What Is a City

A city is the mirror image of cultural values and commitments. An image of a city is often represented through songs, films and stories that narrate important urban socio-economic and socio-political issues plaguing contemporary societies (Farrow, 2009). The song reflected on is entitled Jah Jah City, it was released in 2006 by the reggae artist Capleton. The prominent theme of the lyrics is urban decay, unemployment and increase violence. Capleton invokes mental mappings to construct images to represent a city. A city is an outcome of urban planning and is directly influenced by cultural values. The language used to represent attractive and unattractive cities are aspects examined in relation to urban order.

An attractive city image is paramount for ranking world cities . Governments have the challenge of enhancing the appearance of cities, as landscapes of desire, to attract tourist and outside investment. Recently, Toronto successfully won the competition, in the bid for the 2015 Pan American Games and now all levels of government are collectively planning to invest up to $2.4 billion to build infrastructure and host the games. Social activists have protested in vain against the games, voicing the threat of gentrification and long-term marginalizing effects on neighborhoods. Nevertheless, the government plans to showcase the post-industrial image of the city, displaying rich heritage sites and historical factory museums (Short, 1996).

Capleton uses unattractive imagery to represent a city in song. He depicts the proverbial inner-city blight with cultural representation from his visual images and experiences. Urban issues affecting the quality of life, namely cost of living, employment, immigration and crime, is linked to political restructuring . Physical aspects of urban revitalization are perceived to cause social polarization and humanity destruction; there are no jobs, even precarious jobs are scarce, so children are forced to assassinate people, dogs and cats for money (Capleton, 2006). His powerful tone advocates for the lower class and provokes changes in urban plans.

A city is an outcome of urban planning that's subject to input of cultural values and commitments of the society. The rhetoric of the beautiful city image created by governments denotes urban order and promotes economic activity. By contrast, the unattractive city image portrayed though music denotes urban chaos. Globally popularized city images, creates awareness on the degree of urban order achieved by centuries of urban planning. Cultural values impact policies, regulations and practices that shape a city.

WORKS CITED

Capleton, D.J. (2006) Jah Jah City. Liberation Riddim: Jamaica and Panama. 08 November 2009 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kv4MfhIpVM>

Short, J. R. (1996) The