Topic 4 - EQ2 Flashcards
What makes a region successful?
Some parts of a country are highly desirable and attract inward migration, sometimes internationally but more typically from elsewhere in the country. Mydral’s cumulative causation model shows how a process of ‘cumulative causation’ triggered by new industry, often a TNC, attracts employees and a host of supporting companies such as those involved with supplies, infrastructure and leisure.
What is a ‘two-tier economy’?
This can be caused as a result of a variety of jobs created overtime. It creates the risk that the workers in the less well-paid jobs will be out-priced by the housing market, when high demand leads to high property prices. Equally, there may be a skills shortage, with insufficient trained workers to do the quaternary and quinary jobs required by the new growing economy. Solving these issues requires either investment in training or recruitment of workers from overseas and, to alleviate high prices, building more affordable housing. However, the many benefits of these changes often mean that these places typically have low levels of multiple deprivation, and benefit from the constant renewal and improvement of infrastructure and the living environment.
How has Berkshire (the M4 corridor) succeeded?
It has a quickly rising population, an increase of 6.4% from 2001-11, and 16.3% in Slough. This is partially due to the high rates of employment, principal towns such as Reading, Slough and Bracknell have long been home to major ICT companies, e.g Microsoft and Oracle. On top of this, the Slough Trading Estate (UK’s largest industrial park), hosts HQ’s to many major TNC’s such as O2 and Vodaphone.
These companies need relatively well-qualified workers, roughly half of employment in Berkshire in 2008 were in the knowledge, managerial and professional sectors. It is also estimated a further 70,000 well qualified workers will be needed in employment by 2020. Many companies are looking to employ those from overseas, due to close proximity to Heathrow airport via the M4, and good schools in the area to attract workers with children.
However, the high demand has caused the villages in and surrounding Berkshire to become some of the most expensive in the UK.
How has the wealth of residents helped Berkshire to succeed?
The wealth of residents has helped to support the rural economy. There are many dairy-based farms, where the farm shops sometimes thrive on Royal commission. Historical sites and National Trust sites bring tourists to the area, as well as activities such as Ascot Racecourse for horse racing and Legoland.
However, property prices are a concern. Prices have risen 40-50% in the 10 years from 2005. In September 2015, priced for a six bedroom property were even in excess of £2,000,000. The prices of properties are out of reach for 20% of the working age population. Only 0.4% of neighbourhoods were in the most deprived 10% nationally.
In some areas elderly residents can’t afford cars, but the area is also to small to warrant a bus service, so they can struggle to get around
What makes a region decline?
In places that suffered from deindustrialisation, unless workers are able to utilise a different set of skills. Unemployment can trigger a downward spiral of economic decay. For Some towns this spiral of decline can become almost impossible to reverse. Over time, the quality of life in areas within such towns is reflected by a high index of multiple deprivation. It reflects the seven domains: income, employment, education, health, crime, barriers to housing and services and living environment.
What are the priorities for regeneration?
All governments would want to be able to transform struggling towns, villages and regions. To create sustainable communities, the economy needs to grow, poverty and disadvantage needs to be tackled and communities may need to be culturally mixed. The most successful schemes begin with an assessment of problems, and then use that information to create a vision for the future followed by an action plan.
It is the responsibility of local and national governments to decide where financial resources should be spent in order to reduce the level of economic and social inequalities.
What are 4 main priorities for regeneration?
-Sink Estates
-Gated communities
-Commuter villages
-Declining rural settlements
How does engagement affect communities/regeneration?
Geographers in the USA talk about civic engagement - the ways in which people participate in their community in order to improve the quality of life for others or to improve their community’s future. This could be through volunteering, charity or local community services. Civic engagement also means the amount of people who vote on a local and national level, and knowing who their local MP’s and councillors are.
How does lived experience affect communities and regeneration?
It is important for geographers to understand how residents see themselves and the places in which they live, and how their views and opinions may contrast with those of governments and companies, the players involved in decided regeneration plans and priorities. These decision makers have more power and influence than local residents, whose different lived experience may reflect inequalities, but their decisions may increase those very inequalities.
This causes political apathy, where people unwillingly accept the conditions they find themselves living in but feel powerless doing anything about them. But, if local residents strongly object local plans because of perceived inequality, this sense of frustration may produce greater community engagement. This will make them more likely to vote and protest, so local viewpoints will get more of a say.
What are the variations in levels of engagement?
Across the UK there is considerable political variation in who votes. The past polls in recent years have shown a steady decline in political engagement, particularly those aged between 18 and 24. National election turnout fell dramatically from 1992 to 2001 (from 77.7% to 59.4%), as did the amount of protests and attempts to boycott. This 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum vote was almost 85%, showing Scotland has a higher political engagement than the rest of the UK.
How can minorities and inequalities affect the political engagement of an area?
Increased political engagement around the UK often reflects increased mobilisation of minority groups in different communities. Where there is an inequality or issue to be addressed, participation is often higher. For example, the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2013 saw political engagement in areas of London such as Vauxhall (home to the largest gay community in London) began to reflect wider issues, rather than just a desire for progressively social policy. Simultaneously, research by the Electoral Commission suggests that those who experience social deprivation tend to be the most politically excluded. While the causes are difficult to determine, the danger is that political exclusion and deprivation tend to reinforce each other over time.
How can ethnicity affect communities?
Since their post war arrival, many non-white communities have dispersed to different towns and cities throughout the UK. Loyalty to a particular city or region can be more important to people in the UK than their own religion or ethnicity. In Bolton, people of all religions and races supported local boxer Amir Khan in his boxing successes. Muslims political engagement has increased at all levels in British society. Clearly, this change is concentration in certain parts of the UK.
What does political engagement often reflect?
It often reflects the need to protect the past and the present - a need to respond to imposed changes from ‘outside’. George Galloway’s Respect Party took advantage of the Arab Spring and Iraq war to unexpectedly win a by-election in Bradford West in 2012 with 52% of the vote, only to lose again to labour a few years later. Some UK areas have also seen an increase in violent political extremism, and groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) have organised protests and encouraged antipathy towards Muslim communities. The only MP for UKIP represents Clacton, where only 4% of the population is foreign born, compared to the Uk average of 13%. In York, EDL protests were defused by the opening up and combining of ages and groups to spread other messages.
How are protests changing?
Although public action in individual communities is variable, across the country more protests are being organised through and on social media, by something as simply as liking or sharing a viewpoint/post. Online campaigning is starting to change the ways that political engagement occurs. There is increasing evidence of social campaign groups acting on media reports of injustice and motivating other to take action online. The ‘All Out’ campaign group has successfully mobilised support on a number of LGBTQ human rights issues around the world.
How can conflicts about priorities for redevelopment occur?
Different groups within a city will often have contrasting experiences of day-to-day issues, which frequently results in radically different views about the need the regeneration. Depending on where people live and their perspective, explanations for the August 2011 London Riots reflect a broad spectrum of initial causes, summarised in Figure 5.20.
