Spaces and exchanges : what are the positive or negative impacts that global cities can have on their country or population ?

SPACES AND EXCHANGES

I’m going to speak about the notion spaces and exchanges with the subject we dealt with in class: global cities. To begin, I’d like to give a definition of global cities which is a very large city with millions people, it’s a multicultural city and it can regroup several places of power liked to economy, politics or education for example. In order to have this statue, cities must meet many different criteria! So, what are the positive or negative impacts that global cities can have on their country or population? To answer this question, let us first look at the positive aspects then the negative aspects in a second part

Let us see in this first part the positive impacts. There is a real cultural diversity in these cities. For example in 2011 in London there is 37% of the population that isn’t white, or there are 80% Chinese in Singapore. These cities try to be environmentally friendly with a lower energy consumption and water saving in London, Singapore attaches great importance to the cleanliness of its city with its rules such as banning chewing-gum gum or smoking in the street. To end these global cities promise nice living conditions like for example high quality schools and healthcare, cleanness and security. Singapore is a city that has one of the lowest crimes rates in the world. But those “perfect” cities aren’t as perfect as it seems.

One of the major problems of these cities is pollution and congestion we can see that with “Great Smog” which is a thick fog that had spread on London in 1952 due to high air pollution. There is also a natural resources problem in Singapore there are not many gas and oil. Cultural diversity can become defective because there is no common culture so the population isn’t so united. A new problem arises: a controlled society, actually in Singapore there are plenty of rules to guarantee cleanliness and security in order to keep its prestigious status but there is no real individual freedom.

Some cities put in place solutions to solve the various problems mentioned above like for example "bedZED" which is a neighbourhood south of London that is lower energy consumption and water saving. There is also the commuting which is a self-service bike concept to get to work but this concept must be better known and, above all, more widely used throughout the world to see real progress on the environmental front.

So we can finally see that global cities can have real economic and social benefits for their people and their country but the cities can also have environmental or social disadvantages with controlled societies for example. Some solutions are envisaged gradually to solve the various problems and make global cities sustainable and beneficial.

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