Blackpool; Tourism and the Butler Model

Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, in the North West of England. It is situated between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, 27 miles North of Liverpool and 30 miles Northwest of Bolton. It has an estimated population of 142000. In the mid 18th Century it became fashionable to travel to the coast, due to the prophesised healing properties of coastal air, and because it was a favourite pass-time of the royal family.

In 1781 a newly built private road was able to be used for the first time to access Blackpool. Also stagecoaches began running the 40 miles from Manchester, in the same year. Blackpool rose to prominence as a major centre of tourism when a railway was built in 1840. This connected the town two the highly populated and industrialised areas of Northern England, and also allowed less wealthy families to visit the town with this considerably cheaper mode of transport. By 1881 the main industry of Blackpool was tourism. It was a booming resort with a promenade complete with piers, pubs, fish and chip shops and theatres. In 1901 it was named "the archetypal British seaside resort."

 By 1920 8 million people were visiting Blackpool every year; three times as many as any of its competitors. Documents have been located suggesting that Blackpool survived heavy bombardment in World War II as Hitler himself had earmarked the area to remain as one of leisure after his invasion. Blackpool reached the peak of its popularity, stage 3 of the Butler model, in 1951, by which time 17 millon people were visiting the town every year.
However the town began a period of stagnation, as several factors made this peak untenable. The rise of the package holidays took many of Blackpool's visitors abroad and the construction of the M55 made Blackpool feasable as a day trip location, rather than an overnight town.

Since this stagnation, very little has changed to attract new visitors, however the Blackpool Tower, Blackpool Illuminations, The Pleasure Beach and the Winter Gardens are still bringing in 10 million visitors per year. The current state of the resort reflects that of Bournemouth in the late 1990s, and to successfully attract more visitors Blackpool needs to seriously update its beachfront, attractions and the surrounding area.

Race and Ethnicity in the London Riots

In August 2011 a plague of rioting broke out in London spreading from Tottenham to encompass the whole of London in which huge destruction and violence spread through London’s streets.

The riots began in Tottenham with the death of Mark Duggan, shot dead by the police. Duggan was black and the riots in Tottenham sparked after a protest by members of the Tottenham community protesting against what they felt was a racially motivated killing by the police. After this over the next 4-5 days riots spread through London and the country.

What can be drawn from the riots was that there was no real pattern designating what ethnicity was participating in the riots, although it is clear that a notable number of the rioters were of a foreign background and many had a poor educational background and as such were used to this kind of behaviour, the average rioter had 15 previous convictions to there names. Also it is clear that post-riots those of ethnic minorities have seen an increase in racism towards them with racism vastly becoming a top story amongst journalists.

Three Muslims were killed in a hit and run incident when they were trying to protect there mosque which proves that not every member of every ethnic group was involved in the riots but some were trying to stop the riots and unfortunately against the tide of violence they were swept aside.

In conclusion these riots were racially motivated and on the whole carried out by a wide mix of ethnicities although a notable number were of foreign background and almost all were of a poor and uneducated background maybe pointing to an area of society which needs changing.

Dharavi, Mumbai may have lessons for developed world.

Dharavi, Mumbai

Dharavi, located on the outskirts of Mumbai, is a massive slum, with a population exceeding that of one million persons, in just 175 hectares of land. Once India’s largest slum, it is now fifth in Mumbai alone. Yet, though Dharavi no longer reigns superiority in terms of size, it is still very much the focus of many of the world’s MEDCs whom strive for improving recycling and protecting the planet. This is due to the way in which many of the massive population make money; by collecting the waste from the inhabitants of Mumbai (at their  own expense) returning it to an area of Dharavi known as the 13^th Compound and then sorting and re-selling anything of value. This allows the inhabitants of the slum to “claw a way out of poverty” (Dan McDougall). This is allowing Dharavi to turn over an estimated $700 million per annum (The Guardian).

In Dharavi, there is but one way to make a living; recycling. 200,000 people are formally employed by said industry; however all of the inhabitants of the slum make money in this manner. Dharavi is home to an estimated 15,000 single room factories, and 5000 recycling businesses. One will struggle to locate an item not of recycled materials. The majority of the waste from the middle and upper classes of Mumbai is transported to Dharavi by housemaids and servants for the sole purpose of recycling.

 Dharavi is the ecological heart of the city, recycling 85% of all waste materials of the city. This compares strikingly to UK recycling figures; over the last decade less than 20% of waste was recycled. As the UK produces 30.5 million tonnes of waste per annum, this equals a staggering 23.9 million tonnes of waste in landfills each and every year. If the UK could match these recycling rates, then but 1/4 of the current figure would enter landfills per year (just 6 million tonnes), but also costs in sourcing materials would be dramatically cheaper, allowing for higher profit margins, which consequently allow for generous reinvestment into such crucial areas as re-booting the economy.

Obviously, there are draw backs to a scheme such as this in the UK:  82000 tonnes of waste is produced on a daily basis. In Dharavi, approximately 500000 people sort 4000 tonnes of waste daily. This equates to 125 people sorting one tonne of waste. If we are to extrapolate this figure, it would state that the required number of employees to execute such an operation would be 10,250,000 people; 5 times the number of people currently unemployed in the UK. Obviously, this would be impossible. However, with a substantial capital investment, it may be viable with just 2.5 million workers and a highly industrialised system. Yet this raises further problems; where would such a sizeable investment be sourced during a time of international recession? Furthermore, there would be large running costs, and the cost of the massive building space required for such an operation would be staggering.  However the implications of a far more extensive profit via the use of recycled materials may make such an avocation feasible. Then there is one further possibility; making the recycling in the home far more extensive. Taking just a few moments extra sorting each item in a more categorised system would allow for an elimination of the sorting which would cost a great deal and significantly dent gross profit. Still, people barely have time to recycle in the current manner; a recycling system requiring a much greater input of time would be highly unappealing and potentially damaging to the economy.

In addition, living costs in India are much lower than in the UK, allowing for much greater reinvestment of capital, and hence a more successful scheme. Wages and applying to business law would dampen possible successes of a similar operation in the UK.

The process of recycling in Dharavi is as follows: the plastic, is handled in all forms, including bottles, boxes and pens. This is initially sorted by colour and quality. Next, the plastic is ground into flakes and sold to a granule maker. In his factory, the plastic flakes are washed, dried, melted and squeezed into wires before being chopped into pellets. These pellets are then used for production of different types of plastic products.

The cost of producing plastic is high, and also much is contributing to the huge tonnage of materials currently entering landfills. To recycle more efficiently, to the extent of that which takes place in Dharavi, would eliminate plastic production costs, whilst minimising the volume of waste entering landfills, sufficiently solving two problems.

Obviously, there is much to be learnt from Dharavi which not only will significantly help the environment, but also the economy, however, currently such an undertaking appears difficult to implicate on a national scale, and so much thought and consideration would need to be offered, if such a scheme is to be successful in the UK.

Curitiba- Public Transport

                                                          Case Study- Curitiba

Curitiba is the capital of the state of Parana in Brazil. The city has in the region of 1.8 million inhabitants. It has the fourth highest national GDP in Brazil at $61 billion. Curitiba has a few transport systems that reduce congestion within it.

The main system used in Curitiba though is buses. Curitiba has one of he best transport systems in the world, the Bus Rapid Transit systems is incredibly inventive and very effective. Bus systems provide a very versatile form of public transport with a vast flexibility to serve a variety of access needs in an unlimited range of locations throughout the urban environment. Yet despite the obvious advantages of a bus service, buses inching their way through congested streets don’t gain any favour. The essence of a Bus Rapid Transit scheme is to improve bus operating speed and reliability on arterial streets by reducing the possibility of delay.

The bus system in Curitiba plays a large role in making this city a liveable place. The buses run very frequently some as often as 90 seconds and are incredibly reliable. The stations and stops are comfortable, practical and attractive and thus Curitiba has one of the most heavily used, yet cost effective, systems in the world. So much so it has been compared by many to a subway system, it has bus movements completely unimpeded by traffic lights and congestion, fares are collected before boarding thus making passenger loading and unloading incredibly fast. All this is done above ground visible to the eye. Around 70% of Curitiba’s commuters use the BRT to get to work lowering the levels of cars on the road creating congestion free streets and unpolluted air for the inhabitants of Curitiba.

Thirty years ago, Curitiba’s planners integrated public transport very heavily into their urban plan. They decided to initiate a plan that met the needs of every commuter and traveller and not those using cars. They also avoided large scale expensive projects in favour of hundreds of smaller initiatives. A previous plan for Curitiba had been drawn up in 1943 which had envisioned growth in the use of the car and thus wide boulevards emanating from the centre were built to accommodate this. Then in 1965, prompted by fears that Curitiba’s rapid growth would create congested streets, they created a new Master Plan. Downtown Curitiba would no longer be the destination for travel but would become the transport hub. Public transport would replace the car as the primary means of transport within the city. The wide boulevards developed in the earlier plan would provide the space for exclusive bus lanes in which the BRT operates.

Curitiba’s bus service is composed of a hierarchical system of services. Minibuses run in residential areas which feed passengers to conventional buses on circumferential routes around the centre and the inner districts, with the backbone of the system being the BRT which operates on the five main roads into the centre (CBD) of the city. Buses running on the dedicated lanes stop at cylindrical, clear-walled stations/stops with turnstiles, steps and wheelchair lifts. Passengers pay their fares as they enter the station and they wait for the bus on raised platforms within the station. The buses don’t have steps instead ramps extend out from the bus to the station when the doors open. The stations are very effective as they serve the dual purpose of providing shelter from the elements and allowing the simultaneous loading and unloading of passengers rapidly. This system of same level bus-boarding, plus pre-boarding fare payment means that there is a typical dwell time at each stop of no more than 19 seconds per stop.

Passengers pay a single of fare of 40 cents for travel through the whole system with unlimited transfers. Transfers occur within the pre-paid areas of stations so transfer tickets are not required saving time and money for the passenger. Business has also been encouraged within the larger terminals with small retail shops and newspaper stands locating in them.

Ten private bus companies run the services with them being paid by the amount of distance covered not the number of passengers carried, which allows a fair distribution of routes amongst them. All companies earn operating profits and after the buses fall out of use they are given over to the government who use them for school runs.

To make people use the buses very limited parking is available in the business districts and most employers offer transport subsidies to low-paid employees. The popularity of the BRT saw a massive change from car use to bus use. Based on a 1991 survey the BRT saved about 27 million auto trips a year, saving 27 million litres of fuel annually. 28% of BRT users previously travelled by car and compared to eight other Brazilian cities of its size, Curitiba uses 30$ less fuel per capita, resulting in one of the lowest pollution levels in the country. Today about 1100 buses make 12,500 trips every day, serving more than 1.3 million passengers. 80% of travellers use the bus routes and Curitibanos only spend 10% of their income on travel, well below the national average. It is defiantly a massively successful system. Costing only $200,000 per kilometre for construction it was much cheaper than all the other options debated in 1965.

Friedrich Engels and Manchester

Friedrich Engels was born in Barmen, Prussia on the 28th of November 1820. Born to an Anglo-German Industrial family (Engels was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton manufacturer)he was sent to work in his father's Victoria Mill factory in Weaste, Manchester in 1842. He was appalled by the child labour, the Despoiled environment and overworked employees whom existed within the confinements of poverty to such an extent that he took notes and sent a series o articles to his at-that-time acquaintance, Karl Marx chronicling the conditions amongst the working class in Manchester.

In 1844 The Condition of the Working Class in England was published. It contains detailed a descriptionsand analysis of the terrible conditions endured by the English Working Class. He compiled his Magnus Opus from his own observations, along with detailed contemporary reports. He argues the industrial revolution mad workers worse off. He shows that in large cities death rates for workers are higher than the counterpart statistics of the countryside. In major cities,like Manchester mortality rates from infectious diseases were four times as high as those of the surrounding countryside, after the introduction of mills and factories. It is considered by many to be a classic account of the condition of the industrial working class.

Hulme, Manchester

Hulme is an inner city area and electoral ward of Manchester, England. Located immediately south of Manchester city centre, it is an area with significant industrial heritage

By the start of the 1960s England had begun to remove many of the 19th century 'slums' and consequently, most of the slum areas of Hulme were demolished. The modernist and brutalist architectural style of the period, as well as practicalities of speed and cost of construction dictated high rise "modular" living in tower blocks and "cities in the sky" consisting of deck-access apartments and terraces.

In the 1960’s a new innovative design ‘the crescents’ were brought in to house those people whose houses had been demolished in the inner city. These crescents won many design awards however later they were recognised as a bad design and were poorly kept. They were poorly insulated and the 1960’s oil crisis rendered them expensive to heat thus became infamous for being cold, damp and home to cockroachs and vermin.

A new government act meant that anyone claimingf state beneits were entitled to a council home this highly unpopular accommodation in Hulme became a ghetto of the cities poorest most deprieved people. Drug addiction in the neighbourhood soared, thus they were so unpopular the council had to give the flats out for free so that they were being used. A black market began in which flats changed hands regularly. Thus removing any possibility of the council keeping control of the properties. The area lost all community and personality.

Due to this in 1990 the council decided to completely redevelop the area and remove the notoriety it had gained over the past 25 years.

Hulme experienced over £400 million of private and public investment.

Hulme Arch was opened in 1997. It was built as an inspiration to what the designers wanted the new Hulme to belike.

The main road system in the area was overhauled and upgraded.

The Moss side and Hulme Partnership set up to manage the regeneration to achieve economic renewal and build an inner city economy.

Replaced the 2 storey Crescents with 2 storey homes with gardensand 2/3 storey blocks of apartments.

Mixture of housing :  private and housing association.

A new upmarket business area was built which was totally bipolar to what the had been like in an attempt to change the look of the area.

New youth clubs were established to keep the youths in Hulme of the streets and to stop them causing damage to the newly developed area.

After this redevelopment Hulme has pretty much lost all the infamousy it gained in the 70’s. It is now a thriving, contemporary and popular area which has now become a vital part of the city.

 

 The difference is obvious!!

Redevelopment of Birmingham CBD

In the 1990s Birmingham city council decided to redevelop the centre of the city.