Living in a Global City by Jamie Gallant (2009)

Summary! 

           The name of the documentary is “Living In A Global City” by Jamie Gallant (2009). This documentary is focusing on Chicago which became ranked eighth as global city in the world according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released of Global Cities Index in 2008. It is all about the impact of globalization and the life style of people in globalization era. This documentary highlights two main problems which are environment issue and traffic in global cities. The presenter points out these problems by using Chicago as developed country and China as developing country.

 

Three- paragraphs commentary! 

This documentary mainly focuses on Chicago city, but it is compared with China. According to Executive Director Public and Leadership Programs and Global Chicago, Simon O’ Rourke, the reason people live in city is very personal. The people, migrant workers from Egypt, Pakistan, and other countries are coming to cities for their children’s educations, future, and jobs opportunities. They come to cities with highest expectation for salary and future opportunities.  I think we all are aware with the pull factors and push factors of migrations. As pull factors, there are like job opportunities, better living conditions, and better chance for higher education which make them eager to come to your country. Likewise, there are many ways for push factors such as not enough jobs, few opportunities for education, famine or drought, political fear, and natural disasters which push them to move out from their original countries. Economic factors provide the main motivation behind migration too. People come to cities because the cities can give them what they need and they can get what they want from city. Rourke also mentions that people are social creatures; we need notion of activities to entertain ourselves. There are so many activities which change according to modernity.  In city, people are different in culture and races and get to know each other. According to this documentary, today, there are over 40 different languages spoken in Chicago with some of the largest concentrations of ethnic populations of any city in the world. As a country becomes developed, the demand of labor force becomes increase. As the result, the cities in a country are overpopulated with foreign migrant workers.

According to Nellie Khalil who is a professor of Environmental Science Columbia College Chicago, she mentions the problem of globalization is that environmental problem. She states two different countries and explains developed country as the United State of America, and developing country as China in comparison. She focus on rush industrialization of global city like China, because of the enforcement of global economic growth, the city might be concern about bringing a lot of industrial which release too much pollution and serious impact on environment.  However, as a developed country they will be more concern about environmental sustainability. They are already developed, so they try to focus on environment again and avoid harming it. I think the way the professor comparison of environmental problems between Chicago and China is make senses due to Environmental Kuznets Curve which presents as inverted- U-shaped relationship between pollutants and per capita income. Its hypothesis is that if environmental pressure increases up to a certain level as income goes up , it will decreases after the country get the highest point of economic growth and then people will become to focus on their environment and be aware of natural environment and value it.

Another point is that transportation is becoming  big problems in global cities. In Chicago, even people use mass transit, there are people still stuck in traffic every day. According to documentary, Chicago is home to one of the country’s longest commutes. Chicagoans spend an average of 33 minutes a day and it is over 150 hours a year stuck in traffic or waiting. As a country becoming a global city, it has to face traffic problems because since economy is opened, all the cooperation is coming into your country and manufacture all the  cheap goods and services in order to meet people needs and want. In this case, people buy cars in order to make their live easier than being on the bus. However, as the economic growth highest level, the global city like Chicago’s consumption of luxury are going down and today, Chicago claims to be one of America’s most environmentally-friendly cities.  Its efforts formed the Chicago Climate Action Plan, which aims to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions 25 % below 1990 levels.  The documentary stated that nowadays, people in Chicago are more focus on professional and personal way of movement and system. They are making their live better by taking care of their kids and being able to walk to office rather them driving to office and becoming more aware of environment. 

 I believe that it is crucial to focus on economic growth for the countries in this globalization era. Of course, the countries have to face with so many problems like social problems of migrations as well as environmental problem of industrialization. However, we can’t avoid economic growth and the impact of globalization in order to develop our countries with higher standard of living.  I think that when the global city become at highest point of economic growth, the people in the country will become aware of nature and pay attention on their environment more than before and then the environmental problem will go down and the people will enjoy the cities lives with clean environment.

Nwe Nwe Lwin

ID: 540415506

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3E7VyI0N7E