case studies

• Detroit

  • A city in the state of Michigan, USA
  • It's declining... suffering from the effects of deindustrialisation.
  • It's in the rustbelt, an area of industrial decline in the northeast USA
  • The once-powerful manufacturing region, famous for steel and car production. It fell into decline following automation, global shift and increased free trade.
  • It was once the centre of American car manufacturing 'Motor City'
  • By 2014, 2/3 of Detroit's residents could not afford basic needs like food and fuel
  • Life expectancy in parts of Detroit is just 69 years city
• China – Environmental problems due to globalisation

  • Pollution and health problems 70% of lakes are polluted, exaggerating water shortages.
  • Industrial towns where rates of cancer are so high are becoming known as ‘cancer villages’.
  • ¼ of water is so dangerously polluted it cannot be used for industrial purposes.
  • Land degradation: 40% of land is degraded
  • Over-exploitation of resources • China is abundant in oil and coal but cannot keep up with demand.
  • China seeks additional resources worldwide. Loss of biodiversity
  • Terrestrial vertebrates have declined by 50% in China
• Is Fairtrade always good?

  • Starbucks 2009 – Introduced Fairtrade coffee. Fairtrade helps farmers to have a better quality of life by giving them a fair price for the beans.
  • 2014 – Only 8.5% of the coffee beans were Fairtrade certified.
  • 2015 Starbucks scored low by a review company called ‘ethical consumer’
• Leicester – Impacts of deindustrialisation:

  • In the 1920’s, 30,000 were employed in textile mills.
  • These mills attracted Indian and Pakistani families for extra workers.
  • In the 1970’s, the UK saw massive deindustrialisation due to overseas competition.
  • Dereliction: Most of the land is contaminated from dyes, gas or coal. A lot of pre-industrial land has been abandoned.
  • Deprivation: Areas of deprivation often coincide with previous industrial areas, containing large ethnic populations. These areas have a reputation for crime and are hard to turn around.
• India is capitalising on its large, well-educated workforce skilled in the English language. It produces over a million graduates each year, including 350,000 engineers. It has a history of excellence in mathematical and software problem-solving; its world ranked educational institutions include 15 Institutes of Technology
• EasyJet

  Founded in 1995, it began as a small venture running flights solely within the UK. Today, most of Europe's major cities are now inter-connected via easyJet's cheap flight network.

  Just a year later flights to Barcelona were introduced, since then the company has expanded at breakneck speed.

  200 airplanes, 300 flight routes in the EU and several that go beyond, 65 million people were using the services and bringing in revenues of £4 billion.

  Connects switched-off places, Estonia has become more switched on with cities like Tallinn becoming an affordable place for stag and hen vacations.
• EU:

  • Evolved from a simple trade bloc to a multi-governmental organization with its own currency and some shared political legislation.
  • Member states are eligible for EU Structural Funds to help develop their economies, whilst agricultural producers benefit from subsidies issued under the Common Agricultural Policy.
  • 'Capital of Culture' and 'European Capital of Innovation' help them gain global status.
  • Two world wars promoted European Countries to wanting to find peace and so interdependency was created.
  • The EU is the only group to grant interdependency to its users.
• ASEAN:

  • 10 member states and a combined population of 600 million people.
  • Established in 1967, works to eliminate tariffs in favour of free trade.
  • The Philippines has gained global status for call centres since.
  • ASEAN is looking to develop into a single market called the ASEAN Economic Community, much like the EU to allow free movement of labour and capital.
  • The members have agreed to peace and stability by pledging to not have nuclear weapons
• • China today has the world's largest economy, with 400 million said to have escaped poverty since the reforms began.
• Prior to 1978, China was poor and politically isolated.

  This changed with the Open Door Policy- 1978!

  • Strict controls on the number of children were introduced to curb population growth.
  • Over the next 30 years, the largest migration in human history took place: 300 million people left rural areas in search of a better urban life.
  • Urbanisation fuelled the growth of low-wage factories, giving China's its nickname 'workshop of the world'.
  • TNCs were quick to establish branches and trade relationships with these factories, whilst new Special Economic Zones at the coasts were set up.
• North Korea: Chosen to remain politically isolated by;

  • Ordinary citizens do not have access to the internet or social media
  • There are no undersea data cables connecting North Korea with anywhere else
  • Cultural influences have no effect at all on North Korea

  North Korean divided from South Korea in 1948, South Korea has since become a developed country home to global brands like Samsung.
• The Sahel Region:

  • Home to some of the world's least developed countries, mismanagement of natural resources and human resources have played a role in the region remaining largely switched-off
  • LDCs lacking coastline, like Chad, struggle to attract FDI
  • Desert conditions further hinder development

  Neighbouring countries, however, are experiencing rapid economic growth - such as Nigeria.
• Global Outsourcing of Services to India

  • Most Indian citizens are fluent in English, in part due to the legacy of the English rule.
  • Broadband capacity is unusually high in Bangalore specifically, a long-established technology hub.

  Costs:

  • Some call centre workers complain they are exploited
  • Work can be highly repetitive with 10-hour shifts 6 days a week
  • Gap between rich and poor has widened in society

  Benefits:

  • Workers earn good middle-class wages
  • Indian outsourcing companies have become extremely profitable with revenues of US$9 billion seen often
• Global Outsourcing of Manufacturing to China:

  • Poverty has fallen from 60% to 16% in just 15 years
  • Wages increased from 30-65%

  Costs:

  • Many workers exploited in the early years with 2500 in some factories losing limbs each year due to unsafe work conditions
  • The environment continues to suffer from air pollution extremes, causing cancer and disease and concerning WHO.

  Benefits:

  • Conditions improving, people enjoying large income gains
  • Chinese companies developing their own products, technology vastly improving
• Karachi: A Megacity

  • Karachi was founded as the capital port city of Pakistan.
  • 24 million live in Karachi in 2015, making it the second most populated city in the world (after Tokyo).
  • Pakistans centre of finance, industry and trade.
  • People flock to the country from all over the country, especially from rural areas.
  • Work found in manufacturing, shipping, banking and retailing.
  • Karachi is a famous university city, producing skilled graduates that have helped it become a hub for media and software companies.
• Migration from India to the UAE

  Known as low-wage international migration.

  2 million Indian migrants live in the United Arab Emirates, making up 30% of the total population.

  Many live in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

  US$15 billion is estimated to be returned to India annually through remittances.

  Most migrants work in transport, construction and manufacturing industries.

  1/5 are professionals working in service industries.
• Changing Diets in Asia

  Context:

  • Traditional Asian diets were often low meat and high vegetables
  • Now: giving way to meat and fast food among the emerging middle classes in China.
  • Within a decade, China's meat consumption per capita increased ten fold from 5kg to 50kg.
  • By 2015 China had the biggest market for processed food.
• What are the impacts of the changing diets in China?

  The physical environment is affected.

  • Livestock farming has become the new focus of Asian agriculture, bringing steep rises in emissions of methane.
  • Crops are imported from across the world to feed the farm animals.
  • The Amazonian rainforest is being cleared to make space for soya to feed Chinese cattle.
  • China has since embarked on land acquisition from poorer countries like Cuba and Kazakhstan to feed its populations.
  • The number of sharks killed for sharks fin soup has doubled to accompany rising demand.
• Global Culture affecting the Indigenous People of the world:

  • More tribes are becoming aware of Western culture, lifestyles and values.
  • Because of the hot climate, the tribes traditionally wear little in the way of clothing, though today many wear modern clothing such as T-shirts.
  • Many are moving from the rainforest to urban areas like Manaus, leaving traditional thatched homes built on stilts.
  • Many no longer value local ecosystems due to cultural erosions.
  • They want income, education and health improvements for their children and so are driven to hunt endangered species for food or to sell.
• Global Paralympics:

  • Cultural attitudes towards disability are changing on a global scale. 1983-1992 was declared the 'Decade of Disabled Persons' by the UN.

  seeks to bring cultural change on a global scale

  In the USA, sterilisation programmes sometimes targetting disabled people lasted until well into the twentieth century.

  The seismic shift in cultural attitudes has taking place globally.

  Global media has turned to Paralympics into one of the world's biggest sporting events by celebrating physical achievements of elite athletes with disabilities.
• Rise of Extremism in Europe:

  Nationalist parties often oppose immigration, some reject multiculturalism and openly embrace fascism.

  The murder of Stephan Lawrence in Elthan in 1993 was an example of a race driven assault.

  Jo Cox was murdered in 2015 by a man shouting 'Britain First'.

  Events like these are still rare but demonstrate tensions in multicultural Europe.

  Around 25% supported France's Front National part in the 2014 European Parliamentary elections.
• Internet Censorship in China:

  China:

  • For 70 years the country has been run by a communist party, with China's rulers being intolerant of any criticism mounted against them by their own citizens.
  • In 1988 Chinese students demonstrated against communism and 100s died as the army intervened.
  • Many still do not know what happened that day in China, due to strict censorship of the press and the internet.
  • The Great Firewall of China restricts Western social media, though 400 million citizens interact on the local media sites.
• North Korea internet censorship:

  • No access to the internet as a result of state controls.
• Trans-Boundary Water Conflicts in Southeast Asia:

  • In 2013 the Lower Mekong River Basin flooded with the 'Mekong River Tsunami' dams overflowed, taking Thai livelihoods with it.
  • China is heavily invested in continually building dams.
  • Bangkok based Save the Mekon coalition have challenged the development rational behind the dam-building spree.
  • They point out how electricity generated by these dams do little to contribute to China's nor regional development.
  • All said to bring water insecurity downstream, though unlikely to form all-out water wars, conflict is sure to be on the horizon.
• Migration Controls in the UK:

  • Since 2010 there has been a five-tier point system in place designed to help control immigration by checking that economic migrants possess skills or resources that the UK economy needs.
  • Tier 1 migrants must be prepared to invest more than £2 million to the UK or possess 'exceptional talent'., though these rules did not apply to EU migrants who were allowed free movement, but now they aren't since Brexit, thus levels playing fieldRefugees are allowed to remain in the UK under human rights law.
• First Nations of Canada

  Context:

  • Canada is home to 6 groups of indigenous people.
  • Occupation of land pre-dates Europeans.
  • Some First Nations oppose the attempts of global oil companies to 'switch on' their region, having experienced negative impacts.
  • Over 200 million barrels of conventional oil has been extracted since 1920 in the Norman Wells.

  Impact:

  1. Death of trout and other fish in oil-polluted lakes

  2. Effects of alcohol and drugs on the behaviour of the people

  Companies like Shell and Imperial Oil continually exploit the region.
• India air pollution


  2024: Monitors recorded pollution levels of 1,500 on the Air Quality Index (AQI) a, according to tech company IQAir - 15 times the level the World Health Organization (WHO) considers satisfactory for breathing.
• air pollution in Dehli 2024?


  The toxic air has disrupted flight services, and had already prompted authorities to shut schools and ban construction work in the city.

  The city has also banned the entry of non-essential trucks into Delhi and has asked all offices to ask 50% of their staff to work from home.
• What did the gov ban in Dehli in 2024?


  banned all activities that involve the use of coal and firewood, as well as diesel generator use for non-emergency services