Sustainable Urbanism in Lowry Range Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 8500 words

Sustainable Urbanism in Lowry Range - Essay Example Contemporary planning and development approaches suggest that privately-owned public spaces will be the Twenty-First Century reality for public spaces (Wallace 2005). As a leader in efforts to provide attractive and inclusive public spaces, New Urbanism also continues a development trend of reliance on the private sector’s provision and management of public activity and public space assets. Conflict exists between Constitutionally-protected rights of access, assembly, speech and expression and private property rights to exclude persons and activity. In the status quo, there are regulatory voids of excessive, ambiguous, and inadequate regulations that were attributable to direct private sector control and indirect public sector control. Analysis of the broader public forum regulatory structure for these spaces discovered that public use of certain spaces and certain commercial areas are especially vulnerable to these regulatory voids. Furthermore, it is important to note that e xpress public use rights in the form of public access/use entitlements play a unique role in supporting the public forum status of privately-owned public space (Endress 2005).Such administrative capacity is impeded by a limited understanding of the role of interstitial public spaces, by limited municipal resources for small park spaces, by strong commercial interests with small model development expectations, and by an entrenched property title bias toward bona fide public space assets.

Characteristics of the Market Essay Example for Free

Characteristics of the Market Essay a. National market Processing the small specialty foods with a broad product line and sales of $300 million per year which a food brokers represent the company to the retail food chains by the network. This company more focused on ethnic food specialties which including salad dressings, sauces for Italian pasta and condiments such as specialties pickles. b. Two plants produced product One in the Central Valley of California at Fresno and the other in Illinois south of Chicago which they buy the ingredients from other foods suppliers to avoid the peak seasonal characteristics encountered by food packers. The company production has take place in large quantities to maintain low production costs and assure consistent product quality. c. Generally order on small quantity Company has ordered from supplier amounting to five to six cases per order only or about 150 to 200 pounds at a time. d. Poor delivery However, customers have commented that the company have a poor delivery services because of many of ingredients are shipped over long distances and it has depending on the season. e. Two major department management This is include the Marketing and Sales and also has Production department and several staff units for personnel, purchasing and finance. Both of departments are responsible for marketing the product lines such promotion, product inventory at the public warehouses, providing sales support and also merchandising. There is also a national sales manager who responsibility for maintaining contact with food brokers, coordinating public warehouses and arrange for delivery 1) Case Summary (What’s the issue?) Horizon Foods Corporation (hereafter â€Å"Horizon†) is a still-growing, nationwide foods organization that is widely known for its high quality products. With $300 million sales each year, the firm has been relatively successful so far, gaining good reputation and arousing much interest of the public through its brokers and local retailers. However, as the company prospers and customers demand more, Horizon foresees a coming crisis. The distribution issue, which the company has faced for a while, is now causing stock-outs, and increasing competition in the market is threatening the company’s market share. Authorities involved fail to scrutinize the issue and its cause, and they are eager to blame each other for the problems. The division of labor between two major departments – Marketing and Sales, and Production – seems to need a complete rearrangement for a more efficient process. Horizon should also analyze its current brand positioning in the market and rework its strategies if needed. 2) Q1. What are the characteristics of the market served by the Horizon Foods Corporation? Horizon is a specialty foods processor. It has served a national market composed of food brokers who represent retail store chains. The food brokers make orders to Horizon. Generally, the orders are small. The production is done in two different plants thanks to the ingredients from some food suppliers. The plants are located in agricultural areas to reduce the cost of transportation. Moreover, Horizon produces in large quantities, and the food produced is very good in quality. The production is dispatched to several public warehouses. Then, these warehouses use contract carriers to deliver the products to the customers. Because of the small orders, the transportation cost to retail stores can be high. The market is very competitive since many of Horizon’s food competitors also offer a complete production line

The Reasons To Enter Vietnam Economics Essay

The Reasons To Enter Vietnam Economics Essay 1.0 Introduction Vietnam located at the eastern part of the Indochinese Peninsula and the center of South East Asia and a tropical country of the northern hemisphere. The government is runs by the Communist Party of Vietnam. In 1995, the population size in Vietnam reached 74million, ranking second in South East Asia, seventh in Asia-Pacific Region and twelfth the world over. The population size was then increased to 95 million people in the year 2010. Vietnam count as a poor country if refer to its own country GDP per person. After Dot Moi came, the national economy has improved at a high rate thus it improved the living standards and national income of local people as well. The country is one of the fastest growing economies in global which had shown a consistent growth rate in the recent years. While according to World Economic Outlook of the International Monetary Fund in 2011, the GDP of Vietnam was increased per capita and develops from lower- income country to middle-income country (Richard Rou sseau, 2011). Coca-Cola entered Vietnams market at 2004 and produced its own vitamin-packed energy drink along with some familiar brands such as Joy, Fanta, Sprite, and others for the local consumers. Besides, Coca-Cola builds three production plants in Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City. Reasons to Enter Vietnam At 2004, Coca-Cola made its first move out from Africa, they decided enters to the Asias markets which include Vietnam. These acquisitions were in line with the Groups growth strategy to expand into emerging markets, in order to underpin the organizations position as an Emerging Markets Specialist (Coca-Cola Sabco History, 2009). The first move of Coca-Cola into Vietnam is based on the new emerge and rapid growth of economy in Vietnam. As the rapid population growth and improvement of economy in Vietnam, Coca-Cola took the opportunity to enter their market. Vietnams economy was growing at between 4% 8% after recovery from the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997.The enhancing of living and educational standards of Vietnamese help in providing employment opportunities to them. The entry of the firm in Vietnamese market able in enhance the economic development and create some job opportunities for the local people. As the soda consumption has reduced in the U.S., Coca-Cola is one of the soft drink industries that increasingly looking to expand their business in countries where there consist of higher national income rate and huge population (Bloomberg Business week New, 2012). This news had shown the reason that Vietnam still able to encourage more investment from Coca-Cola in Vietnam. Moreover, Vietnam relies on the petroleum industry for its local energy consumption and for export; it will cause the economy of Vietnam more stable and attracted many foreign companies direct invest in Vietnam. This had attracted Coca-cola to enter Vietnam markets at 2004. Moreover, the payment for employees in Vietnam is quite low, therefore, it attract foreign companies moving into Vietnam instead of traditional market such as China, India, and Thailand. These all reasons push Coca-Cola chooses Vietnam and made it first move into it to operate its plants there. 2.0 Analysis Gains of entering into a foreign country Political Stability Entering into a foreign country such as Vietnam consists of gains and shortcomings. One of the advantages to enter Vietnam is its political stability. According to Mr. Philippe Delalande in 2010, he mentioned that political stability is one of the factors that have helped Vietnam pursue its economic development policy. Others view from George E. Kobrossy in 2013, General Director of Zamil Steel Vietnam (ZSV) also mention the advantages which help in attracting foreign investors to the country is Vietnams political stability, administrative reform and its efforts in upgrading infrastructure facilities. Coca-Cola faced problems to enter some countries few decades ago due to the politic issues that happened in the country. Standage (n.d) said that Coca-Cola did not exist in the former Soviet Union (Russian) because they worry that the revenue would go transfer to communist government coffers. While Webster (n.d) mention that Coca-Cola not enter French society because Coca-Cola was a mar k of capitalism and a difference between capitalism and communism during Cold War.US brand like Coca-Cola found itself pester in politics, or singled out for criticism although they are not trying to get involved in politics, said Webster. Thus, for the obvious reason, Coca-Cola reentered Vietnams market because of the political stability after Doi Moi (reformation) policy as they feel more assurance in expanding their business in a stable politic country. Foreign Direct Investment One of the gains of Coca-Cola is that Vietnamese government provides many investment incentives for foreign investors, the corporate income tax is low compared to other countries in South East Asia (standard rate is 28% and preferential rates from 10% to 20%). The Foreign Investment Agency reports that by 15 December 2011 Vietnam had attract more than 13,667 foreign investment projects, with a total capital of around RM612 billion (Foreign Investment Agency, 2011). Foreign-invested companies including Coca-Cola accounted for around 27% of the countrys exports, 35% of the countrys total industrial productivity, constituted 13% of GDP, and contributed around 25% of total tax incomes (Vietnam Investment Review, 2001). Thus, there are about US$300 million was announced to invest in Vietnam by Coca-Cola for further capture growing opportunities in one of the most developing consumer markets (Staff, 2012). Under commitments made by Vietnam as part of its agreement to the World Trade Organi zation, Vietnam offered foreign enterprise which included Coca-Cola the general right to import products and sell them to licensed distributors. The process to obtain an investment certificate for foreign-owned company is much easier now. Low labor cost Vietnam is gaining competitive advantage for labor-intensive production industry on the basis of low salary level (Meyer, 2005). In the research on labor costs, Japan labor cost in one month is $1,810, continue by $1,144 in Singapore, $82 in Indonesia, and then Vietnam rank the second lowest place which is US$49 a month and follow by the highest is Cambodia with $47.36 (EuroCham, 2010). Coca-Cola who has chosen to set-up regional offices in Vietnam help Vietnam proven the extensive labor pool is competitive in the market (GLC, 2007). According to the information collected, we found that Coca-Cola Vietnam invest in Vietnam to help boost the local business sales and created 500 new jobs locally in Vietnam while the total labor force that gain this benefit is 99 percent of local Vietnamese (Staff, 2012). This high percentage use of labor force proves that Coca-Cola Vietnam is afforded to hire more local employees due to their low labor cost or low wages. Low production Cost Coca-Cola entering Vietnam because one of the gains is they can exempted from import duties to build fixed assets, such as bottling machinery, means of transport, and production materials that are not produced locally. Additional exemptions are available for raw materials, parts and materials imported for production of goods for export. Coca-Colas revenue in central Vietnam had witnessed a double digit growth over the past few years; three bottling plants of the company produce more than 608 million liters per year in Vietnam (Nordic Industry Development, 2012). Therefore, Coca-Cola beverages Vietnam invested over $3 million into its second Danang-based purified bottle water production chain, with a capacity of up to 6,000 of 500ml bottles per hour due to the low production cost they gain in Vietnam (Nordic Industry Development, 2012). Variety Product Lines that meet Vietnameses Beverages Need Coca-Cola enters Vietnam as they met the demand for hydration, nutrition and energizing refreshment of their customer in Vietnam. Coca-Cola has variety brand of products in Vietnam such as Coca-cola, Coca-cola Light, Fanta, Joy, Minute Maid, Dasani, Real Leaf, Samurai, Schweppes and Sprite. Joy is bottled water drink that pure and has the largest share of 32% compare other brand that company produce. Coca-Cola has the second largest share of 23% continue by Sprite with the percentage of 18% and Fanta which has 17%. Other brands like Samurai obtain 5% from the market share while Minute Maid and Schweppes each occupied 2.5% (Soft drink-Vietnam, 2010). They offer high quality product that meet the need of their target market. For example, Samurai is targeted on the underserved market which is the Vietnamese male adults who need an energy boost, as most of them have heavy workloads. This vitamin-packed energy drink is fortified with six essential B vitamins and has an exciting and refres hing taste with a carbonated, sweet flavor that appeals to the Vietnamese palate and popular among the target group. (Coca Cola Sabco, 2009) Shortcomings of entering into a foreign country Unable to generate wholly-owned subsidiary business One of the shortcomings of Coca-Cola in Vietnam is that foreign-based companies are generally not able to have wholly-owned subsidiary without production in the country. Therefore, importers would normally cooperate with local partners. (Nguyen Meyer, 2004). This had caused Coca-Cola lost a great opportunity in generating more profits. Coca-Cola started-up their bottling plants through joining venture with local Vietnamese partner using the name of Coca-Cola Vietnam. (DDDN, 2013) With the holding only 60 percents of the venture, Coca Cola has limited control over the resources, information and financial leverage to expand their business model and caused this business to be unprofitable. (à lvarez, 2003) According to Ho Chi Minh City Department of Taxation, Coca-Colas cumulative losses are US$180.6 million, even bigger than its equity of US$141.6 million and Coca Cola was doubted that having transfer pricing. (TuoiTreNews, 2012). Limited Control There a major part of Vietnamese business still owned and controlled by the government and local authorities although there is dramatically growth of private business in Vietnam in recent years (Embassy, 2005). State ownership is still dominant, and issues like informal business practices or land leasing still cause headaches to foreign investors. From the information we analyze, we believe that Coca-Cola also face more difficulties in accessing bank financing, land, and other critical resources that private and smaller enterprises faced the same problems (Tenev, 2003). Coca-Cola as a foreign investors enter Vietnam this Communist country need follow their culture and unfortunately control as well as restricted their business operation in order to continue survive in Vietnam. We believe that Coca-Cola need to have personal relationships in order to sustain their business under Vietnams control because there are some enterprises also follow the same culture with Coca-Cola. There are 4 0 percent of the enterprises believed they had to have personal relationships to receive allocated and transferred lands if regarding to the land use procedures (Vietna.net Bridge, 2012). Drinking Water Problems The last shortcoming of entering Vietnam is about drinking water problems. Drinking water is a key element for healthy life and it is a cornerstone for sustainable community. Most of the consumers of beverages who are concern of the water resource and it will directly affect their purchase decision. (Dickson, 2005)Thus for this obvious reason, Coca cola acknowledged that clean water is critical to operate in sustainable community like Vietnam. In many part of Vietnam, clear water is still a dream. However, Coca-Cola wasted 2.43 liters of water just to produce 1 liter of beverage on average. (Kenan Institute Asia , 2010) Thus, it has given a big impact toward the environment. Our business can only be as healthy as the local communities where we operate; access to clean water is one of the most important barometers of a communitys health. by Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO, the Coca-Cola Company. Coca Cola also understand that the issue of water wastage for the production not only affect s the ecology and environment but it affects the corporate image of their company as well. 3.0 Recommendations In past decades, Coca-Cola adopted joint venture with the local partners to penetrate into the Vietnamese market. However, many partners had quit the venture as they unable to bear with the consecutive  loss made. These losses are basically caused by the unnecessary spending and poor cash flow in the business. Thus, in order overcome the problem, jointing venture with local partner such as Chuong Duong Beverage Co. is not sufficient to expand their business efficiently, Coca-Cola should joint venture with other foreign firms who are large enough to support them in term of financial and management as well as serve the demand of the market. For instance, the PepsiCo. has jointed venture with Japanese beverage and wellness company Suntory Holdings Ltd. in Vietnam in order to sustain long term growth in Vietnamese market. As Suntory has a consolidated business foundation in South-East Asian markets, PespiCo is boosting its current market position in order to compete with their competit ors. (RTT , 2012) Beside, In order to generate more revenue, Coca-Cola should follow the footsteps of FedEx to consider in application for wholly-owned subsidiary. FedEx is expected to be the firm that having 100 percents of subsidiary in Vietnam. This could help them to have long-term commitment in Vietnamese market as they able to take advantage in this growing market. (Linh, 2012) In order to solve the limited control problems, Coca-Cola can establish a harmonious relationship with the local authorities since it easier to solve bureaucratic problems if and when they occur especially in Communist country. Relations with local and central authorities can be developed as cooperative relationships, and networking and building personal relationships is recommended to expand their business in Vietnam. Coca-Cola Company should build a close relationship with government so that they will provide more subsidies and privileges to Coca-Cola including the decreasing cost in power usage and cheaper raw materials. Gifts to the appropriate persons and doing more charity to the poverty residents may enhance the atmosphere and smooth the business process given that sending presents is part of traditional Vietnamese culture. Coca-Cola spent over 5milions to 2.1 billion populations in Pacific for the effort of managing the clean water resources with the Community Water Partnership (CWP) program .For example, in Vietnam, Coca-Cola enhances their corporate image and improving the water quality through the Plain of Reeds Wetland Restoration Project and Clean Water for Communities (Phase II), more than 10,000 Vietnam residents able to access to the clear water through. (Staff, 2012) However, these programs dont really have a significant improvement to clean water issue. Thus, in order to achieve efficiency and effectiveness for the business and production operation, Coca-Cola needs to have advance water recovery system besides their CWP program. Water resources always is the global challenges for the beverages company especially operate in country like Vietnam who facing serious issue of clean water. Indeed, Coca-Cola claimed that the technology that they developed not only can reduce operational water needs but it also improves water use efficiency by up to 35percents. (The Coca Cola company, 2012). However, we believe that this technology can be improved by learning from competitors innovation such as PepsiCo. With the helping of Siemens Industry Automation Division PepsiCo has installed an integrated reuse solution at Santiagos snack plantation. It helps the manufacturing facility in increasing its wastewater treatment capacity by 20percents and it is a beneficial technology that incorporating environmental. Besides, the system will reduce 70 percents of fresh water consumption. (Warrendale, 2012) Nonetheless, as we all know these two giant beverage companies were competed aggressively in the industry over a century. Additional, one of the competitive advantages of these companies to retain their uniqueness is their innovation and technology. Therefore, if these two companies could alliance themselves in term of sharing their technology among themselves to solve the water wastage issue it could bring a better water quality to Vietnamese as well as enhances their production especially the bottling process. Since they have the same interest, they can cooperate under the Strategic alliance basis. Strategic alliances are agreements between companies that remain independent and are often in competition. (R.J., 1999). Many alliances are designed in order to seek for improvement in volume, divide fixed costs of production and distribution. A very good example Coca-Cola can refer is the alliance of Nestlà ¨ and Haagen-Dazs. We believe we can grow better together than separately said a Diageo spokesperson. Nestlà ¨ would contribute its frozen dessert technology, while Haagen Dazs would contribute to distribution through the network of points of sale with its name. (E, 1999). The alliance of these two companies for production and marketing has allowed Nestlà ¨ sought to build critical mass in the ice cream sector and a way to reduce costs by operating its plants in California and Maryland at full capacity. (Pellicelli, 2003) Besides, further improvement in competitive advantages can be done through improving Coca-Colas variety product lines. As we know few of the Coca-Cola product lines like Samurai, Coke Light, and Joy win a competitive advantage in Vietnams market. If compare to Coca-Cola biggest competitor markets strategy, PepsiCo had entered the food market and earn over $13 million to their business. Besides, PepsiCo also engaged in snack food which brand under Frito-Lay to gain more markets share. Thus, we suggest that Coca-Cola Company also can increase their market share by extends their product brand in snack as what PepsiCo done. Coca-Cola Company can invest in a new snack brand to attract more consumers in the Vietnam food market. This strategy can be effectively and efficiently implement because snack food is commonly consumed by Vietnamese families but Vietnamese will consume snack food that import from United State due to its lower price (What We Eat to Help Us Grow, 2010). Coca-Cola Compa ny can produce healthy snack food with lower price to attract Vietnamese who focus in health such as Frito Lay which their tasting chips are low fat and ingredient all are natural which contain no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives (Pepsico, 2012). 4.0 Conclusion Coca-cola as a global leader in beverages industry offer hundreds of brand over the world had entered Vietnam market by offer quality product that can be trust and fulfill the need of Vietnamese. Coca-Cola Company help people lead to an active and healthy lifestyle by provide the information of the beverages. Coca-Cola Company announcement an investment plan of invest $300 million in Vietnam over the next three years to build new infrastructure, create jobs, develop strong partnerships and build its brands in the country.   In the research, we found that enter to Vietnam market have it advantages and disadvantages. After we analyze, we realize that the gains of Coca-Cola is more than shortcomings after enter Vietnam. In order to overcome the shortcomings, Coca-Cola needs to adopt immediate solution and effective strategies in order to strengthen their market position in Vietnam.

Simulation Proliferation and the City Essay examples -- Essays Papers

Simulation Proliferation and the City Mr. Hand wears all black, is tall, thin, and pale. He floats around a dark city and ends far too many lines with a creepy self-affirming â€Å"yesss.† In Dark City (Alex Proyas 1998) we see over and over again indications of the tropes and repetitions that make up the urban/filmic imagination. Not quite vampires, not quite grey aliens, not quite business men, not quite religious, not quite serial murderers, Mr. Hand and the other Strangers seem to be archetypal characters of the city. Is the imagination a domesticating function, territorializing wild occurrence and happenstance into termed rearrangements of what has come before? Or is it an explosive and infinite fountain of creativity? Modern metropolises and imagination present themselves together in such films as mutually helpful tools for inspecting one another – but my effort is to use the city to discuss several imaginations. As is only obvious enough from one city dweller talking to another, imagination (m oreso than representation or memory) is home to the ever changing city. Conversely, however, the city enables a specific citified imagination, with its own structure and economy. To begin, though, I want to interrogate, as a point of departure, the philosophy of fantasy in a highly commercial, idyllic, anti-city movie. Those lucky children of the 80’s witnessed the depiction and eventual summarization of the relation between fantasy, imagination, fiction, story, and control in the politico-creative manifesto, The Neverending Story (Wolfgang Peterson 1984). In the movie, Sebastian (a somewhat troubled young boy) reads a book (whose unfolding is the main content of the screen) and is then implicated in the collapse of a fantas... ...gination can be spoken of as a discourse that is ultimately just about itself: it is only by imagination that one imagination is to discover anything about the next – yet this ethereality is not only not troubling for the stability of simulation, but itself stabilized by the overproduction of simulacra such that its processing is pressured into sheer reactive creativity. The strikingly bizarre and symptomatically fascinating point, though, is why imagination might have almost anything at all to do with simulation, but this is just the predominant strength of an imagination over its inscription, by representation, into broader circulating winds of reality: its apparent nihilism. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Ã… ½iÃ… ¾ek, Slavoj. â€Å"Passion in the Era of Decaffeinated Belief.† Thy Symptom Issue 5, Winter 2004.

Desiree’s Baby and Battle Royal: Character Comparison Essay

Reasons the main characters in Desiree’s baby and Battle Royal choose different paths to solve their problems Racism has deterred many Africans from living happily, for from the two given stories we saw that one took her own life for that and the other had to suffer all the cruelty and inequality of the whites in order to continue his academic life. In the stories, our main characters had both chosen different paths, solutions to their problem. The reasons that lead to this dissimilarity were that both of them were different people with different stands in society and also their situations were not alike. As a woman, Desiree’s joy in life lied in her happy family yet she was deserted by her own husband. Armand’s treatment towards Desiree made her became miserable and so when she left with the child, she had nothing to live for. Armand and Desiree were very much in love at the beginning of the story and Desiree could not cope without him. Desiree did not understand what she had done but she felt guilty. Armand thought that she had betrayed him that she was an unfaithful wife. The change in Armand’s attitude towards his wife affected Desiree and due to this she killed herself and her child. On the other hand, our young African-American narrator was a slave. He was and always has been an obedient slave who believed if he worked hard enough the white community would accept him. Thus, through all the abuse and after being treated as an entertainment, he still held on to his speech the one thing he was firmed of. And in the end, though he was very confused if his grandfather’s words were true he had to go continue his academic life first, which left him in a crossroad. Furthermore, Desiree was adopted by a well-respected family and also she married Armand who was also from a wealthy family, which put a lot of pressure on her to be a perfect woman. So when her husband falsely accused her of being black, she was confused since it went against everything she had been in her whole life: good, kind, and pure. She was shocked to see happiness taken away from her so easily and also to see that she had became a humiliation to her husband’s and her own family. That also is why she chose death as her solution. In contrast to Desiree the narrator’s family in Battle Royal were all slaves. They were not ashamed of it. They believed in â€Å"Equal but separate. †, they always taught their kids to be good and their good deed will be rewarded. This point was proven when white people gave the narrator a scholarship. At that point he had caught glimpses of the cruelty of the white society but still he was very grateful for that scholarship hence, it blindfolded him from the real truth. Moreover, Desiree chose death for herself because she thought she had nothing left to live for in this world, she was treated like an outcast. Of course we can argue that she had to live for her baby, but in the end she did what she did to save both of them. She was scared and she knew for sure that in this society no one would accept her baby. She did not want her child to go through what she had thus ending both of their lives was the easiest choice. However, our narrator in Battle Royal, not like Desiree, he had a choice. He could go to college be an obedient African-American like he was and everything would stay perfectly fine. He could have a life and he was not going to throw that rare opportunity away which is why his choice of path was not remotely as same as Desiree’s in the other short story. In conclusion, our characters had unraveled their problems through different ways. Desiree chose to commit suicide and our narrator in Battle Royal continued with his life though he was unsure what he should do. They chose differently because they were different person, they came from different society class at that time, and their problems were not the same. But in the end, Desiree and the African-American narrator were both victims of racism which were portrayed differently in both of our short stories but still were saying in Desiree’s case what tragic did racism brought and in our young narrator’s case that how racism can be covered with the sentence â€Å"Equal but separate. †

Kobe Earthquake Case Study

Great Hanshin / Kobe earthquake In the early of January 17th in 1995 at 5:46pm, while many were still sleeping peacefully, the destructive Great Hanshin earthquake, which measured 7. 2 on the Richter scale, struck the Japanese city of Kobe. Kobe has a population of 1. 5 million people and is a major port for importing and exporting goods for Japan, situated south of the main island, Honshu, on a narrow strip of land between the ocean and high mountain ranges, it lies above the junction of the Philippine and Eurasian plates.Kobe has rarely been affected by major earthquakes, only small tremors occasionally, but this earthquake that lasted for a whole 20 seconds, was the biggest to hit japan in 47 years. Japan is situated on the margin of the Eurasian plated, where the Philippine sea plate is being subducted below the Eurasian plate, resulting in Japan having greater than average seismic and volcanic activity. Immediately south of Osaka bay is a fault called the median tectonic line (M TL) and it was sudden movement along this fault that triggered the earthquake that hit Kobe.The movement was caused by the friction from the Eurasian and Philippine plates converging. The earthquake had a shallow focus, only 16 km below the surface, which had caused it to become so destructive. Kobe was largely affected, as the epicentre was only 30 km from the city centre. Japan is said to be the most earthquake prone country but this was proved otherwise in the Kobe earthquake. The 20 second earthquake caused the ground to move up to 50 centimetres horizontally and up to 1 meter vertically.The primary effects from the seismic waves shaking the crust were severe causing the collapse of buildings, bridges and roads. With a total of 75 000 buildings damaged or destroyed and all major road and rail way links damaged all communications from the east and west of japan were cut off. The after shocks from the earthquake caused the problems to become worse with a total of 5000 people dead, 300 000 homeless and 68 children orphaned. The earthquake also triggered a number of fires, congestion, chaos and business closures.Because of the severity of the earthquake it made it extremely difficult for emergency services to reach the worst affected parts of the city. All gas, water and telecommunications were cut off making it extremely hard for emergency crews to communicate and for fire fighters to put out the fires across the city, leaving the fire fighters to watch helplessly as Kobe burned. The earthquake caused a total of 100 billion dollars of damage with economic damage taking up 100 million dollars.Many typical Japanese insurance policies did not cover earthquakes, causing many families to loose everything. In the first few days food, blankets, medical supplies and clean water were of short supplies and the winter weather made it worse with temperatures dropping to -2. Because of the severity of the earthquake and the shortage in supplies, authorities found the disa ster difficult to cope with and the special defence forces were unable to reach the site until 4 hours after the earthquake with the original team only consisting of 170 troops.Even though the earthquake had such a large impact on all aspects of japan at the time it did not take them all to recover and get back on track with the short-term relief and rescue measures put in place they were able to get water, electricity, gas and telephone services were fully working by July and by august the railways were back in service. The port was rebuilt and the import volumes recovered fully within a year and the exports were nearly back to normal. The earthquake also caused a major decline in Japanese Stock market which then caused a domino effect on the banks but despite this damage the local economy recovered quickly.

Raging Against The Machine essays

Raging Against The Machine essays Imagine the world without music. Or imagine a world where we are told what to play, what to sing and even what we may listen to in the privacy of our own homes. That world already exists. A very politically charged band known as Rage Against Machine is one band out of thousands that has run into problems with the explicit nature of their music. To make a statement, Rage Against The Machine (RATM) had hung two upside-down American flags from their amps. Seconds before they took the stage to perform Bulls on Parade, Saturday Night Live (SNL) and NBC sent stagehands in to pull the flags down. The inverted flags, says Tom Morello (Rages guitarist), represented our contention that American democracy is inverted when what passes for democracy is an electoral choice between two representatives of the privileged class. Americas freedom of expression is inverted when youre free to say anything you want to say until it upsets a corporate sponsor. Finally, this was our way of expressing our opinion of the shows host, Steve Forbes. RATM first attempted to hang the flags during a pre-telecast rehearsal, SNLs producers demanded that we take the flags down, says Morello. They said the sponsors would be upset, and that because Steve Forbes was on, they had to run a tighter show. SNL also told the band it would mute objectionable lyrics in Bullet In The Head (Which was supposed to be RATMs second song). SNL even insisted that the song be bleeped in the studio because Forbes had friends and family there. On shows opening night, following the first performance, with the flags being torn down, RATM were approached by SNL and NBC officials and ordered to immediately leave the building (Hendrickson). Why did Saturday Night Live invite Rage Against The Machine to perform on their show when they disagree with what the band represent...