Exploring the Concepts and Content in IGCSE and IBDP Geography
This video serves as a great crossover between units like urban environments and oceans/coastal margins in the IBDP syllabus. It’s something you should look out for when you do your post-Covid city trips! An interesting video that concerns many of the concepts of space, place, power, spatial interactions, and more. Credit to Half as Interesting Youtube channel for providing this video.
Why the East Ends of (Most) Cities are Poorer – Half as Interesting
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause unending disruption, researchers at James Cook University and other collaborators put forth some interesting and thought-provoking possibilities for urban areas in this publication which takes only a couple of minutes to read. One has to wonder what lessons can and should be learned from how we have(n’t) adapted to the current state of affairs on all different scales. A further more comprehensive publication is linked to at the bottom of the article.
https://www.jcu.edu.sg/news/releases/re-evaluating-public-spaces-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
(Credit to: Lisa Law, Simona Azzali and Sheila Conejos)
The article below is an interesting read for anyone interested in both rural and urban environments. Counter-urbanisation, urbanisation, tourism, cultural identity, and architectural design are all interesting themes at play in the plans of building Europe’s tallest sky scraper in Brande, a town of just over 7000 people. Credit to the Guardian for the article, no author named. The photograph below provided by Bestseller and found in the article is of the planned skyscraper.
This visualisation offers insight into how urban densities can be compared and contrasted with regards to how much area they would take if the total human population lived according to a particular city’s density. It gives good indications of the processes of urban sprawl, urbanisation, as well as the expansion of the rural-urban fringe. A thought provoking creation!
In this article with some good visuals, Caitlin Fitzsimmons writes about the potential of Sydney, Australia, being viewed and managed differently than previously with regards to the idea of a ‘green city’. This is a great article with relationships to ecocities, urban processes, microclimates and more.
UCL’s Oliver O’Brien has created an easy to use, informative and interesting map of the tube stops in London, correlating them with the (second) languages spoken by residents in that area. This very informative resource can be helpful in discussions about urban planning, ethnic patterns, and socioeconomic distributions in cities.
Click this link for direct access to the map: https://tubecreature.com/#/tongues/current/same/*/*/FFTFTF/13/-0.1000/51.5200/
Click the link to the article below with some image stills, explanation, and access to the map: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/oct/30/-sp-londons-tube-languages-visualised
This is an interesting and radical deconstruction of how American suburbs are a short-sighted, inefficient, and community destroying piece of urban America. It is a thought provoking and critical video which really illustrates the flawed idea of suburban growth.
The link below contains a ‘live’ bar chart which goes through the most populous cities in the world, from 1500-2018. It is an excellent resource to spark discussions as to what makes cities successful, and what the future has for urban environments
https://observablehq.com/@johnburnmurdoch/bar-chart-race-the-most-populous-cities-in-the-world
I saw one of my 12 HL students revising and her technique caught my eye. For the different options we studied in class (Geophysical Hazards, Oceans and Coastal Margins, and Urban Environments), she printed out a blank world map and labelled the areas that were either case studies or examples used in class. This is a great way for more visual learners to map out and recall the material learned in class. It is also beneficial for me as well to analyse spatially the places I teach in class; I need to teach more about Africa! She gave me permission to post the photo.
I want to take a moment to wish all of my Grade 12 students success on their now-completed exams. It was a lot of fun teaching you and I hope we keep in touch!
This mini-expose uncovers the nature of gentrification in San Francisco and the effects on different neighbourhoods and communities running along market street. This clip is useful in how it shows the faces and names behind the causes and consequences of a controversial urban process.
https://hoodline.com/2016/04/vice-takes-a-video-tour-of-san-francisco-gentrification
