Spaces And Exchanges

I’m going to talk about global cities in order to illustrate the notion: spaces and exchanges. The concept of space corresponds to geographic locations that have some influence on the world. An exchange is an act of giving and receiving something else in return. We must now apply these definitions to the world system. A global city is a city having a strategic position in diverse domains, mainly economic, political and cultural at the world level and establishing a concentration of communications, because of globalization.

How can global cities, as geographical spaces, have an impact on people’s lives?

First of all, I will look at the impact of global cities on people’s everyday lives and then, I’ll analyse the future of the current policy leads by the global cities.

Firstly, global cities have real positive as well as negative impacts on the population of everyday lives.

At first, the positive aspects of a global city are numerous. The inhabitants have access to numerous services. Indeed, the strong economic development that knows the global cities allow these cities to invest in diverse infrastructures. Equally, the access to culture is another major positive aspect of the global cities. A lot of foreigners come from all over the world to work or to study enriching them with new languages and cultures. Global Cities also offer a high quality of education on account of their world-class universities.

However, the growth of urban concentrations and overcrowding has given rise to a number of issues over the years. For that matter, the cities are increasingly dirty with no greenery. They have caused numerous traffic jams in transports and life in the metropolis is also pretty expensive. But the most problematic drawback is the pollution of the air, particularly in the center of these cities.

For instance, the Great Smog due to the factories pollution, was a severe air pollution event that affected London during December. The inhabitants of London have been victims of health problems because of the unbreathable air. It is considered as the biggest air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom.

Secondly, the global cities are aware of their weaknesses. That’s why they have managed to lead a future politic, which will be beneficial for our society in general. The current and the future objective of the global cities is to reduce the negative aspects of globalisation to improve the quality of urban living conditions of its inhabitants. To make it possible, Global cities have also developed a special politic: sustainable development. The goal of this politic is to make economic growth and environmental protection go hand in hand. All these ambitions explain the strict legislation of Singapore, which managed to return the almost non-existent criminality.

While for instance, Singapore can be considered as “a perfect society” where everything is orderly, clean and efficient, on account of its strict legislation, it’s nevertheless a fact that people’s personal freedoms are surrendered. That’s why this kind of politic is a source of proceedings.

We can also speak about London politic as example. In fact, many projects like the BedZED project may lead the way towards the sustainable cities of the future. One could also look at many programmes in operation in OECD urban areas to improve

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