost all of these would be located in Sydney and Melbourne, so that internationally focused activity is more concentrated than the pattern of population alone would suggest (O'Connor and Stimson 1995). That same effect can be seen in international air traffic and in container traffic. In both cases the Sydney-Melbourne share of passengers and freight links with the rest of the world was around 70 per cent of the nation's total activity in 1993. The share of passengers using Sydney and Melbourne has been falling, as people are attracted to other places, especially Brisbane and Cairns. However, the two large cities still account for a very substantial share of the traffic. There has also been a smaller shift in the ports used by the international shipping companies, but Melbourne and Sydney remain especially favored in this traffic. International tourism has had a similar effect; Sydney's share of all tourist activity in the nation is very high, as it is a gateway for most of the inbound visitors. Melbourne's role in that activity is not as prominent. (O'Connor 1994) Internationally focused activities like trade, tourism and air traffic rely on linkages with specialized services and institutions, most of which are only available in the bigger metropolitan areas. These specialized activities give Sydney and Melbourne a special role within Australia. In some cases the international activities also provide the base for important national roles. References Cherry, G.E. (1970) Town Planning in its Social Context. Leonard Hill Books. London UK Hall, T. and Hubbard, P. (1998) The Entrepreneurial City. Geographies of Politics, Regime and representation. John Wiley and Sons. Hall, Tim. (1998) Urban Geography. Routledge Contemporary Human Geography series. London UK Lawless, P. (1981) Britain's Inner Cities. Harper and Row Publishers London UK Lewis, Oscar (1966) "The culture of Poverty" Scientific American. Murray, C. (1984) "Choosing a future" from Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. Newton, P. (1992) The New Urban Infrastructure, Urban Futures, Special Issue No. 5, pp 54-76. O'Connor, K and Stimson, R. (1995) The Economic Role of Cities: Economic Change and City Development, Australia 1971-1991. Commonwealth Department of Housing and Regional Development: Urban Futures Research Program. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service. O'Connor, K. (1994) The Australian Capital City Report. Centre for Population and Urban Research, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and the Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Clayton. Porter, M. (1997) New Strategy for inner city economic development. Economic development Quarterly. Raco, Mike (Week 7 and 8) Lecture notes: urban regeneration, Local Economic development and property led regeneration. Raco, Mike. (Week 6) Lecture notes; from rediscovery of poverty to urban social policy Smith, D.J. (1992) Understanding the Underclass. Policy Studies Institution. London UK Read More