Urbanisation (Unit 1, Topic 1)

Question 1

What is Urbanisation?

Answer 1

Concentration of people in urban areas

Question 2

What is Urban Growth?

Answer 2

Physical expansion of cities and urban areas

Question 3

What is Rural-Urban Migration?

Answer 3

The movement of people from a rural area to denser urban areas

Question 4

What are the two main causes of urbanisation?

Social

Answer 4

Natural Increase-where the population of a country naturally increases through birth.

Rural to urban migration- where push and pull factors affect the amount of people moving from the countryside to the city.

Question 5

What are some pull factors?

Answer 5

Earning an increase wage from an informal sector

Employment

Better quality social provisions

Better quality of life

Question 6

What are some push factors?

Answer 6

Population growth

Agricultural problems

High levels of disease

Natural disasters

War

Question 7

What are the effects of Urban Sprawl?

Answer 7

Requirement of more roads and pipelines so for the less dense areas this is economically insufficient

Main cause of wildlife loss

More fuel consumption and traffic congestion due to increased commuting so this leads to an increase in air pollution

Question 8

What are the effects of Shortage of Housing?

Environmenta

Answer 8

More homeless people on the streets, damaging the city’s profile

Lack of services like education and health

Limited access to water electricity and waste disposal

Question 9

What are the Effects of the Lack of Urban Services?

Effects Social and Environmental

Answer 9

Lack of water, electricity, health and education

Polluted water sources, flooding and the rapid spread of disease

Areas without planned sanitation and water supplies

Question 10

What are the Effects of Unemployment?

Answer 10

Pressure to create sufficient jobs

Unemployment rates are typically high

Many find work in informal sectors of industry

People’s skills aren’t fully put to use

Question 11

What are the Effects of the Traffic Issues?

Answer 11

Increased traffic citywide, creating congestion and pollution

Damaging health

Wasting of billions of pounds in lost productivity

Traffic flow to commercial areas just add to the problem

Question 12

What are the effects of the shortage of affordable housing?

Answer 12

House prices are rising in HIC’s due to lack of housing for everyone in the UK by about 50%

Causes mass eviction in areas leading to homelessness

Question 13

What is the cycle of Urbanisation?

Answer 13

Initial Urbanisation
Suburbanisation
Urban sprawl
Counterurbanisation
Reurbanisation

Question 14

What is Urbanisation?

Answer 14

Resulting from rural-to-urban migration, usually to city centre, to a slum zone or to shanty towns on fringe

Question 15

What is Suburbanisation?

Social

Answer 15

The movement of people from inner to outer areas, facilitated by the development of transport networks like trains, buses and underground, means that people can commute to work. Often upwardly mobile groups move from inner to outer areas so they can afford so they can afford better housing. This process is called filtering.

Question 16

What is Urban Sprawl

Answer 16

The spread of an urban area. It may be the result of population growth as in LIC’s, but in NEE’s often is the result of socio-economic factors: the desire for low- density housing, and also much lower occupancy of housing.

Question 17

What is Counterurbanisation?

Answer 17

This is the movement of people from urban areas back into rural areas. Most of this movement is to accessible semi-rural areas and, where large settlements occur, it is quite similar to suburbanisation. It involves lots of commuting. Some counter urbanisation- usually for improved lifestyle reasons- is to more rural areas. Increased use of information technology makes teleworking possible.

Question 18

What is Reurbanisation?

Answer 18

Involves a range of processes which enable people and economic activities to move back to city centres. Some reurbanisation results from planned initiatives such as those from Urban Developments Corporations where inner central areas are improved in a number of ways, with high-value housing, hi-tech employment and improved environments

Question 19

What is Gentrification?

Answer 19

The process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, often displacing current inhabitants in the process.

Question 20

What is Deindustrialisation?

Answer 20

The reduction of industrial activity or capacity in a region or economy

Question 21

What is Decentralisation?

Answer 21

The movement of shop power within the inside of the cities to the outside such as the suburbs

Question 22

What are the positives of Decentralisation?

Answer 22

Easy access
Improve towns profile
Car free
Greater shopping choice
Low prices
Increased Employment

Question 23

What are the negatives of Decentralisation?

Answer 23

Built on greenfield sites
Urban decline in areas
Restricts who can go-disabled
Congestion on outskirts
Suburbanisation
Light, noise and air pollution

Question 24

What is a Mechanism?

Economic and Social

Answer 24

Cheaper to use machines rather than people

Question 25

What is a Urban Development Corporation?

Effects Social, Economic and Environmental

Answer 25

1980, Urban Development Corporations are established aimed to regenerate inner-city areas. The boards were made up of local businesses owners and were encouraged to spend money on buying land, building infrastructure and marketing to attract private investments

Question 26

What is the City Challenge?

Answer 26

1990, a scheme where cities compete for any regeneration grants. This was a local authority led scheme which formed partnerships between the private sectors, local communities and the local authorityto work together to improve the area.
Focused on tackling social, economic and environmental issues in run down areas

Question 27

What is the New Deals for Communities?

Answer 27

NDC partnerships were established to carry out 10 year strategic programmes designed to transform the 39 most deprived neighborhoods. The focus were very much on communities being at the heart of the regeneration project

Question 28

What are the Benefits of Regeneration?

Answer 28

May lead to growth in population which will bring benefits to owners of services, e.g. retailers

May increase value of properties increasing wealth of existing property owners

May give business opportunities to new start-up and construction companies involved in regeneration

Question 29

What are the Negatives of Regeneration?

Answer 29

Might displace existing residents as property becomes too expensive and/or limited supply of social housing

Might create social conflict between incomers and existing residents

Question 30

What is a Megacity?

Answer 30

A megacity is a city with a population of 10 million or over

Question 31

Why are Megacities on the rise?

Answer 31

Globalised competition economically causing rural to urban migration, natural increase, government policies create special enterprise zones to encourage financial investment

Question 32

What are the benefits of Megacities?

Answer 32

Better at fueling political pressure and causing change

Has a GPD that is 2-3 times greater than regular cities

Offer opportunities for service expansion

Less environmentally damaging providing transport, housing and electricity

Urban dwellers have access to larger diverse markets

Better levels of education and healthcare, improves lives and empower women

Large technological advancements and innovation