“Life is not just about the good things or just about the bad things. It is both. It all depends on where you focus your attention.” Similarly, this quote taken from author Anne-Marie Aguilar emphasizes this paper’s argument that the concept of a smart city has positive, but also negative impacts, such as generating class division and social inequality. However, because attention is directed towards the positive effects, this often leads one to overlook the primarily negative influence of this phenomenon. To start with, we define a smart city "as a city in which ICT is merged with traditional infrastructures, coordinated and integrated using new digital technologies”, (Batty, 2012). A real world example of this would be India, where its “government has announced their ‘Smart Cities Mission’” ("2nd smart cities," 2015). Eventually this category of cities will lead to social inequality and exclusion, as companies, and cities focus on those who can pay to generate profits, while ignore the social benefit of the predominant lower class citizens of India. And finally, this exclusion, will add to the digital divide in India as a result of the unequal access to modern information, communication and technology, something a smart city revolves around. Furthermore a smart city’s focus is “to enable more efficient forms of urban management and service delivery”; however, this city leads to more than just that (Smith, 2015). Clearly, the model of a smart city holds factors which create
Life in the city is often chaotic and fast-paced. It is as quick as a television dinner. Often, people are forgetting the art of appreciation. Things go unnoticed like a pebble under a shoe, like sparkling windows on corporate buildings. Now, people are typically giving more time to their technological devices- which is not necessarily a terrible thing. If anything, it speaks more of an imbalance. There is a wider disconnect in every day social interactions (communications) and public spaces (location). It has been noted by a creator of public spaces, Goldberger, that people are “there but not there”. They have closed themselves off from experiencing what is right in front of them. For example, the average adult spends seven hours on a technological
Providing solutions for the good city pose questions such as: good for whom? what is good? etc. These questions prompt that good and city are two words that form more questions than answers. In these nebula of questions urban design plays an important role because its nature is in the urban and therefore in the city. As Madanipour points out, urban design occupies a potentially strategic place in shaping the city of the future (Madanipour, 2006).
There are many advantages of cities, both modern day, and ancient. Cities help prevent diseases, they organize people and make them more productive, and they help the economy. In document 1, Edward Glaeser tells how cities help prevent diseases lowers, because all immunities spread when people are close together. People are dying a lot less for a while in cities because of this. In documents 1, 2, and 3, people say how cities organize, and make people more productive. When people are closer together, they can innovate, and help each other out, as a pose to suburbs where people are separated, and generally don't help,each other. This leads directly to cities having a good economy. When everyone is working and things are going smoothly, the city
Although we are in a globalized and interconnected world, through mobile telephony, Internet and other gadgets of information technology, this does not mean that for people is a subsidiary or merely instrumental place where they want to live or work. It is perhaps one of the most important decisions. If it were indifferent location, on the assumption of a flat world by technology mobility, we would not be attending urban concentration that is occurring around large cities and that results in 2011 more than half of the population lives in cities and it is anticipated that by 2050 do about 70% of humanity.
In the nonfiction book written by Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, the title holds significant meaning. The reason behind this is explored within the first chapter, “Personal Geography,” as it concisely represents why Mehta chose this as the name of his work (3). Through the telling of his history in Bombay as a child and his rediscovery of it coming back as an adult, Mehta sets the stage for an in-depth description of this city and its nature throughout the rest of the book. This transformation from an insider to the culture of the city, to an outsider, to a potential insider is the essence of this first chapter, and overall the inspiration that Mehta uses to write this book. He makes the reader understand that this act of recording all of this information about Bombay is not to only to educate the reader, but also to educate and reacquaint himself with his city. Through immersing himself in the culture and the lifestyle, he finally receives the citizenship that he lost when he was a child and has been desiring since then.
INTRODUCTION SENTENCE. Edward Glaeser is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a journalist for Bloomberg View, therefore he is well versed in the economics of cities, innovation, crime and more. In his widely known published book, "Triumph of the City: How our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier", he illustrates that cities have made civilization more successful with new technology and ideas. In the first chapter of his book, he explains how cities were created through sharing new ideas and technologies between intellectuals, especially when living within close proximities of other innovators, thereupon those within the innovative networks have built institutions to provide an education system to create more alike, and as a result of these key components, cities have helped and will continue to help the world thrive.
The selected articles for the topic of “Cities and social division” deals with a range of trends and challenges cities and urban areas face today, from the phenomenon of gentrification and urban sprawl to the provision of public services such as waste collection and education. The articles frequently explore these topics in the context of their relation to culture, demography, economics, and politics. This paper will explore the convergences and divergences between the articles and their choice of themes, approaches, and sources.
Gentrification is a general term for the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban district, a related increase in rents and property values, and changes in the district’s character and culture. The word draws controversy not only in its definition and meaning but also in the impact it has among human social life. It is a practice that is of ancient origin and has withstood the challenges of evolving times and is still practiced in the contemporary world. Proposers and opponents alike of the gentrifying phenomena take advantage of the numerous myths and misconceptions that surround the practice to advance their arguments. Urban planners have rooted for the inclusion of gentrification as one of the pillars of urban growth. With better economic status- better roads, better water supply system, better healthcare, reduced criminal activities and an overall uplifting of the quality of life economically- it is hard to argue against an overall gain from gentrification. Yet with all this, it has been the source of a lot of widespread animosity between social classes. It has also been blamed for a lot of cultural values erosion with in some instances complete override of the indigenous ways of life that the original inhabitants subscribed to. Green development is an urban development approach that utilizes green infrastructural growth and is aimed at alleviating negative impacts, or ideally have a net positive impact, on the environment and nearby ecosystems.
Recently, urbanization has become the newest form of progress. However, it seems that urbanization has created some unforeseen problems. Bocquier suggests “economic uncertainties that prevail in most urban settings lead to a deterioration of living conditions…this deterioration particularly affects the urban poor” (pg. 1). As society began to change and progress at such a quick pace, many people have been left behind and have had to adapt to survive to their new environments.
In today’s society an individual can travel to cities all over the world and experience different technological innovations in various forms. Skyscrapers, highway systems, and suspension bridges are all forms of innovation that, through the help of engineering and complex technological systems, can be observed in nearly every city around the world. These technological innovations have allowed sprawling urban environments to become the definition of a developed country, despite their infamous reputation for loud noises, traffic, and decreased air quality. Seen and unseen forces such as organization of labor and an expanded industry base gave rise to these urban centers through thoughtful planning and execution.
This documentary is abut the concept of “Smart City” a current issue but however unknown to many people.
The process of people moving into cities, which is called urbanisation, was happening around the world in past decades. It causes cities to have more labourers and resources than before. This makes a big contribution to the social development of cities. Thanks to these social developments, public services are becoming better in these areas. Citizens can enjoy a better life by access these public services such as better medical care, more education resources and well-built transport. It means an equitable society can be created. An equitable society means citizens can have more opportunities to access social resources and to live a better life. This essay will argue that
Although we are in a globalized and interconnected world, through mobile telephony, Internet and other gadgets of information technology, this does not mean that for people is a subsidiary or merely instrumental place where they want to live or work. It is perhaps one of the most important decisions. If it were indifferent location, on the assumption of a flat world by technology mobility, we would not be attending urban concentration that is occurring around large cities and that results in 2011 more than half of the population lives in cities and it is anticipated that by 2050 do about 70% of humanity.
Kevin lynch’s book ‘Good city form’ gives us the answer of the question that what are the factors and aspects which makes good city and how to achieve it as cities are too complicated objects, they are far beyond the control, and they also affect the too many people with too many cultural variations. The book provides knowledge of various urban theories through comprehensive discussions.
Essential values are linked to the rise of the city – democracy, freedom, citizenship, equality. It was the city which lead to the invention of new political, economic, or technical ways which afterwards spread throughout the nations and the world. Cities are like melting pots, mixing and clashing, producing new concepts and ideas. Through architecture and city planning, basic ideals, order, and norms are being constructed thus implying it evolves out of disorder. To ensure that identity, social and political order would be preserved they often had to be bordered and, but to maintain their vigor they had to remain open to the world. Later on capitalism came hand in hand with state building and it destroyed the autonomy the city had enjoyed until that time, and moved it to the national level. The concept of urban citizenship was lost aswell and national