Urbanisation Essay Example for Free

Urbanisation Essay London in the 18th century brought about a revolution in urbanisation and the expansion of an urbanised city began in England and spread rapidly all around Europe. Urbanisation brought a dramatic and radical change to London, significantly in the impact of the Industrial Revolution which was effected urban society. There were both general and particular reasons why the eighteenth century was a century of urban growth and amoung the general reasons were the rise in national population, the expansion of industry and commerce, and the displacement of growing numbers of country-dwellers by an agricultural revolution. [1] At the beginning of the 18th century, Britain was primarily an agricultural country with most people living in rural areas and the majority of workers and industires operated within a domestic system. 2] This involved people working in their own homes to produce goods and also to cultivate food on their own farm or piece of land. During the 18th centuy, there was a gradual move away from this way of working and the growth of urbanisation changed the domestic system to improve the lives of the British public. Urbanisation brough together all the manpower it required, whether for manual work or for the tertiary sector where the new age was creating more and more jobs, especially once London became more urbanised. 3] A further indicator of the abundance of the labour supply was the enormous number of domestic servants and at the end of the 18th century, domestic servants made up over 15% of the population of London and ultimately, England had no labour shortage as it was being urbanised. [4] The invention of machines after the industrial revolution led to a transformation in the ways in which goods could be produced and the speed and scale of the process of the 18th century, saw significant changes in the size, location and lifestyle of the British population. 5] Industrialisation was a very important influence in stimulating the movement to urbanisation and the growth of factories and the availibility of work in them attracted people from rural areas and sustained higher densities of people in London. Industrialisation was a majour factor in the population growth and urbanisation in London in the 1700s and although it initially created a new urban poverty, the living standards of the working cla ss rose from the mid-18th century onwards as new employment opportunities became vailable. [6] During the 18th century, major improvements occurred whilst London was being urbanised, especially in agricultural prodoction. Modern scientific farming methods brought about new tools and farming machines, new methods, improved crops and employment rose. [7] In 1702, 1757, 1769 and 1773 Parliament passed legislation, liberalizing the economy and this led many to conclude that libralization significantly contributed to accelerate growth, due to urbanisation. 8] The vast majority of economic historians do not believe that any of these variables alone was responsible for the boom in the British economy, although many believe that urbanisation was essential for the Londons improvement in its economy beause it is frequently asserted that it was the concomitant effect of all of them that delivered the improved performance. [9] Farming was modernised through the use of enclosure, the enlargement of farms, the use of new methods, new crops and the population grew, commerce expanded, and Lon don promoted exports. 10] Due to urbanisation and the industrial revolution, the English countryside intergrated into the islands national market; as a component part of this network, English farms fed the population of the towns and industrial conurbations; they were the essential component in a domestic market which provided London to continue to develop in its early days. [11] It also had colonies, and London enjoyed the same stock of natural resources as it did a century later, all because of London becoming urbanised and it brought London into political stability as it also liberalised the economy. 12] Within the industrial revolution as a whole, Britian went through a series of individual revolutions once London became more urbanised and the British public revolutionised in its agriculture, demography, inland transport, technoloy, trade and industry. [13] As Europes commetial and finantial centre of gravity shifted to London in the early 18th century, a strong territorial state and an intefrated national economy provided the resources for a new type of commercial metropolis, the modern â€Å"world city. [14] Although urbanisation brought prosperity to London, the social consequences of urbanisation left a huge social upheaval in the 18th century which had a majour effect on the physical and social conditions in which people had to live. The consequences of a large mass of people moving to live around new factories in a relatively short space of time included – housing shortages and squalor, sanitation problems, public health problems and regular utbreaks of disease and exploytation of workers and widespread poverty. [15] As the population increased in Britain, people moved from the countryside to the unrestrainedly frowing towns, which faced serious public health problems. The poor physical conditions in urban areas in the 18t h century led to majour public health problems and rapidly growing cities experienced majour outbreaks of disease, epidemics and other problems of : overcrowded, damp, and poorly ventilated housing. 16] Urbanisation also contributed to the lack of an effective sewerage system, industrial pollution, the lack of a clean water supply and a lack of undertanding about how infectious diseases were spread and so, many people living in the 18th century died at a relatively young age of infectious diseases that were contracted because of the public health condition, a lack of servises and multiple disease epidemics at the time. 17] As London became larger, the disposal of residential and industrial wastes became even more of a challenge, partly as a result of the mountening pressure for people to migrate to cities; the growth in urban populations stripped the availibility of basic servises such as – water, transportation and electricity. [18] As a result, life in London in the 18th Century in the urban shantytownes was plagued by poverty, pollution, congestion, homelessness and unemployment. The rapid expansion also led to problems of overcrowding and insanitary conditions, bringing desease, high death rates and it was therefore only through substantial migration from the countryside that London could continue to grow. [19] Whilst England had its small though rapidly expanding population, it became the most urbanisted country in Europe in the sense that the larger proportion of its citizens lived in a directly urban environment than anywhere else. Although there were many positire reactions to London being urbanised, many critics gave cynical views on the dramatic changes of the city. As David Landers has said, â€Å"Industrialisation in England had the effect of concentrating larger numbers of weavers and spinners in manufactoring districts which, thought still rural and not yet urban, became densely packed: full of people as Defoe wrote of the country around the Halifax in the West Riding. †[20] As Jacques Bertin said, I admit I am still completely in the dark about what industrilisation means. Does it mean railways? Cotton? Coal? Metals? So, even at the time of the industrial revolution, urbanisation wasnt highly liked and many were bemused by the act that London was evolving. [21] Since urbnisation meant everything – society, economy, political structures and public opinion, the most ambitious kind of history could not embrace it because the industrial revolution along with the urbanisation of London – it threw Britain into upheaval and it was not a netely-definable phenomenon. [22]There were also pessimists who, seeing its expansion, bel ieved that urbanisation was sucking in the life-blood of the nation, among them was Dr. Richard Price, who wrote gloomingly in 1783 that the inhabitants of the cottages thrown down in the country fly to London, there to be corrupted and perished. [23] This already is a strong indication that urbanisation was not the majour element in the onset of revolutionising London; this conclusion is reinforced by the analysis of urbanisation trends and it was not the traditional network of cities which was the basis of the new industrialisation process and this process was essentially located in very small towns or villages, which obviously later became big cities. 24] Urbanisation strengthened the political power of workers and of those engaged in business, with a middle class, the bourgeoisie, formed out of managers, suppliers of services, investors, bankers, industrialists, engineers and others whose well-being depended on industrialisation and urbanisation. [25] Although urbanisation did bring prosperity to London, H.  Shmal has suggesed that high levels of urbanisation actually limited the possiblities of productive investement, especially in the new sectors and consumption demanded from the cities and even the construction needed to be absorbed to a large share of resources, that ultimately resulted in poor living and unhealthy living conditions. [26] High levels of urbanisation in London created urban under-employment, and therefore, lowered productivity on the whole economy and this under-employment also lead to a too large tertiary sector, and to rigidity in the offer and mobility of the labour force. [27]

The Prostitute In Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, Notes from Undergr

The Prostitute In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, and The Meek One The prostitute is a curious fixture of Victorian era literature. In the works of William Thackeray and Samuel Richardson it was almost clichà © for the heroine to end up in a house of prostitution and then to transcend that situation in a show of proper Victorian morals. Having seen many young women forced by extreme poverty to take up the trade of a loose woman, Fyodor Dostoevsky, a petit-bourgeois fallen on hard times himself, took a rather different approach to the whole issue; he recognized that these women were not utterly without merit as so many people of the time thought. Georg Brandes spoke accurately when he said, "Dostoevsky preaches the morality of the pariah, the morality of the slave." Dostoevsky explored these themes through prostitute characters in many of his works. The most famous of these characters are found in Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, and "The Meek One." Each of these presents a unique approach to the condition of prostitutes and the problem of their redemption. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky uses the character of Sonia Marmeladov, whose first name means wisdom, not solely to illustrate God's mercy toward a fallen woman but to have her redeem both herself and Raskolnikov through God's mercy. As in the parable given by Father Zosima on his death bed in The Brothers Karamazov, Raskolnikov's initial connection to Sonia in Book I functions as his "stalk of grain" which keeps him from being completely severed from God's grace. Just as the old woman in the parable was without merit except for the fact she gave the beggar a stalk of grain, Raskolnikov lacks merit after his murderous deed exce... ...uments of grace. But most importantly, he tells us that without our own attempt to transcend our sinful nature we will fail like the Underground Man or leap to our spiritual and physical doom as the heroine of "The Meek One" did. We are all Raskolnikov, we are all Sonia. The key is to strive, strive harder and strive forever to reach the unreachable perfection lost to us and unreachable without God. Works Cited and Consulted Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Bantam, 1981. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Signet Classics, 1999. Dost. Research Station. Ed. Christiaan Stange. Vers. ? 17 July 1999 - kiosek.com/dostoevsky/quotations.html Martinsen, Deborah A., ed. Notes From Underground, The Double, and Other Stories. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics NY, 2003.

Travel Writing Coursework

The Volvo estate came slowly to a halt outside a boarded up old farm house. A middle aged man and three adolescents clambered out the car to be met by the fresh rural air. The sun shone brightly onto them as they examined the landscape. They were surrounded by fields with a long gravel path lying behind them. They all took a corner and hoisted the khaki Canadian canoe from the top of the estate then carefully lay it on the grass beside them. One of the boys asked the man which way they were going and he replied by pointing down the gravely path which slowly merged into woodland in the distance. The man locked up the car checking it again by pulling the handle and gestured to his son to help lift the canoe. They lifted it up with a heave and began to carry down the path and into the woodland followed by the boys two friends. The cows grazing in the field opposite the farmhouse mooed as they continued down the path. The four of them took turns in helping carry the canoe. The woodland became more thick and the stinging netals brushed at there bare ankles. The bushes and trees were littered with beer cans and plastic bags left by youths. The mans son considered what this was doing to the animals habitat and felt a slight sense of guilt as he new he had done exactly the same in the past. The sound of the river became clearer and the forest came to a ‘T' junction . The man led the way with the canoe and took the right turning. After about a hundred yards they came to a stop carefully placing the boat on the ground again. Before them lay the river. Three or four anglers stood at the side of the bank, one of them acknowledging them by saying what a lovely summer's day it was. The man was a keen fisherman himself and asked if the other man had caught anything. He replied by shaking his head he said ‘The fish don't like warm weather'. The rivers are far too over fished he thought to himself, it's such a shame that some of the rarer fish were dying out. He then shook his head and told the boys to sit in the boat. They did so and he pushed the boat with his might into the murky green water. The boat wobbled about and then stabilized itself, the boys pulling it to the side. The boys laughed nervously. The man then wobbled the boat vigorously to show that it would take a lot to tip it over, the boys shouting at him to stop. He laughed and stopped. Then he handed the boys their paddles and gave them a few last words of advice. The boys waved him goodbye and he shouted at them to ring him when they wanted picking up. They were on their own now, at one with nature. They directed the boat round the first corner past a few branches in the water. Reeds grew either side of the river and made their path very narrow. The boys struggled to direct the boat around the winding corners trying not to crash into the reeds around them. Bracken and stinging netals were visibly close up ahead and the man's son told them to go straight through the middle as they lay either side sprouting through the reeds. The larger of his two of his friends began to paddle without informing the other one and the boat headed straight into the bracken and netals. They all panicked shouting not to tip the boat over. The boat went straight into the side and they were all stung and pricked by the thorns but the boat stayed stable and they sighed with relief. The river opened up and the banks became wider and had no reeds or bracken at the side. They relaxed and let the river drift the boat down stream by itself. The boys basked in the sun and chatted about football and women. Floating on the waters surface lay more cans of beer bobbing up and down. The larger boy contemplated the reason why these people just through their litter into the river. He came to the conclusion that it was a mixture of laziness and thoughtlessness. He pondered what the effect the beer had on the water and what an animal would do if it became trapped in one of the cans. He was snapped out of his thoughts by a hissing swan and the shouts of his friend as he politely told it to go away. His friend slapped his paddle at it as the other two rowed the canoe away from the animal. They all relaxed again as the swan disappeared back into the distance. Everything was calm again and the boy that had swung his paddle at the swan was now happy. A big white boat was now coming at them head on and the boys swerved the boat around it like an adder through water. They boy thought what the fumes coming of the back of the white boat would be doing to the water. He thought of how the fish were being poisoned and the air around the river was being turned into the kind of warm hazy air you'd expect in a city centre. The boat drew closer to its destination and one of the boys asked a walker on the bank if they new how far it would be to the pub. ‘Just around the corner' they answered and the boys thanked them and were happy they were nearly. They paddled the boat around the corner and the pub came into sight. They approached it slowly scanning the bank for a place to park the boat. They spotted a gap in between a large patch of reeds and paddled into it. The boy at the front climbed out first followed by the man's son and the tall boy. They all grabbed a section of the boat and yanked it as hard as possible out the water and onto the bank. They lifted the boat of the ground and made the short walk with it to the pub. They sat down in a heap off exhaustion on one of the wooden tables outside the pub. They ordered a plate off chips and reviewed their hard days work. The plate was empty and the boy's dad had arrived to take them home. They placed the canoe on top of the car again and strapped it in place. They all got inside the car and the boy's dad had asked if had went well. They all agree it had been a good laugh and it was a lot of fun. In front of them a man opened his window and dropped out a hand full of rubbish. The boys all thought to themselves what were we doing to the environment and how we were ruining it for our next generations and animals. The car drove off and the boys sat there in silence just thinking.

Tobacco Products Marketing, And Sales - 858 Words

They be found in almost any store, right behind the register after a grocery list has been completed. Tobacco products are multi-billion dollar industries that thrive on the addiction of its’ consumers. Although individuals have the right to use tobacco products, the United states should ban the production, marketing, and sales because the marketing is geared towards teens and young adults, the health issues contributed to the use of tobacco are overwhelming, they’re highly addictive, and the effects of second-hand smoke is as harmful as smoking itself. With the right structure and appeal to the target consumer, marketing can make or break the sales of a product. Tobacco companies are constantly looking for ways to attract new consumers ensuring each generation of teens and young adults are addicted to their products; continuing their success and cash flow. The most effective method of finding new ways to appeal to consumers is through market research and over the years, tobacco companies have done a considerable amount. Their research shows that since the 1960s they’ve had an astonishingly high interest in young smokers, despite their claims to only be interested in adult consumers. Why do tobacco companies have such a high interest in teens and young adults? Because their studies show that people seldom start smoking after the age of 25 and begin smoking before the age of 18. Out of 5500 research documents that were collected, 20% of them were teen and young adultShow MoreRelatedTobacco Products And Its Effects On The Unite d States876 Words   |  4 Pagescan be found in almost any store, right behind the register after a grocery list has been completed. Tobacco companies are multi-billion dollar industries that thrive on the addiction of its consumers. The United States government should take control of tobacco companies and ban the marketing, production, and sales of tobacco. This is because health issues contributed to the use of tobacco products are overwhelmingly high; they’re very addictive; the effects of second-hand smoke are as harmful asRead MoreTobacco Advertisement: Why Restrict Marketing of Tobacco Products that Creates a Tremendous Amount of Revenue and Jobs in America1604 Words   |  7 Pagesrisks of using tobacco are common knowledge. It is a known fact that if someone smokes their chance of getting lung cancer is increased drastically, yet so many Americans choose to do so. The FDA is taking steps to tighten the rules of tobacco marketing, some of these rules will include p rohibiting self-service tobacco displays in stores, restricting vending-machine sales, and forbidding most free samples of tobacco products. (Reid pg. 1) These are just small hits to the big tobacco industry, butRead MoreThe Dangers Of Tobacco And Alcohol Companies1576 Words   |  7 PagesTobacco and alcohol companies are more widespread than ever and are expanding their target age group in the process of them increasing profit margins for their specific company. Excessive alcohol consumption and the associated negative health effects are a major public health concern since past and more recent studies. â€Å"Almost 4% of all deaths worldwide are attributable to alcohol† (Graham 1). Also, more than half of people who are frequent smokers started prior to the legal smoking age of eighteenRead MoreVenture Concepts Paper826 Words   |  4 Pagesget all the resources that I need is Wyatt’s Liquor and Tobacco Store. At my store, customers will be able to purchase variet ies of liquor, beer, wine, and tobacco products. The Wyatt’s Liquor and Tobacco Store will be the cheapest store around that customers will be able to purchase liquor and tobacco products all the time. In order for me to start my business, I have to get an beer-sales license, tobacco license, beer and tobacco sales training program, business license, business plan, retailRead MoreIntroduction. Tobacco Use Throughout The United States1254 Words   |  6 Pages Introduction Tobacco use throughout the United States has become an epidemic, not only among adults, but among adolescents as well. People do not realize the effects of tobacco or the consequence of using tobacco among the youth and adolescents. What are the leading factors of adolescents using tobacco? Do peers and parents have an influence on tobacco use among adolescents? Throughout this paper I will discuss the effects of tobacco use, the statistics of tobacco use among adolescents, and otherRead MoreTobacco Use Will Kill One Billion People This Century978 Words   |  4 PagesHistory â€Å"IF LEFT UNCHECKED, TOBACCO USE WILL KILL ONE BILLION PEOPLE THIS CENTURY (www.bloomberg.org).† One billion people is a staggering number to die from a consumer product that is widely available and promoted worldwide by the multinational company Phillip Morris International. The explosion of mainstream tobacco use and acceptance in the twentieth century began with an attitude of glamor and toughness. This approach fueled by magnetic film stars smoking in the movies between the 1920’Read MoreEssay on Rj Reynolds Case1011 Words   |  5 PagesIncorporated (RAI) was founded as and by RJ Reynolds in1875. o US Corporation headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. o It manufactures tobacco related products such as cigarettes, additive free tobacco, smokeless tobacco, and cigars that contain nicotine replacement therapy products. o In the 60’s they began diversifying into food and other non-tobacco business and became well known for RJR Nabisco. o In 1987, Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts Co. (KKK) won control of the company and they turned itRead MoreThe Ethics of Tobacco Advertisement1738 Words   |  7 PagesKatie Simer Professor M. Harutunian English 101 21 September 2011 The Ethics of Tobacco Advertising Can one limit what is advertised? Who is to say whether cigarette advertising is ethical? There have been many bans on tobacco advertising. There is a notion that advertising cigarettes is unethical because society has claimed it to be. Smoking has been one of the biggest parts of advertising for decades. Doctors would promote certain cigarettes. Many believed cigarette smoking to be a way to relieveRead MorePhillip Morrison: Marketing Case Study1156 Words   |  5 PagesMarketing case study Phillip Morrison is one of the largest corporations in the United States, and an epitome of business success. The company nevertheless sells tobacco products, which are harmful for the health of the people. This dimension of their business operations increases the complexity of attaining success for the company, in the meaning that the organization has to employ powerful marketing tools to promote its products. The previous pages have revealed analyses of the company andRead MoreIs Marketing Really All That Ethical?1453 Words   |  6 Pages Is Marketing really all that ethical? Marketing has been used as a forefront for promoting the sale of products, and services to customers for centuries. We see examples of marketing every day channeled through mediums such as television, radio, newspapers, product packaging, and massive billboards on the side of the road. As humans, we are naturally wired to fall for the so called ‘next best product’, the ‘intriguingly eye catching packaging’, and the ‘lowest price’. However, what we are not