What is it?
In their critical thinking exercise that concludes the reading "Rust Belt Dystopia", Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 83) invite us to discuss two questions that test our understanding of ideas in the reading by applying to another context and by extending them beyond what the reading tells us.
We will discuss each question in a separate comment.
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1.
- Are there any areas in your country that have been affected by the issues described in "Rust Belt Dystopia?"
- What initiatives have been introduced to address them?
You have 8:00 minutes to plan and write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 2:00 minutes
- writing = 5:00 minutes, and
- editing = 1:00 minutes.
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2.
- Smart decline has yet to be fully implemented and proven.
- How effective do you think it could be as a strategy to deal with deindustrialization?
- What might the disadvantages be?
You have 12:00 minutes to plan and write a response to these two questions. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 3:00 minutes
- writing = 7:00 minutes, and
- editing = 2:00 minutes.
A useful strategy - as usual
Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the chosen question at the start of your response to it.
This is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL, where it's important that your independent writing response makes sense independently of the question to which it must respond.
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Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
Although resulting more from changes in the agricultural industry than than from manufacturing, large areas of rural Australia have suffered declining fortunes over the last few decades as less labour was required by to run farms that increasing rely on technology. For example, when I was a child, my father employed up to 50 men to harvest our sugar cane; today, by brother can easily do it all himself.
ReplyDeleteThis led to loss of employment and people leaving the rural towns to move to Sydney or other large cities in search of employment. A few areas were lucky. My own town, Lismore, was able to transition to become a centre of education, gaining a university and more colleges to serve the surrounding areas and students from around the state. Byron Bay, also near my family home, has, after a few decades of serious decline, recovered dramatically over the last ten years or so as an idyllic, natural get away for tourists and city dwellers who want a weekend or holiday home in the country. It now has stars like Chris Hemsworth (Thor) setting up home there. THis has been a miracle for the town, which is now thriving. Unfortunately, much of rural Australia has not been so fortunate.
In Thailand , the industry situation that affected like Rust Belt is very unclear, but in the different business is kind of explainable. Fishery and shrimping is the example business that can decline and regenerate in a short period of time, but sometime it leaves the scar that will effect the area in the long term, such as coral bleaching which will force all fisherman to end their career at that place in order to restore the area.
ReplyDeleteI would not have thought of the fishery industry here, but then I wrote about Australia because that's what I know best. In fact, I only wrote about the bits of Australia that I'm reasonably familiar with, the areas around my hometown area.
DeleteI hope Poom might give a bit more detail about the decline in the fishery and shrimping industries: when and where? Which provinces did that effect? It would also be useful to know how and why it regenerated.
For example, when the coral bleaching forced the fishermen to leave the area, how did that affect local communities?
I can think of the northeast part of Thailand as that still has the issues like those that happened in Rust Belt dystopia. The providences are facing issues about how to improve incomes of the people. Some academics suggest that the government should improve that by improving more tourism.
ReplyDeleteAs I suggest in my comment above (June 21, 20:50), tourism in Australia seems to work only for fairly specific towns in rural areas. Do you think it would be possible to revitalize an entire province or region through tourism?
DeleteKings Cross used to be an industrial areas that connected to the major train station of London. Shipping has dominated the area before the regeneration. There were problem of drug and prostitute as well. The new initiative has transformed Kings Cross to a transportation hub to Europe and residential area with community malls, university campuses, and high street shopping centre.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, overall most manufacturers might relocate from Thai to Vietnam because of cheaper labours, leading to changes in the industrial landscape. There are two areas in Thailand that might confront a similar situation a Rust Belt. The first one in the outskirt of Bangkok, which was based on many huge cars manufacturers but the situation might be a bit better than Rust Belt. Bangkok is expanding so urbanization might help the outskirt of Bangkok. The second place is Rayong which is a coastal area that might go well with tourism.
ReplyDeleteWhen i have to think about a certain area in Thailand that faced the same problem with the Rust Belt, i couldn't think of any. But when i thought of a bigger scale as a country, i agree with you that many factories moved their operations to Vietnam and China due to cheaper labour cost.
DeleteI agree with both of you that many factories moved to Vietnam and China. This causes some following problems. First, the unemployment rate has declined. Because the number of factories has decreased. Moreover, the price of the goods produced in Thailand is more expensive than products produced in Vietnam or China. As a consequence, the consumers buy the products made in China or Vietnam. As a result, the Thai business can’t run well due to the drop in sales.
DeleteTo be honest, I can't think of any area in Thailand that has been affected by the problems described in Rust Belt dystopia. But if I have to choose the closest one, I will choose Phuket. Phuket's main income is from tourism. Due to the Covid-19 situation, the tourist can't travel to Phuket. As a result, the unemployment rate has increased. The businesses have not run well so they have to kick some of the employees. The initiatives are giving money to the unemployment populations.
ReplyDeleteI quite agree with you, Aom. At first, I thought that Thailand might confront an opposite situation with Rush Belt. Many province's economies in Thailand rely on tourism solely such as Phuket. I think that tourism might sustainable solutions, it also has much threat. Moreover, it's challenging to attract tourists all year. How does each city handle low-season tourism?
DeleteAom, do you think that Thailand could benefit from a universal basic income scheme (UBI), whereby everyone was guaranteed a minimum basic income by the state from the redistribution of wealth through taxation? This is not a popular idea in the US, where it is accused of being communist, a false claims, or just socialist, a true claim, but evidence from experiments testing it in European countries, especially Finland, have returned positive results for employment rates and well-being.
DeleteI had not thought of this until I read your comment, which mentions the Thai government "initiatives [of] giving money to the unemployment populations" (June 21, 20:52). Do you think that those initiatives could be expanded beyond the Covid emergency to become a more long-term system of social support that would boost the money circulating in local areas?
Note: if you copy and paste the words from a source, such I have from Aom's comment, you must put that quotation in "quotation marks" and properly attribute the idea to the source, in this case Aom's comment published last night.
DeleteReplying to blog posts and comments is also an opportunity to practice using sources appropriately for academic writing.
As I can so called, when some of area cannot be used for the same size of business/industry, people need to change it into something else, maybe it's smaller that is convenient to keep it up, such like some place in fishery that they have to stop hunting fish, they turn themselves into small market instead, selling groceries also with their gorgeous view, awaiting the nature to regenerate itself or if it cannot be used, just close to enclose the area in order to be easy to take care of. Or even the great example of this era is New Normal of the Covid-19, all business has to minimize it self for surviving, cutting some function that they use to have and lower their budget into the controllable amount.
ReplyDeleteI can think of an effective way to handle deindustrialization and that is to improve advance technologies such robotic and automation to supply the loss in labor. I think deindustrialization is about the lack of working populations. Japan is a good example of this phenomenal which the country has been losing birth rates and it has become aging society.
ReplyDeleteApart from the robotic system in Japan, another key element is the "lean production" that they pioneered in the motor industry (Toyota & Honda). Not only managing the labour well, they have transformed the whole production to be customised and cost effectively as well.
DeleteCan smart decline effectively solve the problems that result from population loss? Since the decline in population in rural areas in Australia seems relevantly similar to the decline in population and resulting economic contraction affecting cities in the US Rust Belt region, I will focus on the Australian situation, which I can better imagine.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of smart decline, of not trying to reverse a population loss and economic contraction but instead of managing it to reduce negative outcomes, sounds sensible. But can it work? My first worry is that since the population and with it the economic base, is shrinking, taxes must also decline. On second thoughts though, this might not always be the case. In the Australian context I thought of, while changes to farming practices have resulted in much lower employment, the income has not decreased. In fact, a smaller number of larger farmers now have much higher incomes than in the past, so it would seem reasonable to increase their tax rates to redistribute the added wealth created by the changes caused as a result of increasing reliance on technology. That increased tax income would enable more state-funded services to manage a smart decline as populations inevitably decline in once thriving rural communities, perhaps also encouraging residents to move to a smaller number of towns and allow others to naturally die rather than being kept alive at great expense with little benefit to anyone.
Refers to Heins, Smart Decline is an approach to improve the lives of existing residents rather than exhaust city resources to increase the population. In principle, it's good to focus on the local as they are the people who live, work, or study here. Therefore, the benefits should go to them first. However, in "declining" there are the disadvantages that may come as a consequences. For example, the city may lose the opportunity of big investment to transform the area with latest technology that will benefit both the local, the visitors, and also attracting investors. To be more specific, if the city ignores the smart decline and choose to be in the game and try to become a new airport pub. This will increase the number of businesses, jobs, and visitors.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your comment, I just wonder that in this COVID-19 situation, it is hard to become a new airport pub. Because people decline the number of traveling. So, how can the government prepare themselves at this moment to be a new airport pub after the COVID-19 situation?
DeleteI think smart decline can cope with deindustrialization in plenty of ways. First of all, people with high quality can develop the industry system in the future. As a result, the industries will be done by the AI, and won't need the labors. Moreover, with fewer numbers of people and area, it will be easier for the government to control or manage. However, there are some drawbacks of the smart decline. Some areas that have declined will be useful in the future. In addition, the remaining areas will become a very essential area which we can't lose.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that Smart Decline might be an effective strategy. I see its potential due to some reasons. Firstly, the size of the population might not the most vital key. In nordic areas, the number of residences might not high but their average income is in the good range. Second, the Smart Decline concept reminds me of one interior style. Industrial style is renovating factories for other purposes such as being a residential building.
ReplyDeleteThis style comes from German while they were encountering with changing too so it gives me an idea of how to adapt to old business blooming city.