Dd101_Tma_1_City_Road

This essay is going to discuss City Road and my chosen street Jersey Road for the similarities in the present time and in the past, and also it will be used to discuss how the streets are used in the day and night, the people that use the streets and the activities that occur there. One of the main differences between Jersey Road and City Road is location. Jersey Road is situated in a small mining village in the welsh valleys and City Road is located in the capital city Cardiff. In the past Jersey Road was known to have anything up to 40 businesses on it at any given time, these days however there are just 6, A post office, a chemist, a family run shop and nearby pub, a Chinese takeaway and the local co-op store which was run and funded by the people of the village until the larger co-operative store took it over in 1983. Just like on City Road the businesses in Jersey Road was effected by the opening of bigger stores although on Jersey Road the opening of a Tesco’s store nearby wasn’t solely to blame for the closure of the businesses it did however have a massive impact on them. With a far greater variety of goods at a cheaper rate available elsewhere people stopped using local stores as they ventured further afield. We know of this impact on City Road from the course material DVD when Lloyd Robson interviews one local trader, he tells how a nearby newsagents closed due to the opening of a bigger spar store nearby. There are also similarities between the streets in regards to how the streets are used and the people that use them during the night and day. From the course DVD 2 we can see that during the day City Road is well used by traffic and pedestrians. Most of the cars that travel through City Road use it as I thoroughfare to other places whereas the pedestrians shop there or work there. A similar thing happens on Jersey Road in the day time and these similarities also run into the evening. The older locals don’t seem to feel safe in either street at night but the youngsters appear there in large gangs which locals find intimidating. On the course DVD Lloyd Robson interviews some older gentlemen in the local municipal club and they can be heard saying when questioned about City Road at night, “It’s not safe here, you can’t walk to the top of City Road in the nights, you’re afraid to walk up there...there’s hundreds up there at the weekend just waiting to explode” 3. This thought is also thought by some youngsters on City road, when being interviewed by Lloyd Robson one is heard saying “I don’t like coming down here at night...its dead rough...”4. This is a similar problem in Jersey Road at night. The youngsters hanging around make the older locals very cautious about going there. Unlike City Road there is not a lot of different cultures in Jersey Road, in fact there is only 1 family, the owners of the local Chinese takeaway who suffer a lot from racial abuse at the hands of the local teenagers. This is a pattern repeated from some 15 to 20 years ago when a small family from Pakistan ran a food store on Jersey road who put up with it for about 4years before leaving the village. This is a good example of how some people do not react well to ‘outsiders’ entering the community. In the DVD Lloyd Robson visits one local shop to talk to the owner Janet Symmons5 who tells Lloyd how she used to “look at it that it is me who has Come, and therefore have to do the changing to fit in.” This is a good example of how people feel the need to change themselves to fit in with others surrounding them and how this can effect them. People can have multiple identities that change according to time and also how identity is not just about who you are as a person but also who other people think you are. The course materials show how a lot of things that seem minor or often get overlooked have a massive impact on how communities interact, how people live their lives and also how material things contribute to the way people go about their everyday lives.