The Geographical Association Changing Place: Changing Places
Emma Rawlings Smith
This workshop will explore some of the opportunities and challenges of teaching about place in the new A Level specifications. It will consider the very idea of place and how we attribute personal and social meaning to particular locations. It will then present strategies that can encourage engagement with theory, key concepts and the study of distinctive localities that help to explain how places have been shaped, why they are constantly changing and how this has affected the people who live at the heart of place.
Aims and Outcomes 1.1 Develop an understanding of the concept of place 1.2 Increase knowledge of how and why places are constantly changing 1.3 Explore a variety of teaching and learning strategies about place, including some ideas
for fieldwork investigations
1.1 What do we mean by space and place? Space: can be understood as a container in which objects are located and human behaviour is played out. In the book The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre identified how space is socially produced through a set of spatial practices (migrations, routines and other journeys), reproduced (in books, images, films and so on) and lived by people as they journey their way through life. Place: simply put it is a location with meaning. It is a location connected to other places and shaped by these connections and flows from other places. Places are all unique and distinctive, where no two places are the same. Places can also be considered to be complex ‘bundles of trajectories’ where diverse elements gather together in the here and now and are constantly changing and being changed by the actions of people.
Further reading Cresswell, T. (2015) Place: an introduction 2nd edition. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Massey, D. (2005) For Space. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Lambert, D. and Morgan, J. (2010) Ch 6 ‘Place’ in Teaching Geography 11-‐18. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
1.2 How and why do places change?
Urban areas Coastal areas Countryside • Loss of city centre retail (e.g. food, DIY and home wares) to out-‐of-‐town retail and business parks.
• Loss of business and commercial functions to the edge of towns including business and science parks.
• Decline in heavy industry due to global shift, off shoring and outsourcing
• Limited access and high costs for motorists and commuters (limited parking, congestion charging)
• High cost of city centre housing.
• Decline in traditional fishing industries.
• Cheap overseas tourism destinations make British seaside resorts less attractive.
• Decline in tourism income has caused a spiral of decline in seaside towns.
• Hard to attract private investments with lower numbers of tourists.
• Depopulation as there are few local job opportunities.
• Some coastal resorts are inaccessible and take a long time to reach.
• Agricultural change as a result of mechanisation and overseas competition has resulted in low incomes.
• Limited public transport means locals cannot shop around or travel far for work.
• Less government support requires farmers to diversify to survive.
• Depopulation results in a loss of vital services.
• Increased proportion of second or holiday homes has driven up house prices beyond the reach of local people.
Key processes driving change and shaping place identity
• Urbanisation 2008, was the first time in history when more people lived in cities than the countryside. By 2050, the urban population is expected to increase to 6.3 million. It is estimated that by 2025, 300 million Chinese now living in rural areas will move into cities. Urbanisation is driven by multiple causes, as people are forced from rural areas and attracted to the dream of a better life in the city. Urbanisation is creating terrible inequalities within and between different urban areas for the people who lack education, skill or opportunity to work in the global economy.
• Globalisation Globalisation has been taking place for many hundreds of years, the pace of change has speeded up enormously over the last half-‐century. With modern globalisation the connections between people and places have lengthened (as products are sourced from ever-‐more distant places) and deepened (as more areas of our lives are affected). • Global mobility More people are on the move than ever before, for reasons including: -‐ Tourism -‐ With greater disposable incomes, the middle-‐class travel for recreation and leisure. According to the WTO global tourist arrivals increased to 1.138 billion last year. -‐ European mobility – The European Union (EU) is a trade bloc that allows free movement of citizens between the 27 member states and EEA countries. There are currently 1.4 million Britons living in other EU countries, 800 000 in Spain alone. -‐ International migration – There are currently 232 million international migrants living outside the country they were born in. Most migration flows are to the global hub cities for work, or to follow members of the family who have already migrated abroad.
Changing places case study: The impact of deindustrialisation on Liverpool Places are dynamic and constantly changing. Evidence of their history and culture lives on in the urban environment, public space and inhabitants memories. Cities go through cycles of industrial growth and decline. In the 18th and 19th centuries Liverpool was a thriving port. From the mid-‐twentieth century Liverpool’s docks and traditional manufacturing industries went into sharp decline. Containerisation better suited deeper ports like those in Bristol, Felixstowe and Tilbury, making the city’s docks obsolete. At the same time, globalisation shifted production abroad, leading factories across Liverpool to shut and unemployment to rise to one of the highest in the UK. During this period of rapid change, the middle class were leaving the inner city area of Toxteth, with its tightly-‐packed 19th century terraces, for the suburbs in the south of the city. Others were leaving Granby triangle, the terraces of Lodge Lane, Sefton Park and Croxteth Road, for modern council estates. Those that could get out left, those who couldn’t, stayed. Industrial towns and cities in the north of England were hardest hit by deindustrialisation as manufacturing was at the heart of their economies. In March 1981, the final death knell for Liverpool was the closure Tate & Lyle’s sugar refinery, along with the loss of 2 000 jobs. It was claimed that the surplus capacity in cane sugar refining caused by the European Community’s Common Agricultural Policy made the factory unsustainable. As workers moved away, houses in Toxteth were left empty and students, the unemployed and immigrants attracted by cheap rent and the close proximity to the city centre moved in. Toxteth was now a deprived, run-‐down and racially mixed area -‐ a breading ground for discontent. When police intercepted a motorcyclist in Selbourne in July 1981, the match was struck and nine days of riots were sparked. As a result 100 cars burned, 1000 police officers injured, 70 buildings destroyed and damage estimated at £11 million. It took the Toxteth riots, to get the government to recognise that cities like Liverpool had serious problems that needed addressing and yet Thatcher was advised by Geoffrey Howe to abandon Liverpool to ‘managed decline’ rather than help. Right wing voices argued that northern cities had ‘no future’ that their residents should get out and migrate south. In 2010, 11 per cent of city’s population were living in the most deprived one per cent of all England’s neighbourhoods and life expectancy for men was 14 years below national averages, the same as for men in Baghdad. If you look at the map below you’ll see that these high levels of deprivation can be found in neighbourhoods in wards like Everton in Liverpool. During the last decade, around £6 billion of private and public sector money has been invested in Liverpool. As European Capital of Culture in 2008, Liverpool gained foreign investments to improve the city, paving the way for further regeneration. Liverpool One is a £1bn redevelopment of shops and leisure facilities on a 42-‐acre site close to Albert Docks. Key players involved in redevelopments in Liverpool include: • Liverpool City Council grant planning permission for redevelopments • Central government who can ask for a public enquiry for redevelopment schemes. • Joe Anderson Liverpool’s first directly elected mayor. • Liverpool’s Economic Development Agency’s (Liverpool Vision) 15-‐year strategic plan. • UNESCO gave Liverpool World Heritage Site Status in 2004 and can take it away if they do not support new developments out of character for the area.
• Developers such as North Point Global, BDP and Urban Splash design and construct new developments
• Peel Port investing in the deep-‐water container terminal called Liverpool2
1.3 Teaching and learning strategies about place Example One -‐ Do I see the city how you do? An extract from a city blog project
Living in the richest city in the world and you would expect that every building on the block would be an iconic example of modernity. Not true. Recently constructed designs are more likely to reflect the traditional mashrabiyan architecture of old, combined subtly with innovative features that make life in the Arabian Desert just that little bit more hospitable. The central wind tower, known in Arabic as a barajeel, incorporated into the zero-‐carbon zero-‐waste Masdar city, collects and drops cooler air to street level. The glass reinforced concrete coating applied to the Central Souk, protects the building from the sandstorms, which regularly blast thousands of tonnes of sand on the city.
My apartment is considered old, in a country, which celebrated its 40th birthday last December. My tower was constructed in the 1970s, as one of the city’s first ‘skyscrapers’, when buildings topped out at 18 floors. The changes occurring across the city of Abu Dhabi can be seen from my windows. I overlook Khalidiya Gardens one of many green, public spaces that make up five per cent of the city. Friday, the day when most global citizens are working their last nine-‐to-‐five of the week, the people of Abu Dhabi congregate in these family parks around barbeques. The men smoke shisha, discussing the matters of the day and the women busy themselves with their children. The charcoal and shisha smoke drifts up and permeates through the air along with the smells from the underbelly of the city. When the temperatures soar into the forties in the summer months, evaporation from sewage pipes hits the back of the throat of unsuspecting passers-‐by.
The smells of the city are as diverse as the people and the trades that they follow. Emirates are distinct in style, the women in black Abayas and the men in white Kanduras, newcomers to the city are a diverse crowd, but each have shops and community services dedicated to their needs. I love the fact that you can visit a traditional tailor, barber and patisserie right next door to a pottery, dry cleaners and music store selling nothing but Ouds. The New Economics Foundation would find no clone town here. Further along my street there is even a gramophone shop and a Singer sewing machine shop, both selling goods without need of electricity. This is my city and it has been for the last two years. I would love to be an urban representative for Abu Dhabi, it is a city full of dichotomies, it is in the midst of reinventing itself and I am watching it change right from my window. Activities 1. Highlight the different sights, sounds, smells used in the text to describe the people and city. 2. Write a list of ideas of your own that you might include in a blog post about your city 3. Share these with your group. Think about how you could develop each of your ideas. 4. Discuss whether you have missed out any members of the community? If you have write a couple more ideas down.
Example One -‐ A day on the Devonshire moors by N. Smith (2013) Students can be asked to write about places they feel an attachment to. This example by one of my students shows a strong attachment to a distant but familiar place. Set between the rolling green hills and dark fingered woods sits a small, white, house surrounded by a garden full of life. Fresh, blooming flowers and the barking of the old sheepdogs lying in the shade of the backdoor porch. Distant neighing comes from the stables behind the house while other Dartmoor ponies roll with abandon in the yellowing meadows. This is where I first fell in love with Devon and everything that it holds within its mellowing glory. Waking to a full English breakfast, with Jazz, the old sheepdog snoozing peacefully on our feet, we headed out into the nearby wood to begin our journey through the moors. Dappled light fell onto the leafy ground as with hiked through the wood, heading towards the local village for the classic Devon cream tea. Despite our anticipated lunch, we walked on accompanied, only by our own footfalls and the tweeting of birds in the trees. It is amazing how you can discover a new part of Devon that one has never walked on before. You can make a place your own, private space that you have been the first to discover. This is another thing I love about Devon, the never-‐ending discoveries you can make, just by enjoying a walk through the woods of a beautiful place. Emerging onto a bramble path, we made our way up to the local village to the Crumbly Sponge Tea shop, for the well-‐deserved cream tea. Despite our giant and delicious English breakfast at the start of our day, cream tea and scones with homemade jam and of course clotted cream is the something that Devon stars. No other place on earth could do it how they do. But its not so much the amazing taste of the food, but the atmosphere of the tea shop itself. Amongst the tinkle of tea cups and munching of cake, there is the sound of light conversation, and always, as someone walks in, there are cries of welcome, and come sit at our table, Even if the person is unknown to them. The close community and passion for making people welcome, is also a thing I adore and much admired about this place. Continuing our journey, up around the moors, this time in the open sunshine, we began to hike up a gently sloping hill, towards a meadow of whinnying Dartmoor horses and ponies. Those horses were wild, but even the friendly and caring atmosphere of Devon seemed to have reached and grow with them, as, as we walked through the field they trotted up to us to nuzzle a hello or walk with us to the gate on the other side. Reaching the top of the hill we stopped to admire the view before us. That view is one that, despite the many places I have been, I can remember with precise detail, as it was utterly and truly wonderful. Miles and miles of undisturbed greenery, rolling with woods and fields full of wild flowers and animals, all just there, like they truly belong. It cannot be put into words the beauty of it all. After tearing ourselves away we made back to that white house, the barks of the dogs welcoming us back, as if it were home. Sitting in the garden after our walk, holding a mug of hot chocolate I stopped to think, Devon is one of the most wonderful and most beautiful places I have ever had the pleasure to be in.
Example Two -‐ Kilburn High Street by Doreen Massey (2005) “Take, for instance, a walk down Kilburn High Road, my local shopping centre. It is a pretty ordinary place, north-‐west of the centre of London. Under the railway bridge the newspaper stand sells papers from every county of what my neighbours, many of whom come from there, still often call the Irish Free State. The postboxes down the High Road, and many an empty space on a wall, are adorned with the letters IRA. Other available spaces are plastered this week with posters for a special meeting in remembrance: Ten Years after the Hunger Strike. At the local theatre Eamon Morrissey has a one-‐man show; the National Club has the Wolfe Tones on, and at the Black Lion there's Finnegan's Wake. In two shops I notice this week's lottery ticket winners: in one the name is Teresa Gleeson, in the other, Chouman Hassan. Thread your way through the often almost stationary traffic diagonally across the road from the newsstand and there's a shop which as long as I can remember has displayed saris in the window. Four life-‐sized models of Indian women, and reams of cloth. On the door a notice announces a forthcoming concert at Wembley Arena: Anand Miland presents Rekha, life, with Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Jahi Chawla and Raveena Tandon. On another ad, for the end of the month, is written, 'All Hindus are cordially invited'. In another newsagents I chat with the man who keeps it, a Muslim unutterably depressed by events in the Gulf, silently chafing at having to sell the Sun. Overhead there is always at least one aeroplane -‐ we seem to have on a flight-‐path to Heathrow and by the time they're over Kilburn you can see them clearly enough to tell the airline and wonder as you struggle with your shopping where they're coming from. Below, the reason the traffic is snarled up (another odd effect of time-‐space compression!) is in part because this is one of the main entrances to and escape routes from London, he road to Staples Corner and the beginning of the M1 to 'the North’. This is just the beginning of a sketch from immediate impressions but a proper analysis could be done of the links between Kilburn and the world. And so it could for almost any place.” Activities 1. Highlight the text for the following:
a. connections with other places b. flows of people, money, knowledge, culture b. Are some members of the community over-‐represented? Are others under-‐
represented? 2. Visit your local high street and create your own narrative, describe the thinks you can see, hear and smell. While you are exploring – take plenty of photographs of what you see, these can be used as a primary source of data back in the classroom. 3. Talk to visitors and business owners and ask them what they think of the area and ask them how they have seen it change.
Example Three -‐ Investigating Place Image using photographs London Docklands 1983 and 2015
http://i202.photobucket.com Creative Commons
Getty Images Royalty-‐free
Example Four -‐ Investigating Place Image using primary data
For each site take a photo, sketch what you see and record relevant information. This is your view of the current quality of a place and record of the improvements you would like to see. You could repeat this method by asking other people to complete this survey (such as family members from different generations, workers or tourists).
Place description:
Sketch map include annotations of land use, functions, environmental quality, activities (say what you see, smell, hear…) 1. What do you like about it?
Same /different for local residents? Why?
2. What do you dislike about it?
Same /different for local residents? Why?
3. What needs to be improved? 4. Evidence of improvements to create a ‘special place’
Example Five – Place enquiry using secondary data UK data A range of secondary data can be used to build up a picture of a place such as Liverpool and to help to show how it is changing. The government collect census data every ten years and this can be can be downloaded from their website http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/data/area-‐first/ You might want to start by exploring an area you are familiar with such your local ward, then compare your results with other places. Another set of maps using census data can be found at http://ukdataexplorer.com These are an easy starting point for investigating data at the regional level. A useful tool available to introduce census data to students is the ‘How well do you your local area’ quiz available at http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc147/ The Index of Multiple Deprivation 2015 Explorer is available online at http://apps.opendatacommunities.org/showcase/deprivation It is a useful source of data that helps to show inequalities across England. In the UK and in New York there are great datasets looking at the geographical distribution of crime, explore these for yourself at www.police.uk and http://maps.nyc.gov/crime/ The interactive mapping tool at http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc173/index.htmlHealth can be used to compare life expectancies for people across the UK. London Data A useful website to view rental prices in London is available at http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/nov/20/rental-‐prices-‐at-‐each-‐london-‐underground-‐tube-‐stop This can be used in conjunction with a map of Life expectancy on the Tube Line available on the Mapping London Website at http://life.mappinglondon.co.uk Global Data The Reporters without Borders map and report help us to understand where in the world there is press freedom available at https://index.rsf.org/#!/ The Globalization Index 2011 interactive time line is an interesting dataset to explore, as it captures how well places are connected to each other available at http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Business-‐environment/The-‐Globalization-‐Index-‐2011-‐interactive-‐time-‐line Lastly, the interactive mapping peoplemovin shows global migration source and destination countries in an easy to read format at http://peoplemov.in/#!
10.11.2015
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