Culture and Urban

Attempts by government to regenerate areas of the inner city and conservation of local culture. Promoting urban areas as culture centres and the creative industries like the arts and film is also increasing. This is viewed to have social and economic potential to revitalize and generate interest in the arts and culture of a country or city. 

These buildings or in some cases the areas designated to culture showcase can provide a sense of pride and place for residents and users alike. It can aid in development of community regeneration. 

Growth of a Centre

Development in urban areas can only sustained by infrastructure development. These areas provide a wide range of services to the wider community, global and local, and require large quantities of resources like electricity to function effectively. There is also a lot of commute into and out of  the urban so road networks are important in maintaining effective communication. Networks for telecommunication facilitate better coordination and administration, both primary functions of urban areas.

One dominant requirement of location for new industry according to Hall is "good infrastructural and telecommunications linkages..."Improving basic infrastructure can promote development of an area. In urban areas there is constantly improvement structurally as cities grow and their functions change. The infrastructural change usually is in an effort to facilitate or promote this change and influence the development.

Religion in the City

Walking through Port-of-Spain I stumbled upon this small church tucked away behind all the hustle and bustle of the main city streets. Looking at it I thought about some of the origins of cities and remembered that they were centres for religion. Port-of-Spain may not have been a religious city but religion is still very present in it. A few other churches were observed on my trek about, many of different religions from the Roman Catholics to a Spiritual Baptist church.
What i could infer from the locations of the churches however, was that there was a disparity, like with most other things in these areas , between the locations. Dominant religions were located closer to city centre, historically Roman Catholicism was dominant because of the European colonizers who brought it, but the socially subservient religions were located further from the centre.

Going Green

Urban greening, from green roofs to grass aimed to help with drainage systems, is all in an effort to make cities more green not just by including more of the colour but also making them more eco-friendly. This has become more prominent in cities as countries and their population become for environmentally aware. The numerous health benefits supplied by green spaces both direct and indirect are also motivating factors for planners to include them in their designs. Research from various institutions has found that greening results in a happier working population and contributes to reduced stress and depression and thus raises the productivity of workers. Job creation may also be considered in the pros of having green areas. Jobs in maintenance of these areas may provide a source of income for lower classes.





https://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/environment/greening-london/urban-greening

Defence

Since colonization and even before that countries and cities developed where trade and defences were easily set up. Hence ports for trade and forts were set up along coasts as in many cases especially in the island colonies. They usually sought a vantage point often higher ground to see ships and other possible attackers from afar. As this worked well through time it became a norm and these cities became the hubs of financial, social and government activity.
As the urban areas historically were also the capital cities, home to most administration and government, the best way to cripple an economy would be to attack these urban centres and thus emphasis was placed on protecting these areas as the economies grew. Police and Army posts are strategically positioned to deal with treats foreign and domestic.

We Blowing Up

Life as an "Urbanite" can be vastly different from those living in a more rural setting. One particular discrepancy is type of food being consumed. The fast pace of "City Life" rarely leaves time for cooking and marketing for local produce so most dweller resort to affordable fast food from either multinational restaurants or the ever popular street vending or "food carts."  Transnational or Multinational corporations are now and have been for some time the dominant food sources in urban areas. This as a result of the growing interconnectedness of the world economy. This interconnectedness is also a driving factor for the growth of the country's economy. There is the creation of jobs for locals although mostly at a low level and facilitating low skilled labour in most cases. Fast food chains have contributed positives and negatives to urban areas and their consumers at large. some positives include the provision of low cost and convenient food to the poor within the urban area. They also create jobs and thus increase the spending power of lower class persons.Some negatives may be exploitation of lower classes where they pay them low wages, their foods may be unhealthy resulting in long term health problems for the population of consumers.





Hall, Tim. Urban geography. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2006.

Cooperate Amalgamation

Urban areas are often characterised by access to numerous markets; local, regional and international. These areas also tend to have a consolidation of a highly skilled and service oriented labour force. the image above taken in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, the capital city shows the local cooperate headquarters of RBC, Royal Bank of Canada. This is just one of the numerous multinational head offices of co-operations present in the capital city.This amalgamation of head offices is often justified by their needs for specialist inputs along with those characteristics previously listed. According to Hall this is not some new phenomena as, "Corporate headquarters have always displayed an urban bias in their location".




Hall, Tim. Urban geography. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2006.