case studies for first test

Question 1

Detroit rebranding

Answer 1

not so successful
Background-
- 1920-1950 4th mos populous city, since then has los 60% of population
- used to have 3 big car manufacturers which provided a lot of economic stability and jobs, however they moved to Mexico for cheaper labour, deindustrialisation
- ‘white flight’ as a lot of white people moved out of the city a long with the car manufactures
- tax base collapse, no money for investment, poor quality of services, high crime rate, unemployment rate 30%
- 15,000 homeless, 362km² of abandoned building, 12 abandoned skyscrapers, 70,000 abandoned buildings, 1/3 of buildings empty, debt of $10 billion
Solution, Rebranding-
- patrols, self help, 3 mile drive block club
- soup kitchens and food banks, food banks provide jobs, participations in cooperatives
- 10,000 abandoned buildings applied for demolition
- gentrification, attracting new business

Question 2

2012 olympics rebranding

Answer 2

succesful
benefits-
- built on a brownfield site, with many derelict houses
- provided jobs, housing, a new school for 2000 students and a new football cage for the local area
- brought tourism to the area for both the olympics and after the olympics, velodrome for example
- provided a strong legacy, olympic stadium became one of the major English teams football stadium, West Ham
negatives-
- 10 years of disruption
- some stakeholders not informed, some locals also forced to move, business forced to move
- gentrification raises house prices

Question 3

Alaska human activity in periglacial landscape

Answer 3

background-
- extensive oilfields in Alaska, around 3000 million barrels
- 1300km of pipeline to transport the 1.4 million barrels of oil that is transported daily
the impact on the periglacial landscape-
- gravel is extracted from river beds to be used as insulation base layer for construction, the loss of gravel alters the rate at which gravel is transported and deposited further downstream
- release and burning of gases during drilling, releases carbon dioxide into atmosphere, contribute to enhancement of green house effect, higher levels of terrestrial radiation being trapped in the lower atmosphere, rating temperature
- production of heat from the extraction and transportation processes, as well as infrastructure, urban heat island in towns mean that temperatures in the surrounding area rise, energy released into the environment by human activities also affects geomorphic process with 9% fewer days of temperature fluctuation
changing landforms-
- permafrost is perennially frozen ground, active later fluctuates instead of permafrost annually,
- the heat released by buildings and infrastructure can lead to thawing of permafrost, buildings onto of permafrost can melt it, this can result in subsidence and increase the mobility of the active layer allowing a type of mass movement called solifluction
thermokarst-
- landscape dominated by surface depressions due to the thawing of ground ice, this can be initiated by climate change and the rise in temperature by human interference, the removal of vegetation can mean that a layer of protection is gone and so more thawing may occur