18 Projects and presentation skills

• Write the Project on the following topic and present it in class.

TOPIC: a second city: achievements and prospects of

the economic and social development

• Choose a Second City to speak about from the List or make your own choice. Focus on economic, social, educational, etc aspects of the development of a city. Use words and phrases from the text.

• Las Vegas, the USA

• Fukuoka, Japan

• Brighton, Glasgow, Britain

• Munich, German

• Astsns, Kazakhstan

• Dubai, the NE United Arab Emirates

• St. Ptersburg, Russia

• Cape Town, South Africa

• Florianopolis, Brazil

• Ghaziabad, India

• Read and Study the example of a case study in urban decentralization (the main concise points):

Consider Montpellier, France, a case study in urban decen­tralization. Until the 1980s, it was a big Mediterranean village, but one with a strong university, many lovely villas and an IBM manufacturing base.

Once the high-speed trains were built, Parisians began pouring in for weekend breaks. Some bought houses, creating a critical mass of middle-class professionals who began taking advantage of flexible working arrangements to do three days in Paris, and two down south.

Soon, big com­panies began looking at the area; a number of medical-technol­ogy and electronics firms came to town, and IBM put more investment into service businesses there. To cater to the incom­ing professionals, the city began building amenities: an opera, a tram line to discourage cars in the city center.

The result, says French urban-planning expert Nacima Baron, is that "Today Montpellier is a bustling metropolis with a population of 380,000. The city is now full of cosmopolitan businessmen. It's an entirely new town, a new society."

• Read again some useful general information given in UNIT 1 Part 2 which enables you to make a good presentation.

• Get ready to give your presentation in class.