Urban Studies

Introduction

Urban planning or city, urban and town planning entails the political and technical process which deals with appropriate use of land. Additionally, it entails urban environment designs that may include the transportations networks, which guide and provides an effective settlements and communities development. This urban planning report will generally focus on some of the common issues in relation to urban planning. Generally, this paper will do an analysis of some of the urban planning aspects in the movie. The focus in the analysis regarding urban planning in the movie will be the research, architecture, urban designs and the strategic thinking.

The movie generally points out some of the common urban issues in relation to poor urban planning in a certain community. The movie generally focuses on a small ghetto neighborhood where most of the residents are jobless. Additionally, the movie gives an elaboration of the transformations the community has gone through over the years. The narration of the story revolves around the small ghetto neighborhood, with some of the residents reminiscing some of the good old times in the area (Sundquist, 1975). The main issue of concern in the movie is the issue to do with security and safety concerns in the area. Residents in the area are concerned with their safety especially after all black shows and businesses were closed down. Additionally, the issue to do with social deterioration in the ghettos as part of urban planning aspect is a major issue facing the residents in the area. There is an extensive social institutions breakdown and high rates of social dislocation, which have affected the ghettos. The aspect of social dislocation and a breakdown of the community’s social institutions have generally swept across other neighborhoods (Sundquist, 1975). To date, there are no social institutions in the area apart from a few shops, thrift stores and barbershops. The commercial strip in the area has changed over the years with the current one being a long tunnel that has various charred stores that are littered with garbage and broken glasses. At one end of the street, there are a few remaining establishments which struggle to survive and are just huddled on the back of wrought iron bars. There is also the aspect of poor inner-city public schools state. The main issue of concern here was the overcrowded conditions at the schools due to poor planning of the public schools.

Alternatively, joblessness is cited for the most essential difference in the modern inner-city neighborhood. Joblessness results in poverty especially in the nation’s metropolises therefore resulting in various issues, which relate to urban life quality. New urban policy generally leads to segregated neighborhoods hence one of the major derailleurs of urban planning (Edelman, 1964). Neighborhoods, which are mostly plagued by joblessness of high levels, are likely to experience social organizations of low levels. High rates of joblessness will most likely trigger problems from other neighborhood hence undermining social organizations that might range from drug trafficking, gang violence, family life problems among other social issues.

Analysis

The urban changes in the area can be attributed to poor urban planning, substantial economic, political and social reduction of resources in the community hence making the community vibrant. Additionally, reduction of population, economic and social deterioration can also be linked with the urban changes in the area. Initially, the community had an effective urban planning aspect with many people talking positively about the area. However, with economic deterioration, things drastically changed hence making the area poor. An effective urban planning aspect must at least have enough financial aspect to support the plan in years to come. In this case, the financial aspect was non-existent to support the neighborhood’s continual planning. Overcrowding in public places is mainly attributed to poor urban planning systems. An effective urban planning system would easily accommodate any type of crowd (Edelman, 1964).

The issue of sprawl is also a common urban issue that affects urbanisms. Sprawl is not regarded as a good issue hence many people associate sprawl with negativity. In most cases, sprawl is associated with poor urban planning in the way deplores open space loss, traffic congestion, long drives, overcrowding and poor suburban tract developments. Generally, sprawl uses prime land, contributes to air pollution, threatens animal communities and land. Additionally, sprawl plays a major role in global climate change, increase in commuter times and unnecessary expenses. Generally, governments are usually blamed for the increase in sprawl in urban communities (Edelman, 1964). The fact that most governments spend a lot of money building highways instead of subways and light rail lines makes auto-dependent sprawl development impossible. With respect to urban planning, it is important for governments to allow homeowners to cancel some of the induced mortgages interest payments in order to purchase suburban homes.

There are various issues, which are regarded as the leading factors that play vital role in causing sprawling in the community. Some of the issues include racism and anti-urban attitudes, capitalist systems and economic factors, government stance on the issue, technology, democratic institutions and affluence. Sprawling is a regarded as a direct by-product of the capitalism system. However, such an argument always leads to two dubious propositions thus the economic forces, which is the prime factor when it comes to human interactions and the aspect of market failure in which capitalist systems fail to work well with (Edelman, 1964).

Despite all these factors, many people still associate the aspect of sprawl with capitalism because this type of economic system encourages buyers and sellers to develop their own good instead of focusing on a common good. To determine whether these aspects are true or false is quite a daunting task. However, the fact remains that sprawling remains one of the biggest issues and derailleurs of urban planning. Enacting an effective urban planning system will most likely put an end to sprawling. To stop the issue, financial power would be needed to address such cases (Edelman, 1964).

Conclusion

From the movie, it is evident that poverty and joblessness are the leading causes of poor urban planning in almost every community. In most cases, poverty-stricken communities tend to be crime prone thus leading to safety concerns. This means that there is always the need to address the issue of poverty and joblessness if a community needs to have an effective urban plan. An effective urban planning aspect must have enough financial power to support the plan in years to come. Failure to which, the plan is most likely to fail. Alternatively, urban planning programs can be introduced to improve community life quality in the cities. The state can also fund urban planning systems.

Reference

Edelman, Murray. (1964). The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana, IL: University of IIlinois Press

Sundquist, James. (1975). Dispersing Population: What America Can Learn from Europe. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.