GEOG 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Crackdown, Authoritarianism, 2014 Hong Kong Protests
6 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
GEOG 1000
November 13, 2017
New Inequalities
Rural Cosmopolitans and Affluent Urban Middle Class
● Economic Growth and Urbanization
● New Inequalities
● New demands, new conflicts, growing authoritarianism
New working classes: services making the city function
● Motorcycle taxis
● In Bangkok there are 200,000 motorcycle taxis, the fastest mode of transportation,
and the lifeblood of the city.
● They transport more people than subways
● Even the minister of transport takes the transport.
● They are the face of urbanization
Move to urbanization
● People more from rural places to work in factories and in low wage positions.
● They are the forefront of the new politics
Back to the Future? Asia gaining more GDP since it was an economic centre in 1700
● People had a good standard of living in the in the 1700s, but in the 1800’s that fell
because of economic growth in Europe and North America, Asia grew poor
●
Urbanization: Highly urbanized (mostly East Asia)
to least(e.g., Cambodia (20%), Vietnam (30%), Nepal (17%)
Most people in Asia get most of their income from from non-farming occupations.
Much of Asia is no longer primarily agrarian.
Rates of urbanization and economic growth are highly uneven
PPP: Purchasing Power Parities: Unit for comparing Incomes in $U.S. based on cost of a
basket of goods:
● Extremely poor: Under two PPP $/day
● Poor: Just getting by: 2 to 4 PPP dollars/day
● ‘lower’ and middle working class: 4 to 20 PPP dollars/day
● ‘well off’ (affluent middle class): 20 plus PPP dollars/day
Overview
● Thailand: Most people are kind of lower middle class—but a high proportion of quite
wealthy people.
● China: Rapid economic growth has really reduced poverty, rapidly growing middle
class.
● India: very large proportion remain very poor, but an emerging wealthy ‘middle’ class
Document Summary
New working classes: services making the city function. In bangkok there are 200,000 motorcycle taxis, the fastest mode of transportation, and the lifeblood of the city. Even the minister of transport takes the transport. People more from rural places to work in factories and in low wage positions. They are the forefront of the new politics. Asia gaining more gdp since it was an economic centre in 1700. People had a good standard of living in the in the 1700s, but in the 1800"s that fell because of economic growth in europe and north america, asia grew poor. Urbanization: highly urbanized (mostly east asia) to least(e. g. , cambodia (20%), vietnam (30%), nepal (17%) Most people in asia get most of their income from from non-farming occupations. Much of asia is no longer primarily agrarian. Rates of urbanization and economic growth are highly uneven. Ppp: purchasing power parities: unit for comparing incomes in . s. based on cost of a basket of goods:
