Urban Planning

URBAN PLANNING
Name:
Grade Course:
Tutor’s Name:
(18th April, 2012)
To the Mayor,
I take this opportunity to salute you first. In the real sense, one of the heated debates currently as far as community economic development is concerned is the debate between people based and place based approaches used in controlling housing affordability, poverty, serious unemployment and community decline. The question asked by many individuals is whether the help should be allocated to the distressed individuals or distressed places. Actually his Highness, this question is challenging to give an answer. Practically, both unemployment and poverty are mostly spatially concentrated. This is normally the case despite the place or the people affected. Additionally, this is the case despite the limited underperforming neighborhoods within the economically performing metropolitan economies. Characterized by low incomes, decreasing housing levels, increased social demand services and increased rates of unemployment, these places mostly contain reduced services, underperforming schools and reduced jobs which match the skills possessed by the local residents.
On the contrary, despite the fact that place-based programs are appealing and prevalence, most researchers consider them not only wasteful but also counterproductive. These researchers provide an argument such strategies are not only blunt but also indirect. In addition, these strategies normally represent ill-conceived bribes towards the poor to remain in poor places in worst conditions (Minton, 2012). On the contrary, it is the belief of these scholars that the people based help that is unlimited to given places but instead based on other individual situations is normally less wasteful and targeted well than the place based help. They enable residents living in disadvantaged zones to migrate basing on their preference towards better chances without losing the eligibility of the program. Instead of asking individuals to remain within these distressed areas to get assistance, the critics ask the reason why these people should not simply be assisted.
In the actual sense, the place versus people debate is not only misleading but also incomplete. Particularly, it interferes with the dual basis of community economic development. An example of a development obstacle about housing and labor failures in the market is basically nature redistribution. Make a consideration of development problems in the community where people lack enough private resources like jobs, food, costly transportation, adequate income and affordable transportation. The direct solution in these circumstances is to give resources by transferring payments. These transfer designs is responsible for various problems concerned with incentives. In these problems both the demand and supply sides is clearly important. On the other hand, an important question is if transfer design should contain a geographic constituent. This leaves us in a dilemma. We ask ourselves if we should just offer money to poor people or offer them vouchers for housing.
On the other hand, the other dilemma is whether to identify new facilities within the neighborhood of people and make attempts to stimulate development within the settlements of poor people. In academicians and especially economists, the normal response is to move away from place-based strategies. The conditions of a given place may have an effect in identifying and locating concentrated unemployment or poverty. On the contrary, they sometimes increase costs than increase gains. This is normally the case especially if the purpose targeted a policy to raise the incomes among the disadvantaged. Obviously, the gains of place-specific requirements accumulate from mostly the owners of the land. Supposing the owners of the land are not among the target recipients of which is normally the case as they are not poor, then the programs based on place are inaccurate redistribution tools. Additionally, place-based strategies give a definition to beneficiaries in a spatial way. In addition, they discourage mobility of people from distressed areas. These people might be well attended to if relocated to a different place. If properly designed and implemented, programs based on people like income tax breaks or vouchers offer increased assistance to the welfare of people (Gabalawi, 2010).
It is very important to understand that inadequate resources constitute the major low income problem among individuals. On the contrary, it is not normally the only issue affecting these individuals in the long run. Their neighborhoods in addition possess neglected infrastructure, schools which underperform and inadequate protection by the police. Hence, another wide class of development challenges in the community is featured by spatial failures in the market whereby given places go through inadequate spatial public commodities and underinvestment.
This includes education, networks of politics, safety, community identity and spatial externalities of geographically connected labor markets and housing. These failures are prevalent and are difficult to be controlled through transfers alone. In the real sense, they are difficult to treat as they signify dilemma in classic public commodities where exami...