Tma 1

Drawing upon what you have learned about City Road, outline some of the ways in which differences are made and remade on a street that you know.

In this essay Chertsey Road in Woking will be looked at and examined. Originally known as Wochingas, Woking’s earliest mention was in Pope Constantine’s grant to the monastery at Wochingas. Woking means settlement belonging to the followers of the Wocca (Wikipedia: The history of Woking.)

Its ownership changed many times during the course of its history. The local railway arrived in the town in 1838, which brought many changes and people to the area. ‘The constant shaping and reshaping society creates some winners and some losers and it creates some new inequalities and some new differences’ (Making social lives on City Road 2009, Scene 3, Blakeley.) and it can be seen in the history of Woking. Over time the amount of people working in agriculture began to fall and new industries like Lion Works and GQ Parachutes started to reshape the identity and its population. The town catered for the needs of the local Irish, Welsh, Italian and Commonwealth population in the 1960s. Some shops are still in business, like the African shop, O’Neill’s pub and the Indian restaurants. Chertsey road is very similar to City Road in the aspect that many shops, businesses in the area cater to the needs of the always changing local population. This is an example of how purchasing certain material goods or/and services make and remake the local population’s different ethnic and national identities, as it was seen in the Xquisite Africa shop. (Material lives, 2009, scene 2.) It is also different in the aspect that Chertsey Road is only a one way road, enclosed between buildings. There are many material guiding features on the road helping but also slowing down the flow of the traffic creating tensions and differences between the road users, what is very similar in what we have seen on City Road. (Material lives, 2009, scene 1.) The...