Johannesburg South Africa- Amazing City

GREAT VIDEO OF THIS PROSPEROUS CITY CAN BE FOUND AT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZcCtKiAo5c





Cityscape

Johannesburg is one of the most modern and prosperous cities in South Africa. Due to its many different central districts Johannesburg would fall under the Multiple Nuclei Model in Human Geography terms. It is the hub of South Africa's commercial, financial, industrial, and mining undertakings. Johannesburg is part of a larger urban region. It is closely linked with several other satellite towns. Randburg and Sandton form part of the northern area. The east and west ridges spread out from central Johannesburg. The Central Business District covers an area of 6 square kilometres. It consists of closely packed skyscrapers such as the Carlton Centre, Marble Towers, Trust Bank Building, Ponte City Apartments, Southern Life Centre and 11 Diagonal Street.

Architecture

Johannesburg is home to some of Africa's tallest structures, such as the Sentech Tower, Hillbrow Tower and the Carlton Centre. The Johannesburg city skyline has most of the tallest buildings on the continent and contains most international organisations such as IBM, Absa, BHP Billiton, Willis Group, First National Bank, Nedbank and Standard Bank. Johannesburg is a modern and exciting city. Many of the city's older buildings have been pulled down and more modern ones built in their place. North of the CBD is Hillbrow, the most densely populated residential area in southern Africa. Thousands of people live in its towering blocks of flats. Northwest of the CBD is Braamfontein, a secondary CBD housing many offices and business premises. The Oriental Plaza, west of the CBD, is a unique Indian shopping complex.

Parks and gardens; Johannesburg City Parks

Parks and gardens in Johannesburg are maintained by Johannesburg City Parks.[18] They are also responsible for maintaining and planting the millions of trees in Johannesburg. The KwaDukuza eGoli Hotel Johannesburg Botanical Garden, located in the suburb of Emmarentia, is a popular recreational park.


Residential Areas

Johannesburg's residential areas range from luxurious, well-wooded suburbs, to shanty towns and squatter settlements. Alexandra, a township northeast of the city centre, is home to about 125,000 people. It was established by workers who migrated from rural areas in the late 1930s. Since the 1980s, large numbers of people have moved to Johannesburg in search of work. A lack of housing in the city has forced many to set up squatter settlements on the outskirts of the city. Most of these communities lack electricity and running water, and residents live in makeshift shacks made of scrap metal,board, and other discarded materials. In some settlements, such as Phola Park south of Johannesburg, town planners have attempted to build streets and provide resisents with basic needs.

Suburbs

Johannesburg's suburbs are the product of extensive urban sprawl and are regionalised into north, south, east and west, and they generally have different personalities. While the Central Business District and the immediate surrounding areas were formerly desirable living areas, the spatial accommodation of the suburbs has tended to see a flight from the city and immediate surrounds. The inner city buildings have been let out to the lower income groups and illegal immigrants and as a result abandoned buildings and crime have become a feature of inner city life. The immediate city suburbs include Yeoville, a hot spot for black nightlife despite its otherwise poor reputation. The suburbs to the south of the city are mainly blue collar neighbourhoods and situated closer to some townships. The suburbs to the west have in recent years floundered with the decline of the mining industry but have in some cases experienced some revival with properties being bought up by the black middle class. The biggest sprawl lies to the east and north. The eastern suburbs are relatively prosperous and close to various industrial zones. The northern suburbs have been the recipient of most of the flight from the inner city and some residential areas have become commercialised particularly around the area of Sandton, stretching north towards Midrand, a half way point between Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria.

Traditionally the northern and northwestern suburbs have been the centre for the wealthy, containing the high-end retail shops as well as several upper-class residential areas such as Hyde Park, Sandhurst, Northcliff and Houghton, where Nelson Mandela makes his home. The northwestern area in particular is vibrant and lively, with the mostly-black suburb of Sophiatown once centre of political activity and the Bohemian-flavoured Melville featuring restaurants and nightlife. Auckland Park is home to the headquarters of the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the University of Johannesburg.

IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT A CITY IN SOUTH AFRICA CAN BE SO SUCCESSFUL.....

City Life in Antarctica

The concept of cities in Antarctica is different than the concept elsewhere in the world.For one thing, each Antarctican city has its own unique design, unlike the cities that we know in America. Almost every single city is characterized by the same things. For example, buildings, business, downtown, city hall, public transprotation, etc. It is hard to imagine someone strolling through a city in Antarctica and not immediately knowing which of the cities they are in, based solely on the architecture. Us Americans might have a pretty hard time doing that, even if we are aware of the state that we are in, cities are so much alike that distinguishing on from the other might be extremely hard. For another, there are no streets in Antarctican cities, one of the most identifiable characteristics of American cities, how wierd is that! People get from one area to another either by walking along the boulevards and forest paths, or calling upon their flyer to drop them off at their next destination, flyer meaning hot air balloon. Big difference from taking the bus huh? Because the people of Antarctica handle much of their own needs through home-based technology, most of the buildings in Antarctican cities are devoted to the arts and sciences, private residences, and a generous representation of restaurants, rather than commerce (office buildings, as that term is understood elsewhere in the world, make up less than ten percent of city structures). Now how can there be a city without office buildings? As we have been learning, there are a range of what a city can actually be considered. Antarctican cities also contain an unusually large amount of space set aside for parks and natural habitats, this seems like more of a suburban characteristic right? No matter where you are in an Antarctican city, you are never more than a five minute walk from a small forest, or a ten minute walk from a waterfall.
I thought that this article was interesting, it gave me an outlook on the lives of people outside of the realm that I am used to. Having to do with cities, I feel it is relevent to the class.

Ghetto Story

Louis Wirth talked about Jewish ghettos and how they were a community that people actually wanted to be apart of, almost an ideal place to live. I pulled from my interpretation of his analysis that these ghettos aren't the ghettos that we know today. He explained that they were not the "arbitrary creation of the authorities, designed to deal with an alien people. The ghetto was not the product of design on the part of anyone, but rather the unwitting crystallization of needs and practices rooted in the customs and heritages, religious and sedcular, of the Jews themselves." WOW, after reading this, I was shocked, how can a place that seemed so well organized and structured to meet the needs of its people turn into the hells that we know and see today? Jewish ghettos were not instruments of control, they were a way for a people related through heritage, religious and secular to bond together and make the best life that they could. Today, blacks, whites, hispanics,etc are forced to live ghettos and the probability of making a better life are very slim. They are under the control of a bigger person, a person that is not looking out for the best interest of the ghetto people. It is even safe to say that today's ghettos serve a purpose. People are forced to be poor, sick and immobile at the expense of others. It is amazing how the social function of a group of people is suffer so that the rest of the world can prosper.

Being one who has been born and brought up in the ghetto, I have to say that I wish my ghetto was like the Jewish ghetto! By the looks of the photos that I have posted, you can get a clear idea of what a child like myself had to walk out of the house and witness day to day, drug dealing and prostetution is done right outside your window; Compare that to the picture of the Jewish ghetto at the top. It is safe to say that Jewish children were probably taught better values and the concept of hard work. The feeling that I recieved while reading Wirth's article was that Jewish ghettos were full of love and support. It seems as though the people understood the element of community. Like Wirth said " Ghetto....for it is not merely a physical fact, byt also a state of mind." A very powerful statement I must say! I say this because from my experience living in the ghetto, people have moved far far away from the idea of family. Parents are killing their young, brothers and sisters are murdering each other, no one is safe in the ghetto. For this reason, the fact that people have a ghetto state of mind,. they will remain in the ghetto. Until that is change and the morals and values are transformed, ghettos will continue to be one the saddest places on earth to live!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5p7Y1cYaCw

A CITY DIVIDED!!!!!

GREENWOOD LAKE NEW YORK

Believe it or not, this beautiful Marina is only five minutes from where I live. In this post I will try to bring you into my neighborhood so that you can witness the difference in lifestyle, environment and people altogether from Greenwood Lake NY who only live 5-10 mintues away from each other.
OK, here we go.....my town pretty much consists of one main road. It is a long straight road that separates Greenwood Lake NY from West Milford NJ. The NY portion of the road is Jersey Avenue(where I live) and the NJ portion is called Lakeside Road. Most of the people in Greenwood Lake live on this road, along side the lake, it is a very small town. West Milford (the town that shares the road with my town), just to give you an idea is a very quiet, woodsy type of suburb. Most of its residents are middle and upper class.
OKAY, we are about to take a journey from West Milford NJ to Greenwood Lake NY....It is only about a ten minute drive.....Here are all of the things that you will see and hear.
We are starting at the beginning of Lakeside Road in West milford NJ, Around you, you will see many woods and houses very far apart from each other. The most you might hear are other cars passing you by if any. You are going to see people jogging and bicycling up the road. Not to mention, houses are huge and beautiful. As we continue to drive up Lakeside (3-5 minutes), houses are getting a little closer to one another but still a pretty good walking distance apart. The woods are starting to be replaced by small parking lots and dirt surfaces. With traffic picking up, people are not out jogging as much. It still pretty much looks like West Milford.
We are now in NY, Jersey Avenue (same road, different name now). Houses are now about three minutes in walking distance apart from one another. Now, on your right is a lake, it will now follow you until the end of this road. This part of NY has some of the same characteristics of NJ but now will see the boats and jetskis in the water, streets are picking up noise but still very suburban.
Just two minutes away we wil reach Breezy Point, a resturaunt. From this point on, the city life begins. For the next four minutes of Jersey Avenue, you will see pizza stores, a number of grocery stores,a deli, a Motor Vehicle Inspection Station and many many more businesses. Children are outside playing, in the summer you will hear the ice cream trucks, traffic is busy and people are like robots, all out to complete a task of some sort.
We are now at the one traffic light, the end of this road, beyond this point is the downtown area. "No more suburbia" if you didn't know better its like your on a busy street in Newark NJ.

The purpose of me taking you on this journey and hopefully you understood it all, was to reiterate some of the things that we have learned in class and prove how the smallest details can make a suburb appear urban and vice versa. Some concepts from class are;
1. From the Metropolis and Mental Life by Simmel, we learned that the city creates a blase or "i dont care attitude". As you get deeper into my city, people are no longer participating in family activities or events, many people just walk by one another without even saying hello, they are like robots.
2. We learned that trade is what really made cities possible, in saying that, the more businesses that we began to witness on our journey to NY, the city like everything else became.
3. You can see Gesell Schaft at its peak, people are doing their part and nothing more. For example, you have the owners of the grocery stores and then there are is the auto parts store right next door, everyone is dependent on the person to fulfill some aspect of their life.

The list of concepts that we learned goes on and on in relation to my topic but we will stop here.

NO EXCUSES!!!!!!!

In the beginnig of Douglas Massey's article,William Wilson is trying to explain why the poor are in their situation. His theory explained that due to fact that high paying jobs for the low skilled citizen that once existed in the city are no longer available, people have and are becoming more and more poor. My immediate response to this statement was the obvious......it is not high paying jobs for the unskilled worker that inner cities need, it is education and training that we are in desperate need of. With or without the availability of specific jobs, the quality of people that is being left behind is the real issue. If a quality education was a bit easier to attain, people would be able to move out of the city in search for better jobs. In my opinion, city reformers' intentions are to keep the poor, poor. I do not feel that enough effort is being put forth to fix the problem in the citites. For example, growing up,I have always wondered how my friends were getting new clothes and sneakers and their mothers didn't have jobs! I soon learned that the welfare system was supplying people with housing, food, clothes and money! And I always asked myself, what is the point of getting a job when luxuries are being given away for free? But boy was I wrong! Living in the city has taught me alot about survival, I knew by the time that I was able to fill out a job application, that there was something wrong with "the system". Yeah people were getting all of this help from "the system" but they were forced to live in impoverished areas for the rest of their lives. There is no chance, or shall I say legal chance for upward mobility once a person has given up their right attain an education. Once a person got on welfare, chances are, they are never getting off. Regardless if a person lives five minutes or fifty minutes of at least a half decent paying job, there is no excuse for not having one! Public transportation is always available to everyone so I think that it is silly when I hear or read about the "decline in manufacturing" or "the suburbanization of blue collar employent" in the cities.
As I continued reading the article, Massey began to talk about how racial and social segregation was at fault when determining the causes of poverty. I believe it is the complete opposite way around. It is because of the laziness of inner city people and the lack of motivation that they have that they have fallen so far behind in the race for success that they put themselves in a situaiton where the only place they can afford to go is to the ghetto streets of the city. While everyone else in suburbias are working hard for their dollar, the poor will continue to be left behind. I do happen to agree with Massey when he talks about the association of poverty and crime. It seems like, the poorer you are, they worser the neighborhood you live in, the more likely you are to commit or be a victim of a crime. It is sad to say but very true! But, and I hate to be critical of the city dweller but, I have come from and still belong in a poor neighborhood, people need to pick up a book on resposibility and get with the program, time and success waits for no one! Success does not care where you come from, what color you skin is or how much money you already have!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaM6gUHEF5s

Downward Transformation of One of the World's Greatest Cities

More than 200 hundred ago Paterson NJ had become the first industrialized city in the United States. People from all around the world had come to the city in search for better lives. Known for its Great Falls and Silk Mills, Paterson had become known as the "Walking City" where people lived, worked and shopped all in the center of the city. Not unlike the models that we've learned about in class, Paterson's skilled workers or whites had begun to move out of the city, leaving room for more and more blacks and latino's to move in. Professor talked about the decentralization of the city. This is the idea that businesses no longer are needed in the city, with that being said, those who can afford it, move out as well. This is what happened to Paterson; deskilled workers were left behind and the down fall of the city was soon to follow. The money that was needed to keep the city beautiful and the people tame was not being made. Therefore; motivations and intentions of the city dwellers began to change. Referring to as late as today, people have navigated to participating in illegal activities in order to attain money. No real businesses or community activities have really been incorporated into the city to improve the circumstances so the people mix and mingle the best way that they can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDhsIFV95q4