URBAN CHANGE
This page archived in August 2008
One of the issues to face in the next 15 years is the need for hundreds of thousands of new homes that will need to be built to cope with demand due to an ever aging population, high divorce rate, aging Victorian/Edwardian housing stock being in poor condition, more people living alone etc.
A recent report available from NATIONAL STATISTICS is the General Household Survey and it says that the number of people in Britain living alone has doubled in the last 30 years.
Go to the TEACHER RESOURCE EXCHANGE, and type the word BRIGGS into the search engine, and you'll be presented with the wonderful work of Richard Briggs from Ralph Allen School. It's a whole scheme, plus worksheets for AS level Urban themes.
A WEB ENQUIRY here from SLN on perceptions of quality of life in cities.
How should cities be redeveloped for people ? Use this other SLN WEB ENQUIRY to find out.
Some people have no home for whatever reason. At Christmas, we raise money for Crisis at Christmas and do a lesson on homelessness. Another appropriate charity is SHELTER. They have useful case studies and fact sheets at their site. There are also the HOMELESS PAGES which offer useful and thought provoking resources.
The ECOSCHOOL project which involved David Owen from Sheffield Hallam University produced materials on the city of SHEFFIELD as well as other places. This begins with an introduction to the city and its history, and then moves on to the more recent development of the Don Valley area of the city, and Meadowhall in particular. Thanks to David Owen for permission to reproduce these materials.
A Virtual version of Manchester to wander around has recently disappeared from University of Manchester pages. This is a useful site for urban studies, and there are bound to be some worksheets to go with it at some stage. Recently wandered around Manchester City Centre before a rather impressive Peter Gabriel concert, and saw the URBIS building and some of the other impressive pieces of architecture in the city centre. Thanks to Katharine H for advising me on a new URL for the Salford Virtual tour: http://www.thequays.org.uk/tour/Tourviewer_quays.html - you'll need JAVA and watch out, as this crashed my browser...
Go HERE for some work on SHEFFIELD. This is a city we have visited with our 6th formers.
Try also some details on REBUILDING MANCHESTER this has some useful images.
Try also a history of the LONDON DOCKLANDS REDEVELOPMENT CORPORATION . This is an area that we use as a case study, along with the Don Valley in Sheffield. Some pictures can be found on the HABSBOYS site in the Virtual Fieldwork area.
There's also some information here on GLASGOW. The city has undergone a tremendous amount of urban change, including the introduction of urban motorways through the centre of the city. The main development has been the GLASGOW EASTERN AREA RENEWAL (GEAR) scheme which is a common case study for GCSE Urban redevelopment.
URBAN UPGRADING: looks at changes to Shanty Towns and other aspects of LEDC cities. It has some useful presentations to download, and other resources. Thanks to Chris Durbin for passing on the URL via the SLN forum yonks ago. A recent visit shows that there are a range of excellent new resources which anyone looking at LEDC cities would find useful. There are, for example, 6 short films to download. I checked out 'The Right Side of the Tracks' looking at communities living alongside railway lines in India.
Some CRIME FIGURES for Suffolk, courtesy of SLAMNET. This is part of determining quality of life. There are plenty of useful ideas for environmental surveys that can be found with appropriate searches. Try your local area on the NATIONAL STATISTICS website.
There is some excellent material at the BBC site on Crime - this would form a useful background for those doing a piece of coursework on CRIME STATISTICS.
Michael Koller is attempting to photograph the whole of San Francisco and create a virtual SEAMLESS CITY. Not sure if he's still at it...
A massive range of URBAN themed links at RUAVISTA.
Pedestrianisation is another issue that is worth investigating and can make a good 'live' issue for coursework. Why is pedestrianisation done ? What are the pros and cons....
What if THE WORLD WERE A VILLAGE ?
Planning to visit NEW YORK ? Jonathan Pilling has already been, and has produced a rather good site which he calls a 'Home Geographical study' of the city. It has images and details on the main areas of the city, so if you use the Big Apple as a Case Study then head over to JONATHAN's site. Has links to various articles of interest and is refreshingly academic. Thanks for the e-mail too Jonathan!
One of the cities that has undergone some recent change is Birmingham. You can visit VIRTUAL BRUM to see some of the changes in the city in recent years. One of the most striking buildings is the new SELFRIDGES department store. This opened in September 2003 and has a striking exterior with 15 000 aluminium discs. There are some striking photographs to view at this website.
An article in Geography Review in September 2003 looked at the Longbenton Estate on the edge of Newcastle-upon-Tyne as a case study of URBAN RENEWAL. Like many cities, slum housing close to the centre had to be replaced. Try the NORTH TYNESIDE site for more on this area.
I'm sure there's a similar useful case study area somewhere near you - just stay in the car when you take the digital camera photos, and keep the engine running (only joking...)
An excellent resource which is worth getting hold of is the book: "CITY A-Z", edited by Steve Pile and Nigel Thrift (Routledge, 2000) ISBN: 0 415 20728 2 - has some excellent materials which are thought provoking...
GENTRIFICATION is another trend that you need to know the meaning of...
Try to think of an 'up and coming' area in your town or city - lots of skips in the street is a sign that things are changing.... the 'skip index'.....
Heard of the SLOW CITIES movement ? This is an attempt to slow things down and reclaim quality of life. Came across some useful materials while following links: there's the CITY MAYORS site which has some good materials.
BYKER WALL
The death of Ralph Erskine was in the news. You may not know his name, but any geographer would have heard of one of his architectural projects: the BYKER WALL. Erskine spent a lot of time concentrating on low cost housing. He was also involved in the Millennium village in Greenwich.
The BYKER WALL was an area of housing in Newcastle upon Tyne, which was meant to replace an area of slum housing. It was always in the early Waugh books as a case study of urban redevelopment. The Victorian slums were cleared away in a project which ran from 1969 for the next decade. Erskine set up his office in an old corner shop and invited local people to come in and comment on the plans. The wall itself is a winding building which runs for more than a kilometre. The idea was that it would shield the inhabitants from a proposed motorway development (which ironically was never built) and the wind, and create a sense of community, and also reduce crime. There were hundreds of different house types, and lots of greenery. There was a problem with thinning the vegetation to avoid the areas having hiding places for crime, and also vandalism. A Grade II listing was added in 2003.
There's a rather splendid set of PHOTOS of the whole area and the sort of houses that the scheme replaced at the TIMMONET Newcastle archive page. This is a great place to wander for a while and get a real sense of place.
There's also information at GREAT BUILDINGS, where you can also download a 3D MODEL of the site, and viewing software.
Kay's alternative GEOGRAPHY SITE has some very useful information on the development.
It's also the scene of the opening credits of a classic programme from my youth.
James Bolam missing the bus at the start of the Likely Lads. BBC Series. Everyone remembers the one where they try to avoid finding out the football result...
This picture is one of several which are part of Michael Brady's excellent GET CARTER TOUR. This looks at several other locations at the start of the programme, many of which feature typical housing from the period when Newcastle was undergoing redevelopment - notably the tower blocks which sprang up... Check it out - it's a work of love...
For more on the NE, check out the SINE site which features excellent zoomable maps and an image archive - lots of aerial photography too. Has a useful INTERACTIVE ZONE with games and activities relating to the NE of England's architecture.
GLASGOW
http://www.bestlaidschemes.com/ - a 2005 find via a posting on the SLN FORUM. Looks at the BRUCE PLAN, and you have a chance to view lots of contemporary movies from the Scottish archives. An excellent resource.