There are a few trends related to urbanization that are illustrated by the proposed project. First, Canada belongs to the number of countries that are the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. According to numerous reports prepared by the UN and other organizations, the process of urbanization is the most obvious in these countries (Salim & Shafiei, 2014). Considering a great number of drawbacks associated with the life in urban areas (that are usually connected with worse environmental conditions), a lot of people from suburban areas would find the idea of the “city in the city” attractive. In fact, the latter is supposed to provide a combination of advantages of urban life (such as a well-developed infrastructure and high service quality) and living outside the city (horse-racing). Also, the project would involve job creation that relates to the increased demand for servitorial staff presenting one of the consequences of urbanization.
The urban form can be understood in two different ways, presenting the functions of objects or their physical form (Kooshki, Shokoohi, & Bazvand, 2015). In terms of the design clues that can be noticed in the picture, they include the presence of all types of buildings helping to meet the needs of an average customer: there are the dining zones overlooking the race track and multi-floor buildings with bars, shops, and apartments for tourists. The attention is paid to recreational options for visitors; the race track is surrounded by leisure zones with pavilions. Establishment of the next-generation neighborhood can present certain difficulties. First, the expectations outlined by the company can be inconsistent with the resources available in Toronto, and it can be difficult to find an appropriate service provider. Apart from that, it can be hard to plan the capacity of buildings and institutions (especially those providing educational services) as citizens with medium and high incomes from other locations may want to use the services on a regular basis.
The concept of spatial justice used in the fields of geography and sociology refers to the use of principles of social justice in connection with the land use and the urban space. Distinguishing between reasonable and unjust decisions, administrations of cities are expected to design the policies protecting the right of people belonging to both minority and majority groups to use infrastructures of their cities in the way that fulfils their needs. There is another concept which is known as “cities for people”. The latter highlights the key role of the basic needs of the population during the urban areas planning. The both concepts are strictly interrelated with gentrification, presenting of the urban renewal trends with far-reaching consequences. Gentrification can be defined as a process that encourages increases in the quality of life of people in poorer districts by means of renovating buildings and attracting wealthier newcomers. Obviously, the latter always involves driving people belonging to minority groups out of their flats. Belonging to the number of controversial topics related to urban planning, gentrification results in displacement of people who have no choice but to leave their districts due to the steady growth of rent and prices of goods and services (Hwang & Sampson, 2014). As distinguished from gentrification that seems to neglect spacial justice, the approaches to urban regeneration applied in the middle of the twentieth century were focused on availability of habitation. For instance, the approach used in the United States was shaped by the Housing Act accepted after the Second World War; the key points included the use of federal budget to provide people with public housing and turn rural areas into cities to make vulnerable population well-accommodated (Abramson, 2015). The present tendency seems to be opposite to that approach as wealthier people express the desire to move to urban areas due to the advantages of city infrastructure.
Globalization and urbanization can be listed among the trends that have a major influence on people in the twenty-first century. Globalization is the tendency that stems from the absence of barriers limiting the movement of resources. Among the latter, there are labor power, goods, financial resources, and even information. As is clear from the present situation, urbanization and globalization present the processes that take place simultaneously. In the twenty-first century, it is clear that rapid urbanization has a range of negative consequences decreasing the quality of life of people with low and medium incomes. First, urbanization encourages crime due to growing unemployment rates and increasing gap between representatives of different social groups (Zhang, C., Wang, & Zhang, D., 2014). At the same time, the amount of crime on the global scale also grows due to globalization as the latter breaks national sovereignty of countries and encourages increased migration. Obviously, both tendencies have a detrimental influence on the environment of the planet. Changes in trade are focused on the supremacy of opportunities and business competition, and their impact on urban societies is manifested in growing tensions between cities and disunion. Increasing immigration results in changing urban forms – in the century of globalization, cultural diversity presents a potential source of conflicts. Trying to align with the set standards, administrations of cities encourage adoption of new building and planning practices making all cities similar. Uncoupling of production and consumption and standardization of goods and services level out the urban form of many cities and affect diversity, reducing the opportunities for development for small local businesses (Kaynak & Hassan, 2014).
The idea of a “smart city” refers to the use of communication technologies and decisions that facilitate the cooperation of various objects in order to solve problems connected with the activity of schools, traffic infrastructure, water facilities, and a wide range of other systems. The concept is based on the simultaneous use of two major technologies. The first type of technology to be integrated for the use of smart city systems involves information technology facilitating access to different types of data with the help of new devices and information carriers. Apart from that, it is impossible to create a smart city without the use of the Internet of things, the technology introducing the network of physical objects including buildings. Within the frame of the technology, the objects are equipped with sensors and other details turning them to independent data carriers that are able to share and transform the information to manage problems of citizens (Sriram & Sheth, 2015). The city administrations and companies in the private sector can use these technologies for different purposes. When it comes to the first situation, the Internet of things and the IT are used to improve the quality of life of citizens by means of collecting and processing data on current problems reported by people or automatic information systems (Neirotti, De Marco, Cagliano, Mangano, & Scorrano, 2014). In addition, sensors can be used for very specific purposes such as control of noise intensity or traffic jams. As for the private sector, the IoT and IT are primarily used for getting pecuniary benefits and improving production processes. More than that, the use of these technologies is often aimed at performing employee control.
References
Abramson, M. T. (2015). Blueprints: Invisible man and the Housing Act of 1949. American Studies, 54(3), 9-21.
Hwang, J., & Sampson, R. J. (2014). Divergent pathways of gentrification: Racial inequality and the social order of renewal in Chicago neighborhoods. American Sociological Review, 79(4), 726-751.
Kaynak, E., & Hassan, S. (2014). Globalization of consumer markets: Structures and strategies. New York, NY: Routledge.
Kooshki, F., Shokoohi, A., & Bazvand, S. (2015). The urban form and sustainable development. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 5(6), 397-406.
Neirotti, P., De Marco, A., Cagliano, A. C., Mangano, G., & Scorrano, F. (2014). Current trends in Smart City initiatives: Some stylised facts. Cities, 38, 25-36.
Salim, R. A., & Shafiei, S. (2014). Urbanization and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in OECD countries: An empirical analysis. Economic Modelling, 38, 581-591.
Sriram, R. D., & Sheth, A. (2015). Internet of things perspectives. IT Professional, 17(3), 60-63.
Zhang, C., Wang, X., & Zhang, D. (2014). Urbanization, unemployment rate and China’s rising divorce rate. Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment, 12(2), 157-164.