Global reading: making connections
As Warwick and Rogers explain in their notes that preface the global reading exercises on page 118, "Making connections when reading helps you to engage with and understand the content better" (2018), something that the exercises they also ask us to do before each reading also contribute to by bringing to mind our own experience, examples and prior knowledge from other texts or elsewhere might also connect with ideas in the coming reading.
Global reading: exercise C.2
Global reading exercise 1 has helped us see connections between ideas in the text "The Benefits of Urbanization". This is followed up by exercise 2, which invites us to make connections between ideas in the text and our own experience, examples, and knowledge we might have from other sources, including our reading of newspapers or other texts.
The slightly revised question
Time: 18 minutes
I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 4:00 minutes
- writing = 10:00 minutes
- editing = 4:00 minutes
Citing the reading
Reference
Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
In the essay "The Benefits of Urbanization", the author is certainly right that urbanization has been happening rapidly, at least for Australia. When I was a child in primary school, not much later than the year 1950 that is cited, Brisbane was a large capital city, but had less than one million people. Sydney was larger but not a lot. Most Australians then lived in rural areas like my own family. We lived on a farm, with a couple of small towns nearby and a larger city further away. But today, I think that two-thirds of Australians already live in urban areas. Sydney alone has more than four million people, and the populations of rural areas have been shrinking as more people move to cities.
ReplyDeleteMy experience of living in cities, first Sydney, then Taipei and for many years now Bangkok, confirms the author's ideas about transportation. I have never owned a car in my life, but when I was in my final year of high school, I did drive to and from school in the large town where I studied. The need for private cars is also obvious every time I visit my family in Australia. I like to spend a day in Sydney shopping and seeing old friends there before flying to the rural area where my family live, and in Sydney, getting around is easy: the public transportation system is excellent, although not particular cheap. But as soon as I land at the airport in Lismore, a car is essential. One of my brothers or sisters has to come and pick me up, and when we go grocery shopping in town from my brother's farm, the ten-minute drive by car or truck is the only option, unless you wanted to walk ten kilometres.
I wasn't so sure that I agree completely with the essay's claims about innovation. My own father was very innovative. He constantly made improvements to the equipment on the farm, and some of those caught on and became popular in the surrounding farms. Perhaps the proximity in cities does mean that ideas can spread more quickly. ANd the economies of scale probably do make innovation more financially attractive for products that can be used in urban areas: all four million people in Sydney will buy a smartphone, but city dwellers don't need sugar cane harvesters or cattle dips. That's good for Samsung, but does put limits on the sales of heavy equipment, although I think Samsung does also have interests in industrial equipment.
As you mentioned, you have experience of living in many cities and you have never owned a car in your life. I think you have a lot of experience using public transportation. Which city do you think has the best public transportation that is the most comfortable and easy to access? I think most people in Bangkok can use public transportation easily, but I lived in a city near Bangkok, where it is not as easily accessible as it could be.
DeleteHi Peter, I have never own a car, but I use my family' cars to travel to work and to another province in Thailand. It is not a good idea for me to own a car as the space for parking cars at my home is limited. We can park three cars at there or I need to rent a space to do so which can cost me about 2,000 THB per month. I hope the public transportations in Thailand will be improved in the near future so that I do not have to drive. Driving in Bangkok is very exhausted because of the high traffic congestions. Most of the time, I feel like I have to carry my car home, not that it bring me home.
DeleteI agree with the writer that urbanization provides significant opportunities. In my university life, I had many friends who came from the rural areas. They chose to study in Bangkok because at that time there were not any universities that have architecture field around their house. And the professors were having more experiences. Also the tools that we have to use when we studied such as the drafting table, the pencils and materials for making model were much more easier to find.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that there is a huge educational gap between rural and urban areas. Most prestigious schools and universities seem to be located in Bangkok. Moreover, many talented teachers prefer to work and stay in Bangkok too as they might want to live in a place where there are many amenities and entertainment.
DeleteHi Sea, I agree that urbanization has benefits to individuals, society and nations. However, I think the writer forget to mentions the impact on urbanization to animals. By improving areas for human activities such as for business, for entertainment and for education, they need to invade animals' habitats. I can think of what happened in my residential area that we have lost many beautiful birds, butterflies and other bugs. About 30 years ago, I could hear birds' songs and used to see lot of butterflies in my area and at that time there were not many homes. However, recently my area has been urbanized due to the BTS project. Many high condominiums have been building, and I can see that there are more cars and new people in my arears.
DeleteIn my own experience, I more than disagree with the author that urbanization results in progress and a decrease in poverty levels (Global Monitoring Report, 2013). On the other hand, I have seen many urban areas such as Bangkok where there is a larger gap in terms of wealth between the poor and the rich. In my opinion, urbanization is a factor to cause the financial inequality because it boost cost of living such as the cost of housing. Housing in Bangkok, for example, is much more expensive than in rural areas so that why I think it worsen the poverty levels instead.
ReplyDeleteI don’t agree with you that urbanization worsen the poverty to Bangkok. There are high competition, bigger economic scales and plenty of businesses since the urbanization took place. These terms help to push our country to going foward as the developed countries. High competition stimulates people to always look up for new innovation for better chance in business. I think that higher living cost of housing represents the successful development in term of economic in that area. The gap between incomes and social class happen because it always has to happen during the process of developing. All developed countries might have encountered this. At some points, when education in our country developed enough to be available for all social classes, this problem will be solved. But this can not take place without successful urbanization.
DeleteMostly, the essay says about the benefits of urbanization, which I agree with every aspect that is mentioned, but I think there might be some disadvantages, such as unequal status of living. Rich people get richer and poor people get poorer because of unequal. In a developing country, Thailand, there is urbanization, but you can not prove it because it does not happen in reality, just on the news.
ReplyDeleteUrbanization is very nesscary for the developing countries. As the developed countries has showned an significant improvement in their starndard of livings. Although there are agruement about this leading to some disadvantages, I still support that urbanization should be extremely encouraged, especially in developing countries.
ReplyDeleteI extremely agree with the essay that urbanization can derived benfit to the local residents by increasing the productivity, generating better innovation and reducing our impact to enviroment. I always live in Bangkok since I was young.
It is very urban city. There are high buidlings,well connected roads full of lights,mutiples ways of public transport and competition of economic. You can travel to every important places of the city without using a private car because they all located centrally. The healthcare system of the city is very well structured. High standard hospital with an qualified staff can be found at every inches of the city. Education is also easily accessible in Bangkok. There are various type of schools to choose from the governmental school to the private international schools. You can travel to every parts of the city without using the private car. All these make me think that I have a high quality starndard of livings. In contrast, I had a chance to stay in Lopburi for a year due to my job. It was completely different from Bangkok. Every important place such as department stores, hospitals and schools are extremely far from each other. You can not probably live without a car in just only a day. The options for health care and education are also limited. Only one main government hospital and one goverment school in each district. This means one who lives in the sub districts has to travel for 45km in order to get the basics need of living. Public transport still not be provided. There no any trains or subway. I found a lot of gas pollution in this city because everyone has to travel a lot for daily life by their own cars.
DeleteFrom my experience living in these two city, I find the one which has been urbanized provide better chance of getting high starndard of living.
I think so too! Living in the modern city is much more comfortable than in the urban areas. The government should encourage urbanisation in every city to increase the access to many facilities such as hospital, and so on. Department stores are also important, although we can shop online but sometimes it is better to wander around in the mall.
DeleteWhen I read that new technology creates greener environment, it reminded me of when Joe Biden has signed on the US execution plan on climate change and environment at his first day as the president of the US. I think this has shown a good signal that we are going to do every things to stop climate change. Advancement in technology has made it possible for us to achieved this goal. I also read news articles that start-up companies are working on building super batteries that can destroy the limitations on using clean energy. For example, it can be used in airplanes that can replace fossil fuel.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion that advanced technology makes the environment more greener. I think we should raise awareness about this topic in our own country, Thailand, to make the world a better place.
DeleteAccording to "The benefits of urbanization", there are many benefits that happens in the cities. However, it is a monumental harm that results in an overall environments; pollution happens because of non-proper disposal garbage uses. Bangkok, for example, while it is developing to serve city dwellers a modern life, many areas in the town are fulled by plastic trashes. Tons of plastic garbage bags don't be recycled. Single plastic use are every where such as when you buy foods venders hand you plastic bag to carry the foods. To discuss only the benefits side will be too optimistic and may cause dwellers unaware of outrageous issue that happens in town.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that there are issues on the effects to our environment in Bangkok. I think this happen because our city is still on developing. If Bangkok is received more further process on urbanization, there will be more education available for the lower social class and the city’s plan and public transportation would be far better. Education is the most important point because it makes people aware of the consequences of their behaviors which affect the environment. The rates of overconsumption should shrink significantly and there will be more environmental friendly policies. This is why I think urbanization should take place especially in the developing country.
DeleteThe author said that the pollutions can be reduced by urbanization; nevertheless, I disagree with the author. In the essay the authors said that pollutions formed from transportation as well as traffic congestion can be lowered, since the proximity of the facilities is close to each other, as a result people often use public transportation. Although in Bangkok places are usually close to each other, most people still use cars as a way to travel. From my experience visiting Bangkok, I could hardly breath due to the pollution in the air, which are mainly from the car’s pollutants, and as I was travelling from one place to another it took at least an hour to get to the designation. Another form of pollution that was in Bangkok that I had seen were smoke released from factories in the middle of the day. Therefore, I think that urbanization cannot reduce pollution, or lower the carbon footprint.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that urbanization cannot reduce pollution such as carbon dioxide emissions from transportation or garbage from daily waste, especially in developing countries. I think we should study in developed countries like Japan. It is very civilized and innovative. They have a long-term scenario of reducing CO2 emissions and creating sustainable rescues, such as electronic vehicles, in order to create a low-carbon society. I think the right way to urbanize is not just to improve the city, but to organize the consequences, such as pollution. Because ease access to public transportation is limited only in the city. Using an EV car instead of a combustion engine is a nice idea for Thailand if it is supported by the government in the proper way.
DeletePhum I like your example that soon will be a general practice to drive EV car. However, I think this idea will never be happened in Thailand any soon because of the corruption. I've heard about eco car for many years already moreover I had visited the modern village which was designed to support EV car by having an electric charger in the garage area. Due to PTT is owned by ministry of finance and mother company is ministry of energy so that to reduce an oil consumer all over the country and also to build an electric stations will cost them a billion. This is a huge domino effect that can bankrupt them unless they develop new technology on their own that can complete their business cycle. For example, they are the only company who distributes EV car in the country. Can you predict what will happen next if this becomes true. It will just create another new monopoly of energy power.
DeleteI agree with you that 100% replacing EV cars will not happen in the near future. Anyway, many large companies in the automobile industry have already jumped into the EV car market, like Toyota, Hyundai, BMW, or else. They are developing an EV car to enhance performance and make it more affordable. As I know, the number of fully-electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) is rising steadily in Thailand. So, a 100% EV car might happen far in the future, but it is not too long to wait.
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