3.2.3.1 Urbanisation

Question 1

By 2050 it is expected that __% of the world’s population will be urban with close to __% of this increase concentrated in Asia and Africa.

Answer 1

1- 66

2- 90

Question 2

What are ways in which cities can be efficient?

Answer 2

• easier to provide basic services such as water and sanitation to people living close together
• access to health, education and other social and cultural services are more readily available
• however, as urban areas expand, the cost of meeting basic needs increases and a greater strain is put on the environment and natural resources

Question 3

What are 3 persevering issued in urban areas?

Answer 3

1- urban areas are experiencing the pressures of migration

2- globalisation and the impacts of climate change have transformed agricultural practices and in low and middle-income countries increasing numbers of people are leaving rural areas to find employment in cities but unemployment rates are high and an increasing proportion of people live in slum areas

3- there are issues with social cohesion as variations in wealth and ethnicity can often lead to hostility

Question 4

The future survival of cities depends on

Answer 4

sustainable growth and their ability to tackle the major issues such as the provision of affordable housing, unemployment, pollution and waste disposal, transport and social inequality

Question 5

What is urbanisation?

Answer 5

Process by which an increasing proportion of a country’s population live in towns and cities

Question 6

Summarise how the process of urbanisation plays a key role in human affairs

Answer 6

• has been linked to other important economic and social transformations which have brought about greater geographic mobility and longer life expectancy
• cities also play an important role in reducing poverty; they hold much of the national economic activity, government institutions, business and transportation and have higher levels of education, better health and easier access to social services and greater opportunities for cultural and political participation
• e.g. in 2015 Sao Paulo, Brazil’s economic and financial capital, accounted for 10% of the population, but 25% of national GDP (Gross Domestic Product)

Question 7

The urban population has grown rapidly from ___ million in 1950 to 3.9 billion in 2014

Answer 7

746

Question 8

In 2014 what were the most urbanised regions (% of people living in urban areas)?

Answer 8

1- North America (80%+)
2- Latin America and the Caribbean
3- Europe

Question 9

In 2014 what were the least urbanised regions?

Answer 9

1- Asia- 48%

2- Africa- 40% = half of North America, most urbanised region

Question 10

How are the patterns of most urbanised and least urbanised regions going to change within the next 50 years?

Answer 10

Fastest growing urban areas are currently in Asia and Africa. In fact, India, Nigeria and China are expected to account for almost 40% of the projected growth of the world urban population between 2014 and 2050

Question 11

The total world urban population is expected to exceed 6 billion by 2045 and much of the expected growth will be in

Answer 11

LICs

Question 12

The fastest growing urban areas are

Answer 12

medium sized cities and cities with less than 1 million inhabitants- Some reports also highlight that many areas projected to be urban in 2040 are not yet built. In India it is predicted that 70% of cities have yet to be built

Question 13

Why have some cities however, experienced population decline?

Answer 13

1- economic decline for example led to population losses in Buffalo and Detroit (USA) between 2000 and 2014

2- New Orleans (USA) experienced population loss after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina natural disaster

Question 14

Rapid development of mega cities has occurred in the last __ years

Answer 14

30

Question 15

What is a megacity?

Answer 15

An urban area with a population of more than 10 million people

Question 16

How many megacities were there in 1990?

Answer 16

10

Question 17

How many megacities were there in 2014?

Answer 17

28

Question 18

How many megacities are there predicted in 2025?

Answer 18

37

Question 19

Regarding urbanisation, what are the two main causes of urban growth?

Answer 19

• natural population growth (more births than deaths)

- rural-urban migration

Question 20

Explain how natural population growth leads to urban growth?

Answer 20

• urban areas tend to have relatively young age profiles
• across the world it has traditionally been young adults (15-40 years) migrating, attracted by the prospect of higher paid jobs, better educational opportunities and greater social and cultural diversity
• these migrants are in their fertile years and so the rates of natural increase are higher in cities than in the surrounding rural areas
• between 2001 and 2011 the population of large city centres in England and Wales more than doubled
• the number of residents aged 22-29 years nearly tripled to make up almost 50% of the total population
• in London an area stretching from Clapham to Fulham has been termed ‘Nappy Valley’ due to the high proportion of young families. In the past, professional couples would have moved out to the suburbs when they could afford it, but rising costs and time commuting have encouraged young families to remain in the city

Question 21

The reasons for rural-urban migration can be split into

Answer 21

Push and pull factors

Question 22

What are some push factors for rural-urban migration?

Answer 22

• in LICs push factors more prevalent
• push factors are largely due to poverty caused by:
  a) population growth- same area of land has to support increasing numbers of people causing over-farming, soil erosion and low yields

b) agricultural problems, including desertification because of low rainfall, systems of inheritance that cause land to be subdivided into small plots, systems of tenure and debt on loans taken out to support agricultural change
c) high levels of local disease and inadequate medical provision
d) agriculture is increasingly being organised globally. Land previously used to grow food for local people is now used to produce cash crops for sale to higher income countries. Many traditional rural communities have been driven off their land and into cities
e) wars and civil strife cause people to flee the land
f) natural hazards = threat to people

Question 23

What are some pull factors for rural-urban migration?

Answer 23

Include the prospect of:
a) employment in factories and service industries e.g. hotels often better paid than work in rural areas- there is increasingly high demand for unskilled labour in cities. Also, earning money from the informal sector e.g selling goods on the street to prostitution

b) better quality social provisions- from basic needs such as education and healthcare to entertainment and tourism
c) perceived better quality of life in the city, fed in part by images from the media

Question 24

What are the consequences of urbanisation and urban growth?

Answer 24

1- urban sprawl
2- shortage of housing in LICs
3- shortage of housing in HICs
4- lack of urban services and waste disposal 
5- unemployment and underemployment 
6- transport issues

Question 25

What is urban sprawl?

Answer 25

Urban sprawl is the spread of an urban area into the surrounding countryside. It has been linked to the processes of urbanisation and suburbanisation and has traditionally occurred in an uncontrolled and unplanned fashion

Question 26

What are the consequences of urban sprawl?

Answer 26

• is a main cause of wildlife habitat loss
• causes more commuting from the suburbs to the city and so more fuel consumption and traffic congestion
• can increase air pollution as cars increase fossil fuel consumption and cause emissions of greenhouse gases. The areas may also experience higher temperatures in line with the urban heat island effect
• can have a serious impact on water quality and quantity. Covering the countryside with impermeable surfaces means that rainwater is unable to soak into the ground and replenish the groundwater aquifers. It can also lead to greater water run-off and increased flood risk
• there has also been the movement of industry and businesses including retail companies. This is referred to as decentralisation and this outward movement has been blamed for the decline of retail in some city centres and an increasing homogenisation of the landscape, where cites become indistinct from one another. American cities in particular have witnessed the huge growth of edge-of-city complexes including shopping malls and leisure areas. In some cases new self-contained settlements have developed beyond the original city boundary. These are known as edge cities

Question 27

Population density tends to be high in urban areas and one consequence of this is a shortage of accommodation. This leads to the presence of leading to large areas of informal and often inadequate housing. These housing areas are often:

Answer 27

• on the edge of a city
• places where there is low land value because of environmental hazards such as flooding or landslides
• adjacent to transport networks
• where there are high levels of air, noise, and water pollution

The settlements tend to have limited access to basic infrastructure such as water, electricity and waste disposal and a lack of services such as health centres and schools

Question 28

In 2013 the UN reported that the number of people living in slum conditions was ___ million (over 30% increase since 1990). Slums do not have detailed population counts so many people feel that the actual number of slum dwellers is over 1 billion

Answer 28

863

Question 29

Informal settlements have different names and forms depending on location
• Rio de Janeiro in Brazil =
• Parts of India =
• West Africa =

Answer 29

• favelas
• bustees
• bidonvilles

Question 30

Why do some people criticise the term ‘slum housing’?

Answer 30

• In Mumbai, Dharavi is referred to by some as a ‘homegrown neighbourhoods`
• because they were developed gradually by the people who live, with the help of local construction workers, usually with little support from local authorities

Question 31

Between 2000 and 2014 The UN reports that over ___ million people living in slums gained access to improved water sources, improved sanitation facilities or durable or less crowded housing. This shows success against a Millennium Development Goal

Answer 31

320

Question 32

However, the total number of people living in slums has continued to increase and a target of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals is to ‘ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and to upgrade slums by

Answer 32

2030’

Question 33

In chronological order, what strategies have been utilised to tackle slum housing?

Answer 33

• eradicate slums
• self-help or site and scheme services
• slum upgrading programmes

Question 34

What was involved in ‘eradicate slums’?

Answer 34

Knocking down the slum housing- but this simply moved the problem elsewhere

Question 35

What was involved in ‘self-help or site and scheme services’?

Answer 35

• these schemes acknowledge the presence of slums and provide help in the form of materials or services
• schemes have been successful in some cities, but the quantity and/or quality of housing remains inadequate in most urban areas around the world

Question 36

What is involved in ‘self-help schemes’?

Answer 36

• inhabitants are given legal ownership of the land
• people improve their houses slowly e.g. by replacing mud walls with bricks or breeze blocks, fitting proper windows and doors and adding rooms and upper floors
• city authorities provide water from standpipes and help with sanitation and waste collection
• bus operators start services and health centres are built
• people work together and, over time it changes to a legal, medium-quality housing area

Question 37

What is involved in ‘site and service services?’

Answer 37

• land is divided into plots by the authorities
• roads, water and sanitation may be provided
• newcomers can rent land and build a house following guidelines; when they have more money, they can improve their house

Question 38

What is involved in ‘slum upgrading programmes?’

Answer 38

• more recent initiatives that seek to improve slums in partnership with local Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and development organisations
• the focus is on securing rights for dwellers, formalising land tenure rights and providing basic amenities such as electricity, water and waste disposal

Question 39

Regarding slum upgrading programmes, Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is an organisation which

Answer 39

gives a voice to those living in informal settlements and links up poor communities across Africa, Asia and Latin America; the idea is for slum dwellers to share their knowledge and expertise so that they are not excluded for the economic and political processes happening in their cities

Question 40

What’s a case study of slum housing?

Answer 40

The Tower of David, Caracas, Venezuela: the tallest slum in the world

Question 41

What are some key facts about The Tower of David, Caracas, Venezuela: the tallest slum in the world?

Answer 41

• Almost 70% of the population of Caracas live in informal housing
  • The Tower of David is a 52 storey building constructed in 1990 to serve as a bank headquarters
  • The developed went bankrupt and it was never completed
  • It remained a concrete shell until 2007
  • Squatters moved in and built their own homes on each floor
  • Thriving community developed including shops, hairdressers, internet café, gym
  • Squatters installed electricity, completed the walls with bricks or zinc sheets, and got running water
  • Some commentators have praised the squatters
  • In 2014 the process of relocating 1200 families began

Question 42

Shortage of affordable housing is a key problem in many wealthy cities. In UK cities rising demand for accommodation has led to dramatic

Answer 42

Increase in house prices and rental costs

Question 43

What’s an example of shortage of housing in HIC?

Answer 43

• London:
• in some parts of London there was a 50% rise in average house prices between 2010 and 2015
• fuelled partly by in-migration, gentrification and by the purchasing of properties by wealthy foreign investors
• London is a major global hub and oversea investors buy properties there to diversify their international portfolio

Question 44

Lack of money in lower-income countries can result in a lack of basic services such as water and electricity. Maintenance of infrastructure such as roads, sewers and drainage is also limited. This can result in:

Answer 44

• traffic congestion
• polluted water courses
• flooding
• rapid spread of disease

Question 45

For example, in India old pipeline infrastructure has not kept pace with urbanisation resulting in

Answer 45

large urban areas without planned water supply and sewage treatment

Question 46

The amount of waste increases each year, but there are _______, ________ and _____________ restraints on its disposal

Answer 46

economic, physical and environmental

Question 47

What are 2 case studies for waste disposal?

Answer 47

• Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

- Nairobi, Kenya

Question 48

Discuss waste disposal in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Answer 48

• the city authority is only able to deal with 2/3rds of the rubbish created
• the rest is left to private contractors to collect or is dumped on streets and in rivers causing a huge health hazard
• at Koshe, the huge landfill site at the edge of the city, families live in makeshift housing and search for anything they can use or resell

Question 49

Discuss waste disposal in Nairobi, Kenya

Answer 49

• Recycling is an important part of the everyday economy:
  • old car tyres are cut up and used to make cheap sandals
  • washing machines doors are used as kitchen bowls, and the drums as storage units
  • glass bottles are collected and returned to stores for refilling
  • food waste is collected and fed to animals or composted for use on vegetable plots
  • tin cans and old oil drums are used to make charcoal stoves, lamps, buckets and metal tips for ploughs

Question 50

Explain the issue of unemployment and underemployment in cities

Answer 50

• high proportion of the people who move to cities are young so there is considerable pressure to create enough jobs
• unemployment rates are typically high although official dat is hard to find and many migrants find employment in informal work such as street hawking
• under-employment refers to a situation in which a person is not doing work that makes full use of their skills and abilities; this may occur when a migrant moves to a new city

Question 51

Explain relevance of transport issues in cities

Answer 51

• the processes of urbanisation and suburbanisation have led to increased traffic in cities across the world
• this has created more congestion and pollution, damaging human health and wasting billions of pounds in lost productivity
• the spread of houses into the suburbs and beyond has created huge peaks of morning and evening commuters
• traffic flows for shopping, entertainment and other commercial services add to the problem
• during the 1960s car boom, city planners built more and wider roads as a solution but this didn’t work because they just attracted more cars
• no matter how much money is spent on traffic infrastructure, congestion and parking problems seem to get worse

Question 52

What is a meta city?

Answer 52

A conurbation with more than 20 million people

Question 53

New York whose population reached 10 million by 1930 was the world’s first

Answer 53

Megacity

Question 54

what’s some examples of megacities (2015)?

Answer 54

• Bangkok, Thailand
• Los Angeles
• Cairo, Egypt

Question 55

What’s some examples of metacities?

Answer 55

• Tokyo was world’s largest city with 38 million inhabitants
• Delhi and Mumbai
• Mexico City

Question 56

London is close to proving that you can eradicate all the private cars and still have chronic congestion- so perhaps there needs to be

Answer 56

A thought- through policy for what roads are for with a hierarchy starting with emergency vehicles and working down

Question 57

What is urban growth?

Answer 57

An increase in the number of urban dwellers- classification of urban dwellers depends on the census definitions of urban areas, which vary from country to country. They usually include one or more of the following criteria:

• population size
• population density
• average distance between buildings within a settlement

Question 58

HICs have seen a much slower rate of ________ in the last few decades and some cities have even witnessed a decline in numbers

Answer 58

Urbanisation