World Cities Facts Flashcards
Definition of a millionaire city:
A city with one million or more people in it
Definition of a mega city and examples:
A city with at least 10 million people
Examples: Tokyo, Mexico, Seoul, New York
Definition of a world city:
A city that exerts a global influence due to their financial and commercial status
What is the Western Model and the stages?
Economic development and effects of urbanisation
- Agricultural revolution and enclosure movement
- Industrial invention
- New forms of energy
- Improved transport
- Improvements in medicine/public health
What are the factors that contribute to the evaluation of a world city?
- Globalisation - blurring of international boundaries
- New international division of labour - production isn’s confined
- Informationalisation - trading in information handling
- Urban hierarchy - world cities at the top
What are the 5 contemporary urbanisation processes and their definitions?
- Urban growth: physical expansion of a city in terms of population size and density/areal extent and building density
- Urbanisation:Increase in the proportion of a country’s population living in urban areas
- Suburbanisation: Movement of people and businesses to the outer part of the city - development of transport
- Counter urbanisation: Outward movement of people and business to smaller settlements
- Re-urbanisation: Movement of people and businesses back to cities
Name some factors that increase urbanisation?
- Migration
- Higher rates of pay
- Urban poverty growing
- Employment
- Natural increase
- Advantages of urban living
What are urban issues that face mega cities?
- Over crowding
- Slum development
- Air pollution
- Traffic congestion
- Crime
- Homelessness
- Congestion
- Urban decay
- Absence of community
What is urban deprivation?
- A standard of living below that of the majority in a particular society - involves hardships and lack of access to resources
What are the causes of urban deprivation?
- Cost of housing: high cost makes more mobile homeowners and ghettos of welfare/low rent (Bedminster)
- Changing environment: exclusion of disenfranchised issues in neighbouring wards (prostitution and drugs in Stokes Croft/St Pauls)
- Ethnic dimension: discrimination, language barriers and ethnic segregation (Somali segregation in Easton)
What is multiple deprivation and urban social exclusion?
Combination of social, environmental and economic deprivation
Social exclusion = problems faced by residents in areas of multiple deprivation, social and physical circumstances exclude residents (employment/education/housin)
What are inner city characteristics?
- High out migration figures
- Vacant plots
- Derelict and empty properties
- School closures
- Poor levels of education
- High unemployment
- High crime and vandalism
What are the causes of inner city decline?
- Decentralisation of employment
- Fall in traditional manufacturing
- Growth in service sector did not accommodate or compensate for the job losses in the manufacturing sector
Characteristics/causes of urban decline?
- Low quality housing
- Empty/vacant properties
- Vandalism
- Few amenities
- Unattractive open spaces
- Tower block high rise buildings - ASBOs and vandals
- High crime rate
- Inner city residents marginalised
- Aggressive suburbanisation and counterurbanisation
Define Property Led Regeneration: UDCs
- Set up in 80s and 90s to take responsibility for physical/environmental/social regeneration of derelict inner cities
- UDCs given planning approval powers over local authority
- Encouraged to spend money on land, marketing and infrastructure
- Attract private investment
- Accounted for 40% of urban regeneration (1993)
What are the criticisms of UDCs?
- New level of employment was inadequate
- Too dependent on property speculation
- Focus on private investment increased income inequality
- Too much power
- Big businesses favoured over community
- Social exclusion
What is the City Challenge Partnerships scheme?
- Shift in funding mechanisms towards competitive bidding
- Local authority had to come up with an imaginative project to build partnerships with private sector and communities to get funding
- By 1993 30 had been established
Was the City Challenge Partnership successful?
- Increased quality of proposals and imaginative approaches to regeneration
- Some argue funding should be allocated on a needs a basis
- Built 40,000 new homes
- Created 53,000 new jobs
- Regenerated 2000 hectares of derelict land
- Established 3000 businesses
What should sustainable communities allow?
- Access to a home
- Access to a job
- Access to a reliable income
- A reasonable quality of life
- Opportunities to maximise personal potential
What does the decentralisation of retailing mean?
- New shopping centres and business parks on the urban fringe have been occupied by companies that were originally in the city centre
- Migration was encouraged by congestion, high land values and unattractive urban landscapes
What does the decentralisation of other services mean?
- Offices premises have changed location to accommodate new business methods and technology
- City’s local govt. may lose revenue and jobs to adjacent local authority areas which increases poverty
- City centre decline increases vandalism and crime and fears of personal safety
What are the economic impacts of new developments away from the CBD?
- Loss of market share and retailers closing
Dudley Town Centre when Merry Hill opened
What are the social impacts of new developments away from the CBD?
- Retail suburbanisation - urban centres lost wider market and became dependent on local consumers who were poor/elderly/ethnic minorities
- Division of market - suburban affluent car owners and poor inner-urban inhabitants
What are the environmental impacts of new developments away from the CBD?
- Empty retail units - vandalism and ‘dead heart’ syndrome
- Shopping centres built on greenfield sites
What are responses to retail changes?
- Redevelopment of town centres- e.g Cabot Circus
- Growth of outlet centres- large name manufacturers and sellers sell their own goods direct to the public at lower prices than in main stores e.g Swindon Outlet
- Development of suburban box mall - selling specialised goods e.g furniture/DIY materials/consumer electricals e.g Eastville Park Retail
- Branding the local and boutique-isation - Localism and local currency initiatives e.g Stokes Croft
What are the different ways in which waste can be managed?
Landfill
Incineration
Recycling
Composting
Negatives of landfill?
- Sites are filling up
- Transport costs are increasing
- Biodegradable waste generates methane - green house gas
- Toxic chemicals leach into groundwater
- Looks unsightly
Positives and negatives of incineration?
- It reduces volume of waste by 60-90%
- Produce heat and electricity (CHP)
- Releases harmful pollutants such as CO2
