Urban Environments Flashcards
What is urbanisation
The growth in the percentage of a population living and working in urban areas
What is suburbanisation
Towns expanding outwards, encouraged by arrival of more people and overcrowding in the town
What is counter urbanisation
Rather than moving to suburbs, people and businesses move further out to smaller towns or rural areas
Factors affecting the rate of urbanisation
1) the pace of economic development (
2) the rate of population growth
3) migration
Emergence of mega cities
A mega city is a city with a population of over 10 million people
There are 35 mega cities
Some examples are Tokyo and New York
Factors affecting it are
1) economic development (more job opportunities and more services)
2) economies of scale (saves space and money, communications are easier, shared resources)
3) multiplier effect (gathers a momentum)
4) population growth (high levels of migration)
Problems associated with rapid urbanisation
- Housing (no time to plan housing)
- Congestion and traffic (too many cars in a given place, transport systems become overcrowded)
- Employment (unable to find proper work, informal sector, leads to crime)
- Crime (unemployment combined with unpleasant living conditions leads to concentrated crime rates)
- Environmental issues (high population = high pollution + more more waste and sewage)
Factors affecting urban land use patterns
- locational needs
- accessibility
- land values
Urban challenges in London, UK
- food supply (2 million people live below the poverty line and don’t have access to healthy and affordable food)
- energy (a lot of pollution occurs and energy is unnecessarily wasted)
- segregation (due to many international migrants, different cultures and lower income residents are often segregated- places of exclusion)
- transport (26 million trips are made per day. Overcrowding, noise, pollution, congestion, accessibility)
- waste disposal (only 52 percent is actually recycled. A third of London’s waste is made up of food waste and plastic packaging)
- concentrated resource consumption (centre for consumption of products and services, three times our fair share of Human Resources is consumed
Urban challenges in Dhaka, Bangladesh
- squatter settlements (speed of urbanisation is very fast so there are not enough houses for people coming from poor rural areas, only available land is land of no economic values). 5 PERCENT OF PEOPLE IN DHAKA LIVE IN SLUMS, LARGEST IS KORAIL SLUM, 50,000 PPL
- informal employment (because the earnings are so low, informal employment doesn’t do anything to break the cycle of poverty. No healthcare benefits, discrimination and uncertain legal status)
- urban pollution (one of the most polluted cities in the world, air and water pollution. Negative health impacts eg. Lung cancer
- low quality of life (214th out of 231 global cities)
What is the rural urban finge
There where the countryside meets the built up cities
Cambridge business park
Variety of office space
Well connected
12 modern office building
Cambridge science park
Used to be farmland
Edge of Cambridge
Opened in 2005
Many high tech companies
Housing estates - Cambourne
On the fringe of Cambridge
Planned in the early 1900s to help deal with the rapid expansion of Cambridge
Easy to commute to Cambridge or London
What are greenfield sites
Sites that haven’t previously been built on
Advantages
- cheaper to build on
- healthier environment
- layout isn’t hampered by previous development
Disadvantages
- attractive scenery and farm/recreational space lost
- wildlife or habitats lost
- leads to noise and light pollution
What are brownfield sites
Brownfield sites are often on disused or derelict land
Advantages
- reduces loss of land
- services already in place
- located near to main areas of employment
Disadvantages
- more expensive
- higher levels of pollution
- often surrounded by run down areas
