Urban Form of Chaguanas

Chaguanas is an urban area well known for its commercial and shopping services that it provides. it is located in central Trinidad (more on the western edge) between Port of Spain in the north and San Fernanao in the south. From the picture above you can clearly see the factors and processes that help to shape this area as urban. on the right hand corner of the photo one of the leading fast food multinational company can be identified, KFC. This building not only contributes to the morphology of the area but identifies the process of globalization that this country experiences.Globalization as a process transfers ideas, information, people and businesses from one country to the other. Though globalization many other fast food companies such as Mario's and Subway where able to estabish in Trinidad that adds to the greater variety of choices for consumers and shapes the morphology of the area by incorporating their foreign styles. According to Hall and Barrett 2012 TNC's have increased in their dispersal due to the availabilty of cheap labour, and innovations in communications and transport(85). The dispersal is greatly aided by the media as foreign advertisement noware more than ever aired on television, played on radio station and even posted on the billboards that generate the large local consumers. Such marketing and branding of the city is a process that can shape the urban development. (230) Still looking in the right of the photo behind KFC a tall 3 storey building can be seen it  is a local business called Unique. Looking at its architecture one can notice the reflective  modern day glass material that it displays, this was implemented as a way to remain competitive with the other foreign companies. The transport route that can also be seen do indeed affect the shape and organization of the building in their place which creates the spaces that customers come to chaguanas to enjoy as mobilty shapes the city. The theory that can help explain this picture is Chauney Harris and Edward Ullman multiple nuclei model. This model proposes that a country does not necessarily have to have one main city with all the services and function that the rest of the country have to migrate into in order to access such services. It states that within a country or state there are multiple smaller nuclei that develop that have certain advantageous conditions that allowed it to become a nuclei.

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