Urbanisation (Unit 1, Topic 1) Flashcards
Urbanisation/ Effects of Urbanisation/ Suburbanisation/ Counter-Urbanisation/ Reurbanisation/ Gentrification/ Deindustrialisation/ Decentralisation and its Effects/ Regeneration Policies/ Megacities and their Benefits.
What is Urbanisation?
Concentration of people in urban areas
What is Urban Growth?
Physical expansion of cities and urban areas
What is Rural-Urban Migration?
The movement of people from a rural area to denser urban areas
What are the two main causes of urbanisation?
Social
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.
What are some pull factors?
Earning an increase wage from an informal sector
Employment
Better quality social provisions
Better quality of life
What are some push factors?
Population growth
Agricultural problems
High levels of disease
Natural disasters
War
What are the effects of Urban Sprawl?
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
What are the effects of Shortage of Housing?
Environmenta
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
What are the Effects of the Lack of Urban Services?
Effects Social and Environmental
Lack of water, electricity, health and education
Polluted water sources, flooding and the rapid spread of disease
Areas without planned sanitation and water supplies
What are the Effects of Unemployment?
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
What are the Effects of the Traffic Issues?
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
What are the effects of the shortage of affordable housing?
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
What is the cycle of Urbanisation?
Initial Urbanisation
Suburbanisation
Urban sprawl
Counterurbanisation
Reurbanisation
What is Urbanisation?
Resulting from rural-to-urban migration, usually to city centre, to a slum zone or to shanty towns on fringe
What is Suburbanisation?
Social
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.
What is Urban Sprawl
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.
What is Counterurbanisation?
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.
What is Reurbanisation?
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
What is Gentrification?
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.
What is Deindustrialisation?
The reduction of industrial activity or capacity in a region or economy
What is Decentralisation?
The movement of shop power within the inside of the cities to the outside such as the suburbs
What are the positives of Decentralisation?
Easy access
Improve towns profile
Car free
Greater shopping choice
Low prices
Increased Employment
What are the negatives of Decentralisation?
Built on greenfield sites
Urban decline in areas
Restricts who can go-disabled
Congestion on outskirts
Suburbanisation
Light, noise and air pollution
What is a Mechanism?
Economic and Social
Cheaper to use machines rather than people
What is a Urban Development Corporation?
Effects Social, Economic and Environmental
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
What is the City Challenge?
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
What is the New Deals for Communities?
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
What are the Benefits of Regeneration?
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
What are the Negatives of Regeneration?
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
What is a Megacity?
A megacity is a city with a population of 10 million or over
Why are Megacities on the rise?
Globalised competition economically causing rural to urban migration, natural increase, government policies create special enterprise zones to encourage financial investment
What are the benefits of Megacities?
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
