Review on three articles from the International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography

I read three articles which I will review as a whole. The first article being “Sustainable transport challenges in a suburban University: The Case of the Autonomous University of Barcelona”. I learned that the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) is one of the largest Universities in Spain and it is located in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (MRB). The MRB has 4.6 million residents and the college is located 23km from the city of Barcelona. This meaning that some means of transport must be used by a lot of the Universities students and staff. The study carried out surveyed how many trips per person, per day (average 3.1) total trips per working day (10.2million trips per week) which has increased by 26.8% in the last four years, even though the population only increased by 7.6%. This means the amount of car trips also increased in unity with the “global trends in car use.” The article went on to give ways of how all these tips could be minimized and how the government could push incentives for people to use public transport to lower emission’s and traffic etc. As well as that they should use disincentives for people using private transport, no free parking etc. Estimated amount of 15,600 people use private transport each day, this is around 41.1% of people.

The second article I read was based on urban tourism. This article discussed Barcelona and how it became a ‘hotspot’ around the mid-19th century, when tourism became popular both business and with cities hosting large events in form of exhibitions of arts, crafts etc. Barcelona had a good adoption of the development of its urban tourist economy. Diane Dodd is said to have argued that Barcelona practiced tourist development encouraging both economic development as well as remembering its culture and identity. With this pursuit of culture the tourist reaction turned Barcelona into a city of mass beach tourism. Although on the plus side Barcelona being host to the 1992 Olympics was a great advantage to the city. It saw development of buildings, landscapes and museum’s throughout the city. Although the regeneration of the city was in fact a successful one, the growth of hen, stag and party orientated tourism is a threat on losing the tourists interested in travelling to see different cultures and sites.

The third article is on “Urban planning, gender and the use of public space in a peripheral neighbourhood of Barcelona”. The article is to examine the use of public space in Barcelona. It looks at this from the point of view of women and feminist literature. Historically town planning and architecture was designed predominantly by male “as if men’s interests and needs were universal”. The design and layout of a town has a larger impact on the lives of women more so than men. Women have a much closer bond with their environment and town as they spend more of their time outdoors. The article explains how it surveyed men and women in different family work and educational situations. The article went on to say that the observations showed a balanced use of public space by men and women of different age groups in many activities. I found this article interesting as it isn’t an issue that would have come to mind when I initially thought of Barcelona.

All three articles found in the “International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography”.