My Super Output Area at home is Sandwell 016A (Lower Layer). =http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadAreaSearch.do?a=3&r=1&i=1001&m=0&s=1269894440453&enc=1&areaSearchText=NN2+7AL&extendedList=false&searchAreas= I do not believe my Super Output Area is a “sustainable community”. Is this backed up by data though?
Economic Activity shows 34.29% of people are economically inactive (aged 16-74) in Sandwell. This seems quite high considering this does not include retired people, students, homemakers and sick or disabled people. In my estate and the newer estates around me you get the impression that these homes are affordable by working/middle class families with nice cars, conservatories and patios. I was surprised at the unemployment rate in my Super Output Area, especially because of how small Output Areas are.
From my assumption above I looked at Household Compositions. The most people living in a household in Sandwell was one family with dependent children, this was 24.71%. This social structure does not surprise me at all, especially with there being a primary school in the estate I live and a high school which is a 10 minute walk away. From what I mentioned earlier there has been newer estates built in my Super Output Areas which seem to be attracting young families.
Environmentally I looked at statistics for Physical Environment. Here it says that there is 0 unused land, in my Super Output Area, available for redevelopment. It just goes to show how huge the housing development has been. All unused land from factories/industrial estates has been used up and I have seen this as I have grown up. This is a sustainable use of development working on brownfield sites. The downside to this is all the traffic moving into the new housing estates and them commuting in the area to and from work. During the two rush hours of the day the road outside my estate is guaranteed to be at a standstill.
Socially I believe I had a safe environment growing up with nice neighbours around me. There are always children playing around the estate now. Economically there is some deprivation with unemployment rates. Environmentally I believe air pollution is high because of so many vehicles travelling through the area. I did think my community was not so "sustainable" but it is also not that bad.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Active Citizenship
The constituency I live in is West Bromwich West Boro. I found this by looking on an election map from http://www.election-maps.co.uk/electmaps.jsf. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough is my local council.
From looking on http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/constituencies/west-bromwich-west I found out my Local MP is Adrian Bailey. He is from the Labour and Co-operative Party.
I believe it is important everyone votes in the election but what if a person does not believe they are informed enough to vote for anyone? If this were the case then their vote is not valid in a way. A vote is a way for people to get their voices heard. It may seem insignificant putting a cross in a box but it makes such a huge difference.
The first time I voted was last year for the local election. I was not informed enough until I did my research a few days before. The only reason I did this was because at first I was not going to vote. As stupid as it sounds, I felt I was too young to have an opinion and that politics was boring. It was only when my parents and teachers from my 6th form made a huge point of the suffragettes fighting for the women’s vote that made me think my opinion does actually count and I will have my own view and research the parties I can vote for.
In the local election the Labour party lost a considerable amount of votes and the Conservatives gained many votes. This shows how people’s votes are very important. They managed to change the net amount of councillors from each party in each council (refer to figure 1 below).
The uninformed vote also threw up some issues in the 2009 election. People voting for the ludicrous (the nicest word I could think of) BNP with a gain of +3 councillors (refer to figure 1 below).
Elections 2009: Councils A-Z (Figure 1)
IN DETAIL
Councils Councillors
Party Total Net +/- Total Net +/-
Conservative 30 +7 1531 +244
Liberal Democrat 1 -1 484 -2
Labour 0 -4 178 -291
Independents 0 0 97 +6
Green 0 0 18 +8
Residents Association 0 0 9 +2
UK Independence Party 0 0 7 +7
Mebyon Kernow 0 0 3 0
British National Party 0 0 3 +3
Liberal 0 0 2 0
Others 0 0 30 15
No Overall Control 3 -2
34 of 34 councils have officially declared
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/html/region_99999.stm?sortresults=az
From looking on http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/constituencies/west-bromwich-west I found out my Local MP is Adrian Bailey. He is from the Labour and Co-operative Party.
I believe it is important everyone votes in the election but what if a person does not believe they are informed enough to vote for anyone? If this were the case then their vote is not valid in a way. A vote is a way for people to get their voices heard. It may seem insignificant putting a cross in a box but it makes such a huge difference.
The first time I voted was last year for the local election. I was not informed enough until I did my research a few days before. The only reason I did this was because at first I was not going to vote. As stupid as it sounds, I felt I was too young to have an opinion and that politics was boring. It was only when my parents and teachers from my 6th form made a huge point of the suffragettes fighting for the women’s vote that made me think my opinion does actually count and I will have my own view and research the parties I can vote for.
In the local election the Labour party lost a considerable amount of votes and the Conservatives gained many votes. This shows how people’s votes are very important. They managed to change the net amount of councillors from each party in each council (refer to figure 1 below).
The uninformed vote also threw up some issues in the 2009 election. People voting for the ludicrous (the nicest word I could think of) BNP with a gain of +3 councillors (refer to figure 1 below).
Elections 2009: Councils A-Z (Figure 1)
IN DETAIL
Councils Councillors
Party Total Net +/- Total Net +/-
Conservative 30 +7 1531 +244
Liberal Democrat 1 -1 484 -2
Labour 0 -4 178 -291
Independents 0 0 97 +6
Green 0 0 18 +8
Residents Association 0 0 9 +2
UK Independence Party 0 0 7 +7
Mebyon Kernow 0 0 3 0
British National Party 0 0 3 +3
Liberal 0 0 2 0
Others 0 0 30 15
No Overall Control 3 -2
34 of 34 councils have officially declared
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/html/region_99999.stm?sortresults=az
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Sustainable Transport
Transport has definitely influenced economic and social development in a big way. Of course because of this it has had many costs on the environment.
The over-reliance on motorised transport also goes back to the first ever blog I did “improving the 'sustainability' of my lifestyle”. In this blog I said I relied on my car a lot back home even to drive short distances and now having moved into halls my reliance is on public transport (again motorised transport). There are not a lot of places I would walk to because I have always been used to travelling in some sort of motorised transport. Laziness, the ease of it, and depends what the weather is. Not really good excuses for the over reliance to be fair. I rely heavily on trains to get me home on weekends and buses when I am at university to travel between campuses and into town.
Some people’s jobs involve travelling around the world a lot. Relations between countries create a good opportunity for businesses to broaden and expand and social skills to widen. Our world is now very global because of air travel although this does have impacts on rural areas all over the world when building large airports or expanding ones that already exist and of course the direct impacts such as air pollution on a huge scale.
I do not believe all benefits of motorised transport outweigh the costs but for the world to develop there will always be a transport problem. A happy medium will never occur as it is damaging on the environment and there will always be sustainability issues arising and where would we be without motorised transport. It is how people cope and become innovative towards the scarce resources that will be available to us in the future (maybe not my generation, but still).
Minor changes such as more cycle routes need to be put into place in urban areas. If I wanted to start cycling I would not feel safe cycling in the road, but again you have the downside to this where areas will need to be developed to be able to put these in places. South Africa is an example where they have put projects in place to promote the use of non-motorised transport to cope with their developing urban areas. They have plans in place to change the mind set of people. If it is just an over reliance on these vehicles surely this could also be done in other countries? If a Less Economically Developed Country can come up with simple strategies like this so could More Economically Developed Countries.
Source: http://www.transport.gov.za/content.aspx?subID=19
Major changes already being put in place are the eco cars. I have seen a fair few of these on the roads recently and have seen many adverts for them. It seems fashionable to have one of them. I typed in eco cars to Google and found many news articles on the “Eco cars: the ten best” for example. The only problem with this is they need to be more affordable and available to target the family market for example but none the less it is better than a gas guzzling Range Rover Sport.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/3165537/Eco-cars-the-ten-best.html
The over-reliance on motorised transport also goes back to the first ever blog I did “improving the 'sustainability' of my lifestyle”. In this blog I said I relied on my car a lot back home even to drive short distances and now having moved into halls my reliance is on public transport (again motorised transport). There are not a lot of places I would walk to because I have always been used to travelling in some sort of motorised transport. Laziness, the ease of it, and depends what the weather is. Not really good excuses for the over reliance to be fair. I rely heavily on trains to get me home on weekends and buses when I am at university to travel between campuses and into town.
Some people’s jobs involve travelling around the world a lot. Relations between countries create a good opportunity for businesses to broaden and expand and social skills to widen. Our world is now very global because of air travel although this does have impacts on rural areas all over the world when building large airports or expanding ones that already exist and of course the direct impacts such as air pollution on a huge scale.
I do not believe all benefits of motorised transport outweigh the costs but for the world to develop there will always be a transport problem. A happy medium will never occur as it is damaging on the environment and there will always be sustainability issues arising and where would we be without motorised transport. It is how people cope and become innovative towards the scarce resources that will be available to us in the future (maybe not my generation, but still).
Minor changes such as more cycle routes need to be put into place in urban areas. If I wanted to start cycling I would not feel safe cycling in the road, but again you have the downside to this where areas will need to be developed to be able to put these in places. South Africa is an example where they have put projects in place to promote the use of non-motorised transport to cope with their developing urban areas. They have plans in place to change the mind set of people. If it is just an over reliance on these vehicles surely this could also be done in other countries? If a Less Economically Developed Country can come up with simple strategies like this so could More Economically Developed Countries.
Source: http://www.transport.gov.za/content.aspx?subID=19
Major changes already being put in place are the eco cars. I have seen a fair few of these on the roads recently and have seen many adverts for them. It seems fashionable to have one of them. I typed in eco cars to Google and found many news articles on the “Eco cars: the ten best” for example. The only problem with this is they need to be more affordable and available to target the family market for example but none the less it is better than a gas guzzling Range Rover Sport.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/3165537/Eco-cars-the-ten-best.html
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
We wish you a Merry Christmas!
Christmas is a tradition borrowed from many rituals from religions in the past and comes from the Pagan origins. Before this blog prompt I did not know this. It just goes to show how my thinking of Christmas is exactly “excessive spending, over-eating and embarrassing self indulgence “. Some traditions of Christmas date to before the birth of Christ and the date of Christmas was done out of spite from the Pope to be on the same day as Mithras’ birthday (so people would stop celebrating the meaning of that day).
Religion does not really get a mention now. Who watches Songs of Praise, for example on Christmas day??? It is all about what movies are on the television to aid us along with the over-eating of the day.
From working in a supermarket Christmas is VERY busy. Over-spending is what you see in the build up to Christmas. It is actually ridiculous looking at the over-filled trolleys and cues that go into the aisles. From experiencing this I do realise Christmas has lost its meaning. This makes me more sad than the worry about if it isv sustainable or not. The answer to… Is Christmas sustainable?... is definitely not.
For one day the word sustainable should be thrown out the window. It is a time for families and friends to have time out and just spend it with each other and the only stresses should be about the roast potatoes and whether they have drank enough alcohol before midday.
In a changed world the focus should be on the build up to Christmas. Shops start selling Christmas stuff in October, during Halloween for example. This bugs me. One tradition should be out the way before another one should have a build up. Otherwise the “do-gooders” should let there hair down and join in with the festivity of the day.
Source: http://www.zenzibar.com/articles/christmas.asp
Religion does not really get a mention now. Who watches Songs of Praise, for example on Christmas day??? It is all about what movies are on the television to aid us along with the over-eating of the day.
From working in a supermarket Christmas is VERY busy. Over-spending is what you see in the build up to Christmas. It is actually ridiculous looking at the over-filled trolleys and cues that go into the aisles. From experiencing this I do realise Christmas has lost its meaning. This makes me more sad than the worry about if it isv sustainable or not. The answer to… Is Christmas sustainable?... is definitely not.
For one day the word sustainable should be thrown out the window. It is a time for families and friends to have time out and just spend it with each other and the only stresses should be about the roast potatoes and whether they have drank enough alcohol before midday.
In a changed world the focus should be on the build up to Christmas. Shops start selling Christmas stuff in October, during Halloween for example. This bugs me. One tradition should be out the way before another one should have a build up. Otherwise the “do-gooders” should let there hair down and join in with the festivity of the day.
Source: http://www.zenzibar.com/articles/christmas.asp
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