Old and New

Taken in the city of San fernando is a relatively new established building on the left corner of the picture alongside an old building at the middle of the picture. The other building surrounding the old buildings also look relatively new in contrast. I personally thought this was an important and wonderful picture to mention as it greatly affects the morphology in an urban area and reflects the processes of change within an economy. Just as like a person who gets older so do buildings and their meanings and contribution to the overall essence and perception of a city. According to Hall and Barrett (2012) people value landscapes and the landscape in turn reflect a society and its culture. In some areas old buildings are seen as monuments and kept to keep the good essence that the particular building brought in the past such as an old church or museum, other old building as seen as an outdated stamp that are slapped and labelled on a city if they are kept.  Including new and updated building does in fact change the shape and form of a city as it changes the physical look and the aura of modernity that was intended. The theory that can be related to this photo is the Burgess Concentric Zone model as the building is quite old and may soon be developed in a new building to provide a service for the city and change the look to a more modernized tall storey building such as the ones built around it.

According to an article by Angelo Bissessarsingh about San Fernando on the online Guardian Media he states that the occurrence of frequent fires in San Fernando during the 18th century caused many of the older buildings to perish. The last of the fires in the 1880's resulted in the buildings being built in a pleasant style similar to a western town. this can be seen in the picture below taken from the Guardian Media article. The dirt roads can be seen along with the mode of transport at that time with was a horse and a carriage.

Http://guardianco.tt2013http://guardian.co.tt/columnist/2013-02-17/bustling-heart-san-fernando. By Angelo Bissessarsingh. Accesses 04-15-2013.

Hall T and H Barrett. 2012. Urban Geography. 4th ed. Routledge. London/ New York