Disabled in Trinidad's Urban Space

 Image 1 (Source: Phang. 2015. Blog Assignment - Introduction to Urban Geography)

 This picture was taken on Fredrick Street. The man in the picture suffers from dwarfism and due to certain ailments is confined to a wheelchair.


The physical and spatial configuration of the built environment suggests that urban design practices are inattentive to the needs of disabled people (Imrie. R. 2000)

Image 2 (Source: Phang. 2015. Blog Assignment - Introduction to Urban Geography)

This picture was taken in front of RBC Bank located along Broadway. The man in the picture has only one leg as the other had undergone amputation. Next to him barely visible is his walking crutch used to support his weight on one side. He is sustaining himself by selling small trinkets, souvenirs and other goods.

This picture was taken on Queen Street. At the forefront of the picture is a parking sign which indicates times parking is allowed. Parking for the disabled was mainly seen in areas where there were high status high paying jobs such as by the Ministry of Finance and Central Bank and privately owned compounds and businesses.                                                                                                                                                             

Disabled people are marginalised and excluded from'mainstream'society (Kitchin. R. 1998).        

                                                                                                            Image 3 (Source: Phang. 2015. 

Blog Assignment - Introduction to Urban Geography)                             

                   

Image 4 (Source: Phang. 2015. Blog Assignment - Introduction to Urban Geography)

This is a picture of a curb in Port of Spain designed to facilitate the disabled. It represents Chaguanas as well. These urban areas were not properly designed to assist the disabled. These areas on the contrary exclude the disabled. The side walk ramps are either too high, too steep or completely absent from the sidewalk. Within one block there are sometimes only one ramp, therefore those bound too wheelchairs have to travel that one ramp to get up or down from the sidewalk. 

Urban design plays a vital role in all who occupy these spaces. Both Port of Spain and Chaguanas are inadequate to properly accommodate the disabled. It can however be seen through the above photos that the disabled still occupy these spaces despite the difficulty of "getting around. The following are key components of socioeconomic status and should be taken into serious consideration. Within SES privilege, power and control are emphasized. As one goes up the hierarchy the more these characteristics increase and the more influence they have on the structure and design of urban spaces. They have the power to change. 

People with disability have limited opportunities and this would therefore affect their socioeconomic status. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) defines disability as an umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions (WHO 2014). Housing Census of 2000 indicated that there were 45,496 persons with disabilities living in
Trinidad and Tobago (Huggins. J. 2012). Social and economic mobility are limited due to educational barriers, income, medical expenses, health and well-being which hinders quality of life, emotional state, poor quality of life, and other problems depending on the type of disability present.

 Increasingly, research on disability has been guided by a definition that focuses on the interaction between the individual and the environment and by a minority-group perspective based on the propositions that discriminatory attitudes are the primary source of the problems of disabled citizens, that the environment is shaped by public policy, and that policies reflect prevalent social attitudes and values (Hahn. H. 1986).




References

Imrie, R. (2000). Responding to the design needs of disabled people. Journal of urban design, 5(2), 199-219.

Hahn, H. (1986). Disability and the urban environment: a perspective on Los Angeles. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 4(3), 273-288.

Huggins, J. (2012). The Disabled in the Caribbean. Caribbean Dialogue, 14(1/2), 13-24.

Kitchin, R. (1998). 'Out of Place','Knowing One's Place': Space, power and the exclusion of disabled people. Disability & Society, 13(3), 343-356.

 Disability and health. (2014). Retrieved April 10, 2015, from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs352/en/