Étude de la notion espaces et échanges: quel impact les villes mondiales ont-elles sur la vie quotidienne des gens? (document en anglais)

I am going to talk about the notion "Spaces and exchanges" which deals with the geographical and symbolic areas that all societies occupy and the interactions between men and different societies. Our world is built on the exploration and conquest of new spaces. The different cultural, economic, sociological and language interactions have shaped and characterised our modern-day world in which global cities talk an important part. A global city is a city having a strategic position in various domains, mainly economic, political and cultural at the world level and establishing a dynamic node of communications. So we can wonder what impact global cities do have on people's everyday lives? Firstly, I will present the advantages of such cities. Secondly, I will show there are also drawbacks.

In order to illustrate the advantages of global cities, I have chosen the document entitled “London: an evolving city” which is an article published in the OECD observer in March two thousand and eight. Concentrated cities may deliver benefits such as lower energy consumption and water saving because activities and people are grouped together. These urban concentrations create opportunities to be exploited. Global cities have brought a wealth of cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity helping to enrich everyday life.

Singapore is another example since it because an almost perfect town over these last years with the lowest crime rate in the world, no litter, no graffiti, with prosperity in business. Everything is orderly, on time, efficient such as it is described by David Lamb in an article of the Smithsonian magazine published in September two thousand and seven. At first sight, it should be pleasant to live in such an ideal city. Yet perfection came at a price!

Indeed, in Singapore, such a level of perfection lead to create many drawbacks on people’s everyday lives. The main one is a restriction of personal freedoms. “Singapore is admired but not envied” according to David lamb in his article published in September two thousand and seven. People get a one hundred § fine if they pick up flowers, if they animate everywhere, if they throw chewing-gum on the ground and so on.

Besides the needs of such dense populations have led to serious problems in terms of environment. From the slums and fog of Victorian London to the great smog of Victorian London to the great smog of nineteen fifty-two as described in “our mutual friend” to the current issue of traffic pollution, global cities struggle to find solutions to reduce their carbon footprint and improve urban living conditions.

All these drawbacks disturb people’s everyday lives

To conclude, we can say that on one hand global cities have brought a wealth of cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity but on the other hand global cities are facing new problem such as pollution, congestion. So will global cities find a way to create a sustainable, dean environment in the futur

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