Spaces And Exchanges

Spaces and exchanges

The increase of the population have created an urban development, which have permitted the development of global cities. Indeed global cities have always existed like London, but nowadays, we see new cities emerging, such as Singapore.

Thus we can wonder what impact does the increase of global cities have on our society ?

Firstly we will talk about the positive aspects of the growth of global cities, and then, in a second place, we will see the issues due to their increase.

Thus, now we will see the opportunities created by global cities. Indeed global cities are leaders in the world economy and international marketplaces which have created a business social class. Moreover those cities are dynamic hubs. That is why now we have a world well-connected and a lot of exchanges between countries.

For example, we can take a look at Singapore.

This city was a British colony, and, at the independence, it decided to create a racially, harmonious society. Singapore became a global city, and now, its society is considered as « perfect » : its crime rate is one of the lowest in the world and everything is orderly. And also, thanks to global cities, many good universities were created which have provide students exchanges between them. Thus, immigration is big coming more and more important borders tend towards step outside. London for instance, is well representative of this diversity with over a third of its citizens born in a foreign country.

Yet, On another hand, global cities haven’t only positive aspect. That’s why we can see the consequences of urban development. So now I will talk about urban issues created by global cities and how they try to solve them.

One of the most important problem is pollution. Indeed, pollution is due to a use too important of cars. Global cities are trying to reduce it, with some initiaves, such as developping public transportation and reducing their price. We could take, as an example, velibs in Paris, which develop the use of the bikes. Moreover, pollution is created by industries, and it could make serious issues like in London in 1952 : because of the great SMOG 12000 people died. As a consequence, the British parliament introduced the clean air act in 1956 to reduce the pollution.

At last, congestion is also a cause of pollution, so, some cities have created taxes, like the congestion charge in London.

Another issue of global cities is the creation of slums, because of the over-crowding.

Thus, London have created an environmentally friendly housing named « BedZED » which have environmental and social goals.

As a conclusion, thanks to the urban development, global cities have became more and more important, which brings positive aspects, such as diversity or a world economy, but it as also created problems, that we are nowadays trying to solve.

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