Urban Change: Out with the Old, In with the New

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” – Winston Churchill

(i)                  It is said that change is the only constant. In our lives, in our homes, our feelings, our opinions, our value systems all subject to that one thing we fight so hard against: change. Everything is changing and that includes our urban surroundings. Whether it is toward sustainable development, a new city focus, involving gentrification processes or initiating new class regimes, urban change is evident and incredibly forceful in its methods.

This photograph was taken on the Eastern Main Road in Trinidad. This building is, or rather was the ‘Presidente’ cinema in San Juan. I thought it was a fitting representation of urban change as you can see it has been replaced, while keeping its original face, by a car parts store. I found this a rather interesting portrayal or urban change as it is something I’m sure we can all relate to: old building being replaced by new ones, the constant life and death cycle of stores. The urban landscape as we know it is fast pace, dog-eat-dog and highly competitive. Who will stand and who will perish under the dynamic supply-and-demand regime of our urban arenas? Businesses today have to play a lifelong game of dodge-ball with a nation of entrepreneurs ready to pounce at the slightest sign of weakness. Adapt or die…there is no other way.

(ii)                I mentioned two aspects of urban change above: change toward sustainable development and change regarding gentrification processes within cities. These two avenues for change can be seen as, in my opinion, the most popular avenues of change seen in the post modern era of urban geography. I planned to talk about sustainability in cities in my final blog post, so for now I’ll speak briefly on gentrification (a concept I am still a little blurry on), or at least what I perceive gentrification to be as it manifests itself in Trinidad.

Gentrification: Out with the old, In with the new

Gentrification is written about in Ch. 9: ‘Housing and Residential Segregation’ in the book Urban Geography by Hall and Barrett. I found this strange at first because I with the definition I knew, the concept never really struck me as concerning residential segregation. Nonetheless, here is a definition by Lees et al (2008):

‘The transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle class residential and/or commercial use’

The main idea of gentrification is the displacing of traditional residential structures such as the idea of wealthier outer city suburbs, with inner city regeneration and redevelopment of vacant properties that once moved people outward. However, an increasing phenomenon is the move back into city centres with the improvement of these once shunned areas.

The idea of gentrification as expressed by Hall and Barrett outlines the issues of the displacement of lower income groups that once flocked to the inner city lower income housing. A key motivator for gentrification to take place is the idea of the 'rent gap', that is, the difference between the rent obtained at present for a property and the potential future rent that could be obtained after renovation. Developers and planners realize that certain inner city properties are home to a creative class, a chic, bohemian-style sector of the population that above all can be marketed to the advantage of landlords....urban change for the better?? I wonder...

My photograph at the beginning of the entry doesn't portray the idea of residential displacement, but rather the idea of a change in building usage and at times land use entirely. Such transformation of land use was recognized in another course work assignment I had for my Urban Geography course which required us to survey a transect of Tunapuna, along the Eastern Main road. What I noticed was the increasing tendency of multiple or mixed land uses in the same compound, and an increasing density of commercial land use as the transect moved further east.

My transect of a portion of the Eastern Main Road in Tunapuna. Trinidad

This is the analysis I did on the transect of Tunapuna:   

It was not a surprise that most of the land uses were commercial, since properties on the main road are seen as prime real estate opportunities for businesses. This is due to its ease of access and the steady flow of people in and around the area. There is however, a growing trend of multiple use buildings, either a mixture of commercial uses or commercial and residential uses. Some of the two storey buildings often had residences on the upper floor and businesses on the lower floor. It was noted that residential units were located to the back of the building with businesses taking up the entire vertical front of the building. This showed an ingenious use of space, which with growing urban populations is becoming a rarity. The businesses involved in this form were small scale, usually privately owned cafes, food outlets or clothes stores.

Overall in the commercial activity along the Eastern Main Road shows heavy private sector activity. Many private doctors’ offices were seen, including St. Augustine Private Hospital. A number of privately owned hair and nail salons and barber shops were noted as forming clusters within buildings of multiple commercial use. In fact, in many of these buildings, similar companies seemed to flock together. Reasons for this could be to facilitate joint entrepreneurial ventures, the efficient use of similar resources or even to take advantage of the same pool of customers.

In the St. Augustine portion of the transect (before St. John road), the trend of building usage leans toward professional commerce-type businesses, with a generally high amount of insurance firms, banks, medical services and also tend to have larger compound sizes. On the other hand east of St. John Road, moving into the Tunapuna region the buildings are of a more entrepreneurial nature, with a large amount of them used as retail clothes and shoes stores as well as convenience or variety stores. The lots of land also become smaller and more divided while the buildings grow increasingly upward in an attempt to find space for expansion. Also, an increase in the number of businesses involved in the informal sector was seen as the study moved toward the east, into Tunapuna.

According to Hall and Barrett in their book Urban Geography, the informal sector is described as being extremely diverse. Dicken (2004) notes that the informal sector cannot be easily quantified or measured because it is a “floating kaleidoscope phenomenon, continually changing in response to shifting circumstances and opportunities”. The informal sector shows itself in the Tunapuna/St. Augustine region in the form of fruit stalls, market vendors and many roadside clothes and shoe vendors. In addition to this, and supporting the idea that the informal sector has many faces is the presence of numerous variety stores. In one instance an entire compound that used to belong to Monarch Cinema has been converted into a huge galvanize and wooden structure, crammed to the top with seemingly unrelated items. Also, in the market area, many vendors sell quite a few unrelated items and can quickly offer customers many choices. These vendors are on the streets all day, sometimes from early in the morning till late at night, usually in small groups of relatives (children and their parents) operating at a small scale. With reference to the text, these are all characteristics of the informal sector outlined by Drakakis-Smith (2000), a growing part of city economics.

For the most part, the structure of this section of the Eastern Main Road shows three major trends in land use and form. Firstly, there is a more integrated use of building space with a given building or compound being used in a wider variety of ways than in the past. Secondly, an increase in the proximity of like businesses is seen, as more similar organizations flock together for various reasons such as conserving resources or taking advantage of the same market of consumers.  Lastly, a growing private sector and informal sector is noticed as small scale entrepreneurial businesses are on the rise. All these together increase the popularity of urban spaces, fuelling the never ending fire of development that is urban growth. 

Urban change in the Global South and especially the Caribbean in my opinion takes a different form from the urban change described previously in the form on gentrification processes. I see urban change taking place rather in the commercial sectors with the changes in types and orientation of land uses. With this change from a human geography point of view, sees changes in attitudes, relations between classes, the resolution or irritation of conflicts as new people move in and out of the city. I see the city like a living, breathing organism capable of change, dynamistic tendencies, death and rebirth of sectors, rather than a rigid, physical and non-living structure removed from the human potential for change. What does your city look like? How is your city changing? And what are the consequences of this change?

(iii) A few links to look at:

• a link to all the transects from my class: http://urbangeography-uwi-landuse.blogspot.com/
• What is gentrification: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaHy6ZY6mFU
• Gentrification...a different point of view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOy0UinEM-Y