3.5a growth of megacities and urban challenges

Question 1

what is causing megacities to grow?

Answer 1

rural-urban migration and natural increase

Question 2

pull factors to urban areas

Answer 2

• better public services
  
  • better job opportunities and wages
  • growth in outsourcing jobs
  • better standard of living
  • better housing
  • good infrastructure

Question 3

push factors from rural areas

Answer 3

• lack of opportunities
• rural poverty
• lack of services
• lack of investment

Question 4

social challenges of urban growth

Answer 4

• the growth of informal housing e.g. shanty towns (40% of Sao Paulo’s population live in 1600 favelas)
  
  • rise of the informal sector (over 50% of the population of Sao Paulo is employed in the informal sector)
  • rising unemployment (Cairo, Egypt’s capital city, has a youth unemployment rate of more than 25%)
  • services and basic needs are under pressure (population of Lagos in Nigeria has nearly doubled in size in 2000)
  • half of the world’s urban dwellers live in poverty
  • more homeless people bc accommodation in cities becomes more unaffordable as populations increase

Question 5

environmental challenges of urban growth

Answer 5

• air pollution from traffic and industrial activity (5th largest killer in India, causing respiratory and cardiac problems) (according to WHO, New Delhi has the most air pollution)
  
  • water pollution from untreated sewage, chemical dumping and fuel spillages
  • more demand for housing (deforestation and loss of farmland)

Question 6

examples of megacities

Answer 6

India is witnessing the fastest urbanisation in the world –> by 2030, 40.8% of country’s population is expected to reside in urban areas

MUMBAI - commercial capital city, global financial hub
its population has more than doubled in size since 1970
home to 22 million in 2015
migrants from impoverished rural states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar

natural increase increased the population by 1.51 million from 2001 to 2011

• Jawaharlal Nehru Port of Mumbai handles 60% of India’s containerised seaborne trade

better job opportunities in service industries and manufacturing + higher wages than in rural areas

• presence of TNCs e.g. Tata and Reliance industries
• clusters of similar businesses e.g. leather goods in Dharavi
• Dharavi is the third largest slum in the world (estimated that 1 million people live there and there are 5000 businesses)

NEW DELHI
experiencing hyper-urbanisation
India’s fastest growing city –> expected to grow by 40% between 2010 and 2020

• increased FDI has created new jobs (TNCs e.g. Coca-Cola and Microsoft have based their Indian operations in New Delhi)
• but many rural migrants live in slums and struggle to find work
• in 2010 there were 4.7 million vehicles on the streets (predicted to rise to 26 million by 2025)