Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Cities) is also a theme devoted to enhancing life in some centres, by describing the
growth and development of a movement that was originally designed to improve
the quality of life in small historic towns and cities. Advocates argue that it could be
achieved through the adoption of a slower life-style, in which more time is taken to
enjoy food, drink, family and companionship, as well as by promoting the need to
restore the historic heritages, traditions and crafts in these centres and their regions.
All are attributes that have often decayed under the creeping effects of moderniza-
tion, globalization and more rapid and available transport systems. The final chapter
(Chap. 16) identifies some of the key features that have emerged from these various
themes and their utilities in improving what is often described as the liveability
and sustainability of urban places and the possibility of more active city-learning
approaches.
It must be stressed that most of the themes discussed in this topic were mainly
developed to solve problems that have emerged in the towns and cities of devel-
oped countries, although some apply to all parts of the world. In the less developed
world there is still the need to provide adequate housing, water, sewage facilities,
utilities and transport in many urban places, let alone reducing poverty, creating
employment, reducing pollution, and ensuring the safety and health of urban citi-
zens and providing them with more rights and protections. Some of the policies
proposed under the various themes, from Chaps. 2-15, can help the cities of the
less developed world improve their situation by providing empirical evidence of
the utility of successful and tested strategies and programmes that may be applied
and improve their future. But what is also vitally important is that these themes also
show how many of the particular problems that have emerged in western cities of
the developed world should be avoided in current and future urban developments in
less prosperous areas. However there is real need to avoid assuming that developed
world ideas are always useful. The growth of cities in less developed countries is of-
ten associated with different societal and other contexts. So there is almost certainly
a pressing requirement for students of towns and cities in the less developed world
to identify their own particular problems and create new themes to solve these dif-
ficulties. In this respect two or three issues especially deserve attention. One is that
new technologies will probably be required to solve the clean water supply and sew-
age needs of the increasingly large urban agglomerations—where the long distance
solutions of western cities may not be feasible. Also solutions to the severe traffic
congestion and limited traffic regulations are needed, which is leading to such high
fatalities. A third key issue is to identify more potential urban areas in advance and
plan for the addition of utilities before development, rather than trying to add these
after informal development has taken place. Such a development requires more
commitment to urban planning and rigorous land ownership allocations, providing
clear titles to lands to be occupied. These are but a few of the problems that have
been largely solved or reduced in scope in western countries, but which continue to
plague urban development elsewhere.
Some of the new themes described in this text have been the subject of individual
topics, in some cases, many topics, but it is rare to see the various themes being
addressed as a whole. Although there is some overlap between these themes in that
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