Outline_Some_Inequalities_on_a_Street_You_Know

TMA01 Page 1 of 2 Drawing on what you have learned about City Road, outline some of the inequalities on a street that you know. In my essay I will look at some inequalities I have noticed on a street near me and where possible, compare them with similar ones on City Road, which is approximately a mile long and is one of the busiest roads in Cardiff. My essay will focus on Crowthorne High Street in Berkshire. It is about ¾ of a mile long and there are many different shops, pubs and restaurants as well as a fire station, police station, library, flats above some of the shops and some small houses. The shops line both sides of the street. Although it has a typical village feel, it is actually a through road to various places and is normally very busy during the day and particularly during rush hours. On Crowthorne high street, one issue I have observed recently is that more of the bigger chain shops are starting to open, which is putting great strain on the smaller businesses. For example a Lidl supermarket opened approximately 100 metres from a small off licence that has been there for many years. Due to the low priced alcohol that Lidl’s sell, the local off licence is forced to lower their prices to compete for the same custom. This affects them as they do not have the same economic resources that the larger chains have and this could eventually lead to the smaller shops having to close down, as many have over the last couple of years. This is a similar situation to when the Tesco Express opened on City Road. The shop owner, Colin Butwell says “Its knocked me a bit the Tesco’s opening two blocks up” (Making Social Lives on City Road, 2009, scene 3). Another difference I have observed is the competition for the use of space on my street, mainly between cars and pedestrians. There are bollards that line the pavements to stop cars driving up onto and parking on the pavements, which is the same as on City Road. The pavements on my street are fairly narrow, so the bollards do stop the cars parking and blocking the way for people with pushchairs or in a wheelchair for example. Due to the need for pedestrian safety, inequalities are therefore produced, by the cars losing out on the space as there is only one main car park on my street and that is in the supermarket car park, which is for customers shopping there only, so parking is a real problem on my street. Also on my street, as well as the chain shops and cafés, there are a couple of shops that cater for a certain type of people. They are very expensive female clothes shops, so those who are not as financially well-off as others cannot possibly shop there. There is a distinct lack of cheaper clothes shops so anyone who wishes to purchase clothes either have charity shops or the expensive ones, so it is one extreme to another. Although this is not essentially the same as City Road, there are similarities in that there were a couple of shops shown in the DVD that catered for specific groups of B5044642 Page 2 of 2 people. Exquisite Africa (Making Social Lives on City Road, 2009, scene 2) however this does cater for specific ethnic groups which is a good thing and shows that my street doesn’t have the kind of diverse culture that City Road has. In addition to these inequalities, there is also the different use of space at different times of the day. On my street during the day you will mainly see elderly shoppers or mums with young children, however at night time there are groups of drinkers that frequent the pubs. This can sometimes result in the older generation feeling maybe ‘pushed out’ or excluded as it used to be a place with typical ‘old mans pubs’ where they would go for a pint in the evenings. Now, however they can feel unsafe because of the large groups of young people that are about. This again is similar to the Municipal Club on City Road (Making Social Lives on City Road, 2009, scene 8). From looking at the inequalities I have discovered on my street and those on City Road, I can see that, “with the constant reshaping of society, there are some winners and some losers, brining new inequalities and differences” (Making Social Lives on City Road, 2009, scene 3). On both streets as a whole, a busy road could mean good things for passing trade and business but not so good for pedestrians and children. Although these inequalities can sometimes work side by side, they can also sometimes create conflicts and competition between people and businesses. 784 Words Used ‘The Street’ (2009) Making Social Lives DVD, Milton Keynes, The Open University.