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Expansion of reflection
I chose
these three blogs because they were beautifully written and they correlated
with my blog entirely, but, they were mostly based on theoretically
negative connotations of sprawls, with the expection of one of Khadija's post.
Sayyida Ali – A Journey into the Urban
http://tturbanperceptions.blogspot.com/
Sayyida’s
blog was not related to sprawls directly however it related indirectly to my
blog in more ways than one. The basis of my blog was to start with background
information (so that the reader can get a good foundation of what urban sprawls
were and its potential) and then evolve it into a more revisionist perspective.
Sayyida’s blog basically did the same within each post as she “Journeyed into
the Urban” assessing and evaluating the perceptions that constitutes the urban.
Her posts such as ‘Inner City Life and Stereotypes’, ‘Urban Poverty and Cities of Aspiration’ and ‘A Population Affected by Transit Issues’ related to my poem on ‘Life’, Increasing Violence with Increasing Urbanisation’ and ‘Mobility’ respectively.
Her posts such as ‘Inner City Life and Stereotypes’, ‘Urban Poverty and Cities of Aspiration’ and ‘A Population Affected by Transit Issues’ related to my poem on ‘Life’, Increasing Violence with Increasing Urbanisation’ and ‘Mobility’ respectively.
But what
really grabbed my attention was her post on ‘San Fernando: Planning Urban
Growth’ where she wrote about her observations of the city and related sprawl
as a continuous trend occurring on the southern part of the island. She saw
sprawls as a major constraint to the agricultural sector. This is
understandable but, I believe that a country cannot focus on agriculture and providing food
for the poor when they may not have a private place to take part of in their meal,
or they may not have a place to store extras so that they can provide their family
with food for another day. I
guess as the saying goes ‘There is a time and place for everything’ I
believe she was trying to convey that ‘There is a place and space for everything’.
What I do agree with is her stance on urban planning with relation to the Housing Development Cooperation (HDC) created by Act No. 24 of 2005. The governmental agency claims to aid with housing and planning yet their works seem to hamper instead of benefit the communities and many areas of sprawls have been victim to these deeds.
What I do agree with is her stance on urban planning with relation to the Housing Development Cooperation (HDC) created by Act No. 24 of 2005. The governmental agency claims to aid with housing and planning yet their works seem to hamper instead of benefit the communities and many areas of sprawls have been victim to these deeds.
Tammi Thompson – Urbanisation and Disparity
http://urbanizationdisparity.blogspot.com/
Tammi’s
blogs were directly connected to my theme. She focused on ‘slums’ along the
southern part of this Trinidad and though she seemed neutral on the whole
concept of urban sprawls she had a great historical contents with her post. This
helped me greatly in realising that areas develop according to location and its
past histories.
What
grasped my attention with her blog was her quote from her post “Disparities in
Architecture (the urban poor)” which was “Just as a skyscraper is a symbolic
part of an urban space which can represent wealth and innovation, huts or built
up dwellings of the urban poor also reflect symbolism, which may be that of
poverty and hardship.”
To
me, this was beautiful. It summed up all my perceptions of sprawls and
everything I stood for in my revisionist perspective of urban sprawls.
Overall
she showed that ‘slum areas’ are closely intertwined with the cities of direct
production and advanced services and thus are located near them, but separately
in scattered clusters. With my blog I focused on these pockets of communities
from the North West to the South West of the island
and I could attest to this as I observed these same processes.
Khadija Stewart – The Dark Side of Urbanisation
http://negativeurbanisation.blogspot.com/
Firstly, I love her theme and the black background definitely helped in conveying her topic.
Her topics of ‘Overcrowding’, ‘Traffic Congestion’, ‘Pollution/Litter’, ‘Disparities
in Development’, ‘Environmental Degradation’ and ‘Poverty’ all linked to the characteristics
of urban sprawl, but what really caught my eye was her post on ‘Urban Sprawls’.
She
looked at different nuclei within the city of Port-of-Spain (I am assuming she
refers to Port-of-Spain as a Multiple-Nuclei urban form), and focused on how
each are being affected by sprawl according to the main service performed in
that area.
She
was the only of the three that gave the typical adverse scholarly attributes to
sprawl and then in her abstract about the topic she wrote she actually “sees
nothing wrong with sprawl”. I found that very interesting as she contradicted
the very theme of her blog which “focused on the negative effects of
urbanisation”. It revealed that even though she researched the topic and gather
all the evidence of negativity she still saw this phenomenon as a building
block for development which can be improved with better implementation of laws
and policies.
After reading this, I thought to myself “Wow”. I realised that I was not the only one who saw potential in these places habitually called favelas and slums; these disregarded places of mostly lower class societies who are often forgotten by the way side on the escalator to progress and development.
After reading this, I thought to myself “Wow”. I realised that I was not the only one who saw potential in these places habitually called favelas and slums; these disregarded places of mostly lower class societies who are often forgotten by the way side on the escalator to progress and development.
Her
quote from Janet Bowman was also inspiring to read - “We still object to the
whole concept of waving the urban sprawl rule. We believe it serves a purpose” ~
Janet Bowman
It
related to everything that I tried to portray within my blogs, especially with
the last six I did.
References
Ali, Sayyida. "A Journey
Into The Urban." A Journey into the Urban. Accessed April 11, 2013.
http://tturbanperceptions.blogspot.com/
http://tturbanperceptions.blogspot.com/
Stewart, Khadija. "The
Dark Side of Urbanisation." The Dark Side of Urbanisation. Accessed April
12, 2013.
http://negativeurbanisation.blogspot.com/
Thompson, Tammi .
"Urbanization & Disparity." Urbanization & Disparity. Accessed
April 10, 2013
http://urbanizationdisparity.blogspot.com/