What role should a second business district (like Parramatta CBD) play
What role should a second business district (like Parramatta CBD) play in a post-industrial, 21st Century metropolis (like Greater Sydney)? And how do current planning policies and processes catalyse or hinder Parramatta in realising this role?
What role should a second business district like Parramatta CBD play
What role should a second business district (like Parramatta CBD) play in a post-industrial, 21st Century metropolis (like Greater Sydney)? And how do current planning policies and processes catalyse or hinder Parramatta in realising this role?
While there is no prescription on how you answer this question, assignments should incorporate the standard features of a research essay:
Firstly, Introduction – including some overarching argument or hypothesis the essay will support
Secondly, Theory/literature review – including around polycentric cities (or regions) and post-industrial (or global) cities
Thirdly, Case context – including any details about Parramatta CBD’s history or geography that are relevant to the subsequent analysis
Fourthly, Case data – including any relevant details about the planning policies or processes shaping Parramatta CBD, and any expected major changes to the population, industries and built environment
Additionally, Case analysis/discussion – this will tie together the case study data and the theory: how effective, coherent, organised, democratic, sustainable, feasible, etc., are current planning policies and processes shaping Parramatta CBD? What advantages or impediments do you anticipate will influence Parramatta realising its potential?
Finally, Conclusion – summarising the key insights of the analysis and addressing the argument or hypothesis introduced at the outset.
Helping Material
When searching for literature for the essay, note that the idea of a second CBD in a single city (or related concepts) goes by multiple names: polycentric cities, network cities, edge cities, multi-nodal cities, distributed cities, multiple nuclei model, conurbations, etc. The same applies to ‘post-industrial’ cities. Similar concepts are world cities, network cities, global cities, entrepreneurial cities, creative cities, and more.
There is a long tradition on examining polycentric cities. One useful starting point is Davoudi (2003). She breaks down the concept well, particularly from a European perspective. It is commonly cited, so can lead you to more recent literature. But there is still open discussion around polycentric cities today. One very recent study, from the US, is Park et al (2020). It gets somewhat technical, but includes a review of other recent work on the topic. So, again, can lead you to other useful literature. Also, consider searching for details of well-known examples of second CBDs: Canary Wharf, Ranstad, Oakland, etc. This will turn up other useful literature.
Note that not all literature you find will be on the same topic as you essay.
Some will examine transport connections, ethnic clusters (think Chinatown), economic specialisation, and more. So expect to read more than you cite. You can search the library website for resources, but I always start with Google Scholar. If there is a good book, it will be cited by the journal articles that turn up in the Google Scholar search. And, in case you don’t know, if you find an online article (including those above) that are behind a pay wall, search for it on the library website.
Follow the links, log in when prompted, and you’ll usually have full access.
Finally, make sure you are assessing sources you rely on to support your essay for reliability and relevance. Don’t just stick a random citation in your essay and hope for the best. If it is something I’ve never heard of (either author, journal or publisher) I’m going to question it. If the source is not appropriate (or doesn’t make the point you are attributing to it), it suggests you haven’t understood the literature and you’ll be marked down. Again, the library has resources on assessing literature sources.
