The Local and the Global Useful Ideas and Concepts

Cities and Urban Life
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Cities and Urban Life
Introduction
The locality of an area reflects the broader social and economic geography described in the concepts of contemporary urbanism on a global scale. An analysis of the activities in the area provides such insight. Useful information includes land usage, the density, and types of buildings, options for and accessibility of transit, types of housing, community facilities, and forms and signage of retail. The field mapping in the essay comprises of areas in Toronto, which include the area between South Sheppard Avenue to North Finch Avenue, and from West Yonge Street to East Bay view Avenue. My location is 96 Alfred Avenue, North York. An assessment of the specified area will provide enough information to examine the diversity of land use, and classify the developments into industrial, residential, commercial or open spaces. The essay scrutinizes how the area reflects the theories of contemporary urbanism.
Useful Ideas and Concepts
The first idea is about how people develop a sense of locality or place. In ‘A Global Sense of Place,’ the author expounds on a concept termed as time-space compression, which has caused uncertainty over what people mean by the term place, and how individuals relate to places (Massey, 1994). The current society comprises of lots of intermixing and movement that threatens the retention locality of a particular space. Initial ideas of the concept suggested that homogeneous and coherent communities inhabited a place, but the current spatial disruptions and geographical fragmentation counters the sense of place that would exist in an area. The influence of time-space compression includes a sense of dislocation, which could arise from changes in a local street hosting a succession of imported constructs such as foreign commercial businesses (Massey, 1994). Through such changes, people begin to conform to new standards of living, ranging from the foods eaten to the choice of services people opt for. The effects of capitalism and resulting developments are what shape the understanding and experience of space amongst individuals in an area. The notion is one of the factors that dictate how people perceive space and locality.
The second idea has a basis in the division of neighborhoods according to income polarization. The observation arises from the conclusions made from a study of Toronto (Hulchanski, 2007). Classification of neighborhoods in the city is according to the most recent changes in income. On the basis, there are three cities of high-income areas, middle-income areas, and low-income areas. High-income areas have witnessed a consistent increase in incomes while middle-income areas have maintained a constant stream of income, and low-income areas have experienced a constant decline in income throughout study. Comparison of the neighborhoods provides an indication of a decrease in the proportion of middle-income areas (Hulchanski, 2007). A percentage of the group shifted to high-income areas while the remainder merged with low-income areas. According to the report, the changes have been a long-term trend, and segregation according to income is...